Patent ID: 8581743

Claim:
A power meter data collection system for monitoring power information from a plurality of power meter devices configured on a meter bank, the system comprising: a collar housing member comprising a base region and an annular spacer member configured to the base region; an incoming power connector disposed on the base region, the incoming power connector being coupled to a pair of first power lines; an outgoing power connector disposed on the base region, the outgoing power connector being coupled to a pair of second power lines; a remote data concentrator device configured in the collar housing member, the remote data concentrator device comprising a power line communication device, a central processing device, and a first ZigBee transceiver, the first ZigBee transceiver being configured to communicate between anyone of the other plurality of power meter devices numbered from 1 through N, where N is an integer greater than 2, each of the other power meter devices comprising a second ZigBee transceiver device, and the remote data concentrator device being configured to exchange information between the remote data concentrator device and anyone of the other power meter devices and to aggregate information associated with each of the power meter devices; a memory device coupled to each ZigBee transceiver for storing ZigBee setup information for each ZigBee transceiver; whereupon the plurality of power meter devices including the remote data concentrator device are configured on the meter bank to communicate with the remote data concentrator device.