's NE(w)S-letter

of April is now available

 

                                                   
Leading Meter Manufacturers in Asia Adopt Echelon’s Control Operating System and the OSGP Standard

New Sub-System Offerings Enable Manufacturers to Rapidly, and Cost-Effectively Offer a Comprehensive Smart Grid Solution to Millions of Utility Customers

 
                                          

 

 

            

 

 

Oracle Utilities and Echelon to Deliver Easy-to-Deploy Smart Grid Intelligence

Integrated solution helps utilities reduce outages, protect revenue and pay back grid investments

 

Oracle Utilities  and Echelon announced they have teamed together to help utilities better manage outages, protect revenue, offer demand response, and offer prepayment options. The Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway integrated with Echelon's proven smart metering solution allows utilities to quickly and reliably deploy multiple applications to manage their assets and customers.

"European Union member states are required to have 80 percent of consumers equipped with a smart meter by 2020," said Bastian Fischer, vice president industry strategy, EMEA, Oracle Utilities. "Utilities need to act now even though regulations, standards and available technology will change, so they are looking for an open, multi-application solution that will grow with them over time. Oracle and Echelon are pleased to offer a highly flexible solution that is adaptable to changing customer, operations and regulatory needs."

With an increasing number of outages and growing demand for energy and renewable integration, utilities need to manage new dynamics at the edge of the grid. Real-time consumption and generation information is needed to quickly diagnose and respond to problems and control devices. Flexibility is needed to deploy new customer offerings such as prepayment plans. In the combined solution, Echelon control nodes (data concentrators or Edge Control Nodes) running the COS Operating System aggregate data from Echelon meters or other smart devices deployed on the low-voltage grid. Echelon head-end based system software intelligently aggregates and pre-processes the data from these control nodes, where they are passed to the Oracle Utilities Smart Grid Gateway. The Smart Grid Gateway then presents this data in a unified fashion to Oracle's suite of applications. The result is a quick, easy and reliable deployment for utilities.

"Utilities need the ability to collect data from the field to diagnose problems faster and the ability to turn that data into actionable, distributed intelligence," said Michael Anderson, senior vice president for utility sales and market development at Echelon. "The Echelon/Oracle solution addresses this by combining two best-of-breed solutions to help utilities better manage outages and protect revenue."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Echelon will add Wireless and Delta Configuration Options to its Smart Grid Portfolio

Brings the benefits of Echelon's proven, open, standard, multi-use smart grid portfolio to more places and more applications in Europe as 2020 mandate looms

 

Echelon Corporation (NASD announced three new products that will bolster Echelon's proven, open standard, and multi-use smart grid product portfolio in Europe. The new products include the MCN 3020/1020 Wireless WAN adapter option for Echelon's portfolio of IEC meters, the MTR 3020 Delta smart meter and the DCN 1120/1220 Delta data concentrator. With the addition of these products to Echelon's already comprehensive and market-leading product portfolio, European utilities and grid operators now have even more deployment options to meet 2020 EU-imposed deadlines with Echelon's proven and flexible solution, regardless of meter density and wiring configurations in the roll-out regions.

"The pressure is on utilities in EU member states to act immediately in order to comply with the third directive for the internal market in electricity, yet technology, regulations and standards remain in flux," said Ron Sege, President and CEO of Echelon. "Echelon's growing portfolio of products helps grid operators navigate through this period of uncertainty. Our Control Operating System (COS) powered system provides utilities with a multi-use, future-proof platform to which applications, devices, and new capabilities can be added over time, whether from Echelon or its partner and developer community partners."

The MCN 3020 is a wireless WAN adapter that can be installed on any Echelon Poly-Phase (PP) and Current Transformer (CT) smart meter with an auxiliary power option, while the MCN 1020 wireless WAN adapter is installed on any Echelon Single Phase (SP) meter with an auxiliary power option. Meters equipped with a WAN adapter use the GPRS/EDGE network to directly communicate with the Echelon system software running at the utility's head-end. This capability allows for economic meter installation when a full roll out plan with PLC between meters and data concentrators is still being developed but regulations require installation of smart meters to begin now; or in situations where legacy AMR meters are being replaced on failure on a one-off basis with Echelon's smart meters. The WAN adapters are expected to be available for shipment starting July 2012.

