Meter Data Management (MDM) is the essential infrastructure behind accurate billing, network visibility and smarter customer engagement. It transforms interval reads from meters into clean, reliable information that retailers, network operators, embedded network managers and large energy users can actually use.
What Is Meter Data Management (MDM)?
Meter Data Management encompasses the systems and processes used to collect, validate, store and distribute metering data from across a portfolio of sites.
In modern electricity markets, this typically means managing large volumes of interval data, coordinating multiple parties involved in metering and complying with strict rules around data quality, retention, privacy and settlement. Rather than every participant building their own bespoke database and rules engine, an MDM platform provides a central, structured environment for managing this data lifecycle from end to end.
In Australia, enterprise MDM also needs to align with AEMO’s market procedures and settlement requirements, ensuring metering data can flow reliably into the national market systems.
Why Meter Data Management Matters
Effective Meter Data Management delivers value across the entire energy chain.
Accurate settlement and billing
High quality energy metering data is essential for wholesale and retail settlement, network charges and customer billing.
Automated validation, estimation and editing processes (often called VEE) ensure gaps and anomalies are identified and treated consistently before data is used in financial processes.
Regulatory compliance and auditability
Regulators and market operators expect participants to demonstrate how data has been handled. A robust MDM platform provides clear rules, full audit trails and version history, meaning any change to metering data can be traced back to its source.
Operational insight
Granular interval data gives visibility of load shapes, peak demand, power quality and network constraints. When this information is aggregated and analysed, network operators and large customers can make better decisions about capacity planning, asset management and demand response.
Customer experience
Retailers and embedded network managers increasingly use detailed consumption data to support digital portals, comparison tools and tailored tariffs.
Reliable Meter Data Management underpins these services, enabling customers to see how and when they use energy and what they can do about it.
Integration of new technologies
As solar, batteries, electric vehicles and flexible loads grow, the volume and complexity of meter data rises sharply. A scalable MDM system makes it possible to integrate these new devices without losing control of data quality or performance.
How a Meter Data Management Platform Works
Whilst implementations vary, most enterprise Meter Data Management solutions follow a similar workflow.
Data acquisition
Data is collected from a mixture of sources: automated reads from AMI or AMR systems and head-end systems, file imports from other metering platforms and in some cases manual reads.
The MDM system must support different formats and communication methods whilst keeping data secure in transit.
Validation, estimation and editing (VEE)
Incoming data is checked against configurable rules, such as identifying missing reads, implausible values or duplicate records.
Where data is missing or fails validation, the system uses agreed estimation methods to fill gaps. Any manual corrections are captured as exceptions with full audit trails.
Storage and aggregation
Validated data is stored in a central repository that can scale to billions of interval records. From here, the system can create derived values such as billing periods, time-of-use registers or portfolio-level aggregations for reporting and settlement.
Distribution and integration
Finally, the MDM platform shares data with other systems: billing engines, analytics platforms, market interfaces and customer portals. Well-designed APIs and export mechanisms are critical so that data can move reliably between organisations and technology stacks.
What To Look For In A Modern Meter Data Management Solution
Energy businesses evaluating MDM platforms typically look for:
- Scalability to support growth in meter numbers and interval frequency
- Strong validation and exception management to protect data quality
- Flexible integration with existing head-end, billing and SCADA systems
- Secure web access and robust cybersecurity so sensitive data stays protected
- Cloud-native architecture so storage and processing capacity can grow with the portfolio.
These capabilities help ensure Meter Data Management continues to perform even as volumes, participants and market complexity increase.
SATEC's Approach To Meter Data Management
SATEC’s Expertpower cloud platform provides a cloud-based Meter Data Management solution designed for utilities, embedded networks and large energy users that need reliable access to multi-site interval data.
Built on Microsoft Azure, Expertpower is engineered to scale from small portfolios through to enterprise deployments, handling large volumes of interval data without compromising on performance.
Key Capabilities Of Expertpower MDM
Expertpower offers advanced VEE processes to safeguard data quality, flag anomalies and support transparent exception handling.
It supports AMI, AMR and head-end systems with configurable polling cycles for high-resolution interval data.
The platform includes a flexible integration layer and API, allowing other systems such as billing platforms or corporate data warehouses to retrieve validated data with minimal custom development. Powerful visualisation and reporting combine Expertpower’s dashboards with Microsoft Power BI for interactive analysis across portfolios, sites and devices.
Web-based access from any modern browser comes with role-based permissions, ensuring different user groups see the information relevant to them. Event monitoring and alerting mean issues such as communication failures or abnormal usage patterns trigger notifications to the right people.
Security and privacy are built in from the ground up, with controls aligned to international standards and industry best practice.
For organisations that already use SATEC’s metering hardware, Expertpower provides an end-to-end path from field device through to analytics and reporting. It is equally capable of operating in mixed environments where meters and head-end systems come from multiple vendors.
The Foundation For Modern Energy Data
Meter Data Management is core infrastructure for modern energy businesses. As data volumes grow and expectations rise, relying on spreadsheets or fragmented systems quickly becomes risky and expensive.
A dedicated MDM platform such as SATEC’s Expertpower helps organisations turn raw meter reads into trustworthy information that supports billing, settlement, compliance and strategic decision-making.
With scalable cloud architecture and robust VEE processes, it provides a foundation for managing today’s portfolios and for integrating the new devices and services that are reshaping the energy system.
Talk to our MDM team today about your Meter Data Management needs.
FAQs - Meter Data Management (MDM)
What is Meter Data Management (MDM)?
Meter Data Management (MDM) is the process of collecting, validating, storing and distributing interval metering data so it can be used for billing, settlement and analytics. It ensures that all metering data is accurate, complete and traceable.
Why is Meter Data Management important for energy businesses?
MDM provides reliable data for billing, compliance and operational decision-making, helping organisations reduce errors, improve visibility and support customer engagement.
How does a Meter Data Management platform handle missing or incorrect data?
MDM systems use automated validation and estimation rules (VEE) to detect gaps or anomalies and apply approved estimation methods to maintain data quality.
Is Meter Data Management scalable as my metering portfolio grows?
Yes. Modern Meter Data Management platforms are designed to scale easily, handling increasing data volumes without compromising performance or data quality.
