Patent ID: 8174405

Claim:
A meter data management computer system for managing meter data, said system in communication with a meter data collection system that collects meter data from a plurality of meters recording utility usage, said meter data management system comprising: a data collection interface to the meter data collection system; a message bus for transferring meter data or information derived from the meter data between the meter data collection system and the data collection interface; a plurality of software applications connected to the message bus for cleaning, validating, estimating and archiving meter data or information derived from the meter data, said software applications communicating with one another and with said data collection interface through the message bus; and flags shared by the data collection interface and the plurality of software applications, wherein each of a number of messages published on the message bus contains one of said flags and is accessible by the plurality of software applications connected to the message bus, the plurality of software applications retrieving only messages of interest based on the flags in the messages.