The new Echelon MTR 3020 Delta meters expand the meter portfolio to delta wired distribution networks, joining and complementing Echelon's Networked Energy System (NES) IEC meter family by providing SP, PP for star wired distribution networks and CT connected meters. Together with the DCN 1120 and 1220 data concentrator models for delta wired distribution networks the solution brings Echelon's proven Power Line Communications (PLC) to the delta networks that are deployed in European regions like Norway and Belgium. The Delta products can also use the new MCN 3020 and MCN 1020 and are available for shipment starting December 2011.

The new products further enhance Echelon's market-leading portfolio that includes a full range of Echelon smart meters, home-facing communication options, data concentrators, and system software, in addition to a broad range of partner-developed devices and applications that plug into the Echelon COS framework.

 

 

 

 

Last year, the first utility to piggyback onto the software running in EnergiMidt's data center was Bjerringbro. Next is Kjellerup Elnet. Like Bjerringbro's 3,000 customers, Kjellerup Elnet's 2,500 customers will receive Echelon's NES smart meters and related communications and control infrastructure. These latest deployments continue Echelon's momentum and market leadership position in Denmark, with more than 800,000 Echelon smart meters installed or under contract in the nation. The rollout for Kjellerup Elnet customers is scheduled to be completed early next year.

The new offering from EnergiMidt and Eltel provides smaller utilities and municipalities one of the most cost-effective and quickest paths to achieving the benefits of a smart grid, including hourly meter readings, load control, remote connect/disconnect, better outage management and the ability to integrate water and gas meters into one common system with electric meters. This is particularly important for utility and city leaders who want to modernize grids but have limited resources to achieve their vision.

"EnergiMidt is making grid modernisation swift and painless for neighbouring utilities through this offering that standardizes on our deployment of Echelon energy control networking technologies," said Holger Blok, CEO at EnergiMidt. "We chose Echelon's technology for this smart metering application because its open and extensible framework gives utilities a wide range of smart grid applications. By putting this proven solution in the cloud, any utility can benefit from our experience and can avoid unnecessary expenses that often stand in the way of making the smart grid a reality for many smaller utilities."

"Danish utilities and their customers want a smarter grid but the costs of achieving the vision haven't always made economic sense," said Jonas Vestin, president of Eltel Networks' smart metering business unit. "With this ground-breaking new cloud-based solution, even the smallest utility or municipality can adopt a smart grid with a business case that makes sense for everyone in the value chain, including customers, investors and owners of the utility."

"This solution is a real game-changer not only for Denmark but also for the rest of the world," said Michael Anderson, senior vice president for utility sales and market development at Echelon. "With over 800,000 meters deployed or about to be deployed in Denmark, Echelon has been able to demonstrate to our utility customers many benefits of a smart grid. With this new cloud-based solution, Danish utilities and cities of all sizes can enjoy the benefits of deploying a smart grid today."

Harry Crijns

ESNA Standards Activities

ESNA is very active during the past year in the various Smart Metering and Smart Grid standardisation activities across Europe as well as the rest of the world. The role of ESNA has significantly increased with the responsibility for the protocols OSGP (Open Smart Grid Protocol) and NTA8150 (Webservices API Interface). The draft standard OSGP has been submitted to Cenelec TC13 by Finland.

ESNA members are participants in standards organisations including CENELEC, ETSI, IEC, ISO, BSI and IEEE as well as standardisation efforts like Mandate 441, Mandate 490, the Smart Grid Task Force, and the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP).

