Most metering programmes don’t fail because the meters are wrong, they fail because no-one owns the chain from the meter to the invoice. Meerkat Energy fixes that. We supply the right meters for the site, install them ourselves or retrofit comms onto your existing fleet, and run the data acquisition pipeline from the meter all the way to the monthly bill.
How the data gets from the meter to your invoice
- Recording. Each meter logs consumption, events (tamper, outage, reverse-reading), load profiles, and operational status every 15-60 minutes.
- Transmission. Encrypted, authenticated channels carry the readings over NB-IoT / 4G, RF Mesh, LoRa, Sigfox, or PLC, whichever fits the site’s coverage and density.
- Validation in the HES. The Head-End System aggregates, range-checks, and stores the data as a time series. Communication errors are flagged immediately.
- Management in the MDMS. Validated data is archived per meter, cross-checked against historical consumption patterns, and prepared for billing, fault detection, and analytics.
- Billing + reporting. The MDMS pushes billing-ready files (or real-time APIs) to the client’s systems, with exception reports and data quality flags included.
- Dashboard access. Customers see hourly/daily usage, cost estimates, and alerts (leaks, spikes, tamper events) in the Insights portal and mobile app.
Choosing the right prepayment model
| Aspect | Smart Token (STS) | Smart Wallet (Tokenless) | Smart Post-Paid |
|---|---|---|---|
| Credit location | Stored in the meter | Stored in the backend wallet | Billed monthly after consumption |
| Communication dependency | Can operate offline | Requires continuous comms | Requires continuous comms |
| Disconnection control | Autonomous (meter cuts on zero credit) | Remote (backend) | Remote (backend) |
| Customer visibility | Basic balance + usage | Full transaction history | Full itemised bill |
| Ideal user | Residential / low-consumption | Residential or small business comfortable with digital | Commercial / industrial / municipal |
We help you pick, or run all three in the same portfolio if the site needs it. Token-based for the legacy units, wallet for new builds, post-paid for the LPU tenants.
What's included
- NRCS-approved, billing-grade electricity meters (Class 0.5)
- Smart water meters with leak-detection profile data
- Prepayment STS electricity and water meters
- Comms-module retrofits to make existing meters smart (no rip-and-replace)
- Modem selection: NB-IoT / 4G / RF Mesh / LoRa / Sigfox / PLC, fit-for-site
- Two-way communication with tamper, outage, and event notifications
- Open-protocol Head-End System (HES) and Meter Data Management System (MDMS)
- Three prepayment models: Smart Token (STS), Smart Wallet (tokenless), Smart Post-Paid