Ask your meter data a question in plain words and get a cited answer — stopped meters found before the bill goes out
Ask the 15-minute data a question, get a cited answer.
See one case, screen by screen ↓Meter Data Inquiry lets the people who live with meter data — billing analysts, care agents, planners and AMI operations — ask it a question in plain words and get a chart back, with one line saying what it shows and every number traced to its readings. Today the answers to “why did this premise spike?” or “how many meters on feeder 7-03 missed reads last week?” are all in the 15-minute data, but reaching them needs SQL or MDM screens that most staff cannot use. At Lumina Utilities, the fictional demo utility, those questions go to the meter data team as tickets, and the median wait is 5 working days.
Meanwhile a meter that reads zero but still answers the head-end heartbeat passes the comms checks. The first sign is a zero bill, then a catch-up bill a month later — the pattern behind back-billing disputes. When nobody can see that nine stopped meters share one firmware build, nine truck rolls go out and the rollout carries on to the next meters. And a spreadsheet extract has no trail of which reads, which exclusions and which days it used, so billing cannot sign a hold on it.
Estimated split for one ad-hoc question sent to the meter data team as a ticket (about 5 working days), in working hours, by hand and with the solution.
Six agents turn a plain question into chips, count the 15-minute reads and recount every number; the asker decides and a supervisor approves holds.
Monday 13 October, 08:40. Cycle 14 — Zone 7, Harbourside and Elm Vale — bills on Thursday 15 October. Leila Haddad, a billing operations analyst at Lumina Utilities, saw two zero bills in last week's sample. Here is what happens next, screen by screen, in the working solution.
Leila types “Which meters in Zone 7 read zero for three days?” and presses Ask. The answer comes back as a chart first: one row per meter, one column per day from 29 Sep to 12 Oct, each zero day shaded by its likely reason — after firmware, tamper event, move-out pending, occupied. A dashed line marks 2 Oct, when firmware 4.2.1 went out on feeder 7-14.
“41 meters in Zone 7 read zero for 3 days or more in a row between 29 Sep and 12 Oct; 12 of them for a week or more.”
The panel beside the chart shows how the answer was made. The question reader made 6 chips in 1.1 s. The meter data reader scanned 24.7 million readings from 18,412 meters in 21.4 s. The context checker found the heartbeat OK on 41 of 41 — real zeros, not radio gaps — and left out 214 disconnected or vacant premises. The chart writer drew the matrix and the answer checker recounted 41 meters from the records before the screen showed anything.
“18,412 meters · 24.7 million readings scanned · 214 disconnected or vacant left out · answered in 38 s · checked”
Under the question, her words have become chips: Area Zone 7 · Harbourside and Elm Vale, Commodity Electricity, Measure Read zero, For 3 days or more in a row, Dates 29 Sep – 12 Oct, Leave out Disconnected and vacant. She does not retype the question. She opens the For chip, which offers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 10 or 14 days or more in a row.
She picks 7 days or more. The chip is marked “was 3 days”, the count is run again from the records and the line is rewritten. Twelve meters remain, and the pattern jumps out: nine sit on feeder 7-14 and stopped on 2–3 Oct, two have a move-out filed but not completed, and one logged a cover-open event.
“12 meters in Zone 7 read zero for 7 days or more in a row between 29 Sep and 12 Oct; 9 of them on feeder 7-14, all upgraded to firmware 4.2.1 on 2 Oct.”
Every clause in the answer carries a source mark. Source 4 opens the firmware upgrade log: job FW-421-Z7 ran on 2 Oct from 01:40 to 02:20 on 1,108 meters on feeder 7-14 — 1,099 OK, 9 “register read failed”. The next job, FW-421-Z78, is booked for 16 Oct at 01:30 on 6,300 meters in Zones 7 and 8.
“Read-only. Every number in the answer was recounted from these records.”
She opens LU-E-7140388 at 14 Saltmarsh Lane. The heat strip shows 96 readings a day: normal use until early on 2 Oct, grey ever since. The last heartbeat came at 04:00 today with the radio answering. Last October this home used 38 kWh a day, so about 418 kWh would be missing from Thursday's bill. A remote register reset fixed the same fault on a test meter on 9 Oct.
“The radio works; the register does not. This meter has answered every heartbeat since 2 Oct, but its register has not moved since the firmware 4.2.1 upgrade at 01:52.”
LU-E-7128120 at 7 Netmakers Yard is different. Its terminal cover opened at 00:41 on 5 Oct, and it has read zero for 8 days since, with the radio still answering — about 344 kWh missing from Thursday's bill. The screen offers “Refer to revenue protection”; it does not call anyone a thief.
“A cover-open event, then zero. … This is a referral for revenue protection, not a finding.”
Leila requests a remote register reset for the 9 meters on feeder 7-14 — AMI operations runs it, no visit needed. She asks Hana Kovac, the billing supervisor, to hold 12 bills in cycle 14; the hold waits as “Awaiting approval” until Hana approves. A firmware check on the 4.2.1 rollout to 6,300 meters goes to Omar Siddiqui in AMI operations, and the cover-open meter to Aaron Pillai in revenue protection.
“Sent: firmware check to AMI operations, cover-open meter to revenue protection”
Leila saves “Zone 7 meters reading zero, 7 days or more” to run every morning. At 06:00, after the night's readings load (06:12 for Zone 7 today), the morning runner runs the chips again, the answer checker recounts, and she hears only what changed.
“12 today, 9 yesterday”
The answer log keeps every question, the chips it became, the readings scanned, the time and what the answer checker found: 486 questions this week from 61 people in 6 teams, a median of 34 s to an answer. At 07:31 the chart writer wrote “most of them in Tidewater Close”; the checker counted 14 of 91 and took the sentence out before Ines Duarte saw it.
A number the checker cannot recount never reaches the screen.
The same 15-minute data, asked by five people at Lumina Utilities — what their week looked like, and what it looks like now.
Six agents turn a plain question into chips, count the 15-minute reads and recount every number; the asker decides and a supervisor approves holds.
Turns a plain-language question into the chips: area, commodity, measure, how long, which dates and what to leave out, resolving area names and aliases against the network model.
Runs the chips against interval and register reads and counts meters, runs of days and readings scanned, returning counts and record identifiers only.
Separates real zeros from radio gaps, vacant and disconnected premises, using head-end heartbeat and events, the firmware upgrade log and the premise record — one plain reason per meter, with the record it came from.
Chooses the chart for the answer and writes the one line that says what it shows — the count, the area, the measure and the dates, then the single most useful pattern — with a citation on each clause.
Recounts every number in the answer line and the chart from the source records before anything is shown. If a number does not match, it removes the sentence and logs it.
Runs saved questions on schedule against the newest reads — at 06:00, after the night's readings load — and tells each owner only what changed, with the answer link.
Decides; supervisor approves holds. The agents propose; a named person decides.
The assistant answers follow-up questions about the answer on screen and makes the change you ask for — a chip, a hold request, a saved question. Every answer points to its records.
Narrow this to a week or more
Done — I moved the For chip from 3 days to 7 days or more. 12 meters remain: 9 on feeder 7-14 stopped within a day of the firmware 4.2.1 upgrade on 2 Oct, 2 have a move-out filed but not completed, and 1 logged a cover-open event on 5 Oct.
Why are nine of them on feeder 7-14?
All nine took firmware 4.2.1 in job FW-421-Z7 on 2 Oct between 01:40 and 02:20. Each logged “register read failed after upgrade” and has read zero since, while its radio still answers the 4-hourly heartbeat — so the meters talk but do not count. The same build is booked for 6,300 more meters in Zones 7 and 8 on 16 Oct.
Hold these bills before Thursday's run
I asked Hana Kovac to hold 12 bills in cycle 14, which runs on Thursday 15 Oct. Each hold carries its meter, its run of zero days and the records behind it. Nothing is held until she approves.