 ESNA’s participation is helping to ensure that Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) will be identified as one of the available Smart Metering and Smart Grid interoperability standards. ESNA members have served in various key roles and on various working groups within the M441 Smart Metering and M490 Smart Grid standardisation processes. In addition, Mark Ossel is member of the M490 Smart Grid Steering Committee that provides oversight for the various sub-activities including process team, standards team, architecture team and security team.

 As previously communicated, ESNA is in the process of having OSGP approved as an official public standard rather than just a defacto standard. This process involves work efforts with both ETSI and CENELEC (CLC). With ESNA members working on the ETSI PLT and ETSI M2M technical committees, OSGP is being proposed both as an extension to EN 14908 and as an independent application layer.

 In addition, at the CLC TC13 WG02 ESNA has proposed a New Work Item based on the OSGP standard to CLC TC13. Finland has proposed OSGP as New Work Item to Cenelec. It is important that as many National Committees support this item. If approved by the CLC TC13 committee, this would become an official New Work Item for the CLC TC13 WG02. A few ESNA members have a seat in CLC TC13 WG02 representing different countries and one ESNA member is responsible for the technical liaison between CLC TC13 WG02 and ETSI M2M.

We request all ESNA members, especially the utilities, to check with their National Committee, TC13, to ensure the New Work Item is supported!.

 In addition to ESNA’s activity in the various standard committees and task forces, ESNA proactively responds to numerous public consultations from governmental organisations such as Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER), US Department of Energy (DOE), Australia’s Department of Treasury and Finance, and many other organisations.

 ESNA will continue to actively participate not only in these types of consultations but also other industry standards related efforts to ensure that a competitive environment continues to exist for all ESNA members.

 We are starting up various working groups within ESNA to be able to take a position and have representatives participating in European and other international consultations. ??

ESNA Workgroups to start up are:

1) Security & Privacy

2) Smart Grid

3) Standards (OSGP, NTA8150

4) Communication & Marketing

 We request members to join a work group; make yourself known to the ESNA secretary.

Harry Crijns

ESNA secretariat

Fortum invests in More Efficient and Secure Power Grid in Norway

Fortum is investing in a Smart Metering / smart Grid system based on two-way communication in Norway. The installation of the new meters will begin in 2013 and altogether 100,000 households as well as small business customers in Fortum's network area will be connected to the Smart Grid by 2015. Fortum has chosen Telvent to deliver, install and operate the system. The service agreement includes 100.000 of Echelon's metering equipment, Telvent's system as well as maintenance and collection of meter readings. Fortum and Telvent's contract also includes several options for future development and upgrading. ?Telvent has since 2009 been Fortum's partner in the currently ongoing Finnish smart metering rollout.

Fortum, with 1.6 million customers, is a leading energy company in the Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic region. Fortum Norway, the 7th largest utility in Norway and holds a minority interest in Hafslund, the largest utility in the nation.

"With the new smart meters, invoicing will be based on real electricity consumption," Fortum’s vice president for distribution, Ari Koponen said. "Customers receive more accurate information on their electricity consumption and therefore have better possibilities for saving energy. In addition, the smart meters will be used for more efficient power failure resolution and as a platform for future development of Smart Grids and services within electricity solutions."

The new Telvent Titanium system will allow Fortum to operate its power grid more efficiently, securely and cost-effectively by ensuring correct energy demand response during times of peak demand. This becomes critically important when administering incident and outage management. In addition, the solution provides Fortum with more accurate consumption information to ensure effective system maintenance, network operation practices and customer satisfaction.

Fortum is promoting sustainable energy consumption habits among its customers: Now, residential and small business energy users will have continuous access to their power consumption information and the ability to responsibly manage their energy use.

According to Telvent's chairman and CEO, Ignacio Gonzalez, “We are pleased with the opportunity to continue our work with Fortum to promote sustainable energy practices in the Nordic region. Our selection by such a highly regarded utility affirms that Telvent has the extensive knowledge and high-level technology to support utilities in modernizing their Smart Grid operations.”

Echelon’s senior vice president for global utility market, Michael Anderson declared: "As the Norwegian smart grid market comes alive, we look forward to applying all of the knowledge we have gained in projects throughout Europe. Echelon is the go-to brand for energy control networking in Europe not only because of the proven reliability and scalability we bring but also because our solution offers the most value to utilities and their customers. We enable utilities to quickly achieve the benefits of a smart grid infrastructure that can deliver a positive return on investment – with the confidence that the Echelon solution can expand to meet their future needs."

Norwegian legislation requires hourly meter reading by the end of 2016. The mart metering system provided to Fortum's customers will include a variety of features such as consumption reporting via the internet and a connection to future smart home systems via an interface in the meter.

Harry Crijns - ESNA

A vision for the future grid

How an open-infrastructure approach benefits utilities and consumers alike

To ensure utilities and consumers win in the modernization of power grids across the globe, everyone in the ecosystem needs to consider all the moving parts involved. An open-infrastructure approach will rapidly lead to innovation and achievements, while limited, closed approaches will ultimately kill innovation and benefit very few. We hope this article will assist all leaders making major smart grid decisions that will serve many generations.

It’s not just about smart meters

The critical issue in defining “smart metering” is that it’s not just about the meter. It is really about enabling the smart grid -- an energy infrastructure that runs from generation to distribution and includes thousands of grid-connected devices and systems that consume energy.Smart metering sets the stage for a smart grid “system” offering increased functionality via built-in two-way communications and smart grid applications, many of which provide improved and expanded customer service. Thinking “beyond the meter” and toward an overall system solution delivers dramatic improvements in utility operations, reliability, and customer-service capabilities by offering detailed usage information, demand metering, detailed power-quality data, speedy outage information and flexible billing options. Smart metering systems serve as the key information-gathering source and foundation for a smart grid that helps utilities better manage their operations. The smart grid also helps customers better manage their energy use, of course. Utilities need to ensure a high level of reliability and service to their customers, and this will become more challenging in the near future because of the additions of renewable energy sources, electric vehicles and distributed generation. Smart metering and the rest of the smart grid will make it possible for Distribution System Operators (DSO) to more effectively and efficiently manage the distribution network.

Smart grid stakeholders – benefits to all

Consumers, distribution companies and retailers all benefit from smart grid development. A smart grid can improve management of the transmission and distribution assets, as well as their generation portfolio, in order to keep pace with their customers’ increasing electricity usage and peak demand. For the supplier and retailer, it makes possible and accelerates the adoption of new services to help them differentiate their offerings in increasingly competitive energy markets. All of these vast benefits to utilities also mean, of course, that the consumer wins.

The many benefits associated with the smart grid should be viewed collectively. Think of them as an aggregate of benefits to all parties. It is very difficult to build a compelling business case around just one set of benefits to a specific stakeholder. Of course, the consumer, and society in general, will benefit from the smart grid in part because it provides a means to energy conservation – by raising consumer awareness of the cost and impact of electric devices in our homes and offices. The most obvious direct benefit to consumers will be in the form of lower energy bills.

Energy empowerment, demand response and services beyond

Figure 1. Smart Grid Energy Control Network – Smart devices and networks of smart devices, cooperating with control nodes for autonomous action, informed by rules provided by enterprise applications.

For example, demand response (DR) is becoming instrumental in managing the growing demand for energy, especially where it is combined with new and innovative pricing plans and consumer energy use portals. The combination of heightened awareness, an ability to track and manage energy use and financial incentives will give consumers a sense of “energy empowerment” that they have never before experienced. This requires smart metering and smart grid systems that offer distributed local intelligence at the neighbourhood transformer to effectively manage the edge of the grid -- where decentralized generation, electrical vehicles and customers must constructively co-exist.

Future-proof:  The case for open smart grid architecture

In order to support the various networks and interfaces within the smart grid now and into the future, one of the most important and basic requirements is an open architecture. This is to support not only today’s services and applications but also the provision of new services and meeting new market demands without replacing the core infrastructure