Energy meter
data concentrator
One gateway polls many Modbus energy meters on a shared RS485 bus and publishes energy, voltage, current and power to the cloud, ready for sub-metering, billing and reports.
THE PROBLEM
The meters are installed. The readings still come from a clipboard
Many buildings and factories already have multifunction meters on every feeder and tenant supply. Each one has an RS485 port, and most of those ports are unconnected. Someone reads the display once a month, types the number into a spreadsheet and hopes the decimal point is in the right place.
A data concentrator closes that gap: one device per panel or per floor reads every meter on the bus, on a fixed interval, and stores the values centrally with a time stamp and an audit trail.
The engineering lies in the bus. Cable route, termination, addressing, baud rate and how many meters share one line decide whether the readings arrive reliably.
HOW WE SET IT UP
Designed bus, reliable readings
Design the RS485 bus
We plan the daisy chain, termination and cable type, and decide how many meters share each line. Large sites are split across several lines or gateways.
Address and map every meter
Each meter gets a unique Modbus address. Register maps for each meter model are set in the cloud application, with consistent names such as feeder or tenant.
Test the full count on site
Before handover we poll every meter at the chosen interval and confirm the cycle completes reliably. The tested meter count per gateway is recorded for your site.
Reports and billing exports
Interval energy and demand are kept in RIOD Live with audit trails, and exported to PDF or Excel for tenant billing, cost allocation or energy audits.
FROM THE FIELD
Where energy data has paid back
Machinery energy metering
Energy measured per machine in a production environment, so consumption could be tied to equipment rather than spread across the site bill.
AT A GLANCE
Meter data concentrator in brief
- What is read
- Active energy, voltage, current, power, and power factor or demand where the meter provides them
- Hardware
- RS485 Modbus IoT gateway, Modbus RTU over RS485 and Modbus TCP over Ethernet, master or slave
- Connectivity
- Ethernet, Wi-Fi or 4G, chosen per site. MQTT over TLS 1.2
- Power
- 12 V adapter from the panel supply, in a plastic, metal or custom enclosure
- Where data goes
- RIOD Live, or your own server, with API access, PDF and Excel exports with audit trails, and AI access through MCP
- Exports
- Interval and cumulative readings to PDF and Excel with audit trails
- Bus design
- Bus layout, register maps and the meter count per gateway are designed and tested for each site
FAQ
Questions buyers ask us
How many Modbus energy meters can one gateway read?
It depends on the bus length, cable, baud rate, the number of registers per meter and how often you need readings. We design the bus and test the full meter count on site before handover, splitting large installations across lines or gateways.
Can it read meters from different manufacturers?
Yes. Each meter model has its own register map, configured in the cloud application, and readings are shown with common names and units.
Can the data be used for tenant billing?
Yes, for cost allocation and billing exports. Readings are stored with time stamps and audit trails and export to Excel or PDF. Where billing has to follow a legal metrology requirement, the meters themselves should be the approved type for that purpose.
What is the difference between a data concentrator and a data logger?
A data logger usually records its own sensors. A data concentrator polls many separate meters on a shared bus and brings their readings together in one stream for the cloud.
Meters installed but still read by hand?
Send us the meter models, how many there are and where the panels are. We will propose the bus layout and the number of gateways.