Run this every morning and tell me if it changes
Saved. “Zone 7 meters reading zero, 7 days or more” runs at 06:00 every morning on the latest reads, and tells you only when the list changes.
13 screens from the working solution, on its sample data. Pick one to see it large.
What the words in a question mean, who may see what, and the checks every answer passes are settings, kept by the utility.
| Setting | Default | Choose from |
|---|---|---|
| Read zero | 0.005 kWh | Every 15-minute reading in the day below this value |
| No read received | 06:00 next day | A reading not received by this time counts as missed |
| Flow every night hour | 00:00 – 05:00 | Water flow above zero in every hour of this window |
| Leave out by default | Disconnected, vacant | Premises the answer excludes unless the chip says otherwise |
| Who sees names and addresses | Customer care and billing | Planning and AMI operations see premise numbers only; event detail for AMI operations and revenue protection |
| Recount every number from the records | Always on | Cannot be switched off; estimated readings always shown as estimated |
| Longest list on screen | 500 meters | Download for more; a question reaches back at most 25 months |
| Bill holds approved by | Hana Kovac | The billing supervisor named here approves every hold |
Every figure is labelled: a target the solution is built to, an estimate, a typical published result, or a proven one.
“demo” = seen in the working solution, on its sample data · “target” = the design goal, measured in the pilot · “estimated” = our estimate (the split of hours above; the truck-roll saving is 9 visits × the published range) · “typical” = published figures (S&C Electric via Ventavid: a utility truck roll costs $250–$500; UK Energy Ombudsman via Which?, 2025: 3,218 back-billing disputes in 2024). Lumina Utilities, its people, meters, premises and records named on this page are fictional — characters and sample data in the working solution.
Meter Data Inquiry is a search solution that answers plain-language questions on meter data. A billing analyst, care agent, planner or AMI operations lead asks a question in words, and gets a chart with one line saying what it shows, every number recounted from the interval reads, head-end events and premise records behind it.
The question reader turns the words into chips — area, commodity, measure, how long, dates and exclusions. The meter data reader counts the reads, the context checker separates real zeros from radio gaps and vacant premises, the chart writer draws the chart and writes the line, and the answer checker recounts every number. In the sample case that took 38 s over 24.7 million readings.
Yes. The context checker joins each zero run to the head-end heartbeat and events, the firmware upgrade log and the premise record. In the sample case the heartbeat was OK on 41 of 41 meters — real zeros, not radio gaps — and 214 disconnected or vacant premises were left out.
Stopped meters are found and their bills held before the bill run, so customers do not get a zero bill followed by a catch-up bill. In the sample case 9 meters were fixed by a remote register reset instead of 9 visits; industry figures put a utility truck roll at $250–$500 (typical, published), an estimated $2,250–$4,500 here. The firmware build was sent for a check before its rollout to 6,300 more meters.
Yes. Asked “Why did 22 Ropewalk Street use so much on Saturday 4 Oct?”, it answered in 24 s: 44 kWh, 2.1× the usual Saturday, the extra between 13:00 and 19:15 at a steady 3.1 kW — the pattern of an air-conditioning unit left running while it was 41 °C outside — with a plain script the agent can read.
No agent edits, estimates or deletes a reading; estimated readings are shown as estimated and never counted as zero. Names and addresses are shown only to customer care and billing; planning and AMI operations see premise numbers.
Yes. The asker decides what an answer means. Bill holds, remote register resets and revenue protection referrals are requests: the billing supervisor approves every hold, AMI operations runs resets and decides on rollouts, and revenue protection decides on any field visit.
The Agentic Solution Engine builds and deploys it from your requirements and documents — your meter data definitions, area names, access rules and a sample of interval reads, head-end events and premise records — and it goes live once every quality gate has passed. We will walk you through it on your own meter data first.
Every held bill released inside its cycle, each estimate with its method and source.
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1-min demoMeter Event Management18,214 alarms become 23 actions, and every safety alarm reaches a person in 5 minutes.
1-min demoWe'll run Meter Data Inquiry on a sample of your own interval reads, head-end events and premise records.