By Jesse Berst

The Tantalus story illustrates at least two important trends: 1) the proliferation of hybrid, mix-and-match communications systems that combine multiple pathways and 2) the growing focus on municipals and coops as the next frontier for smart grid innovation.

I spoke with Eric Murray, president and CEO.

This fall, Tantalus announced that it was partnering with Itron to integrate that company's electric, gas and water meters with the Tantalus TUNet communication system. The partnership seems to make sense for both parties, even though both sell communications. The Tantalus communications solution is more cost-effective for "small power." Plus, the Tantalus system can read both newer smart meters plus Itron's legacy ERT modules.

In essence, the agreement is a recognition that smart grid vendors must help their customers adapt to a mix-and-match world. And that much of the growth and innovation in 2012 and 2013 may appear first in municipals and coops, which often have an easier time cost-justifying smart grid technology.

Hybrid (mix-and-match) networks

Tantalus designed its TUNet system to allow utilities to mix and match communications technologies. "It's difficult to choose a technology that will last for 25 years," says Murray. That's why Tantalus designed its system so the communications module is "hot-swappable." You don't have to cut off service to swap in a new or updated communications module. Other Tantalus innovations include ground-level transceivers that don't have to be mounted on poles.

Murray claims that the Tantalus system was also constructed to migrate easily to new technologies as they appear. Although the company stressed its own private spectrum offering in the early days (a technology well-suited to rural areas), it now supports many different communications pathways. The company literature describes TUNet as an "end-to-end WAN/LAN/HAN communication system that operates with 200 MHz RF, 900 MHz and IP-based networks including fiber, WiMAX and GPRS/cellular, either individually or in combination." That's quite a mouthful, but it does illustrate the system's flexibility.

Data flexibility too

Along with most other vendors, Murray is seeing the market expand beyond smart metering. (He does admit that he "thought distribution automation and asset optimization would take off faster.")

Utilities are looking for other ways to leverage their communications network, such as demand response, renewables integration and voltage optimization. Murray claims this is good news for Tantalus, since its system was designed upfront with a "command-and-control" architecture. "If a network doesn't have the capacity or speed to deal with lots of control messages, it can't handle many of those additional applications."

Tantalus designed its system from the start for data of all types, not just metering data. For instance, the Tantalus design is an event-driven "push" system. Devices don't have to wait for the system to ping them. Any device that experiences an event (outage, tampering, voltage sag, etc.) can send a message to the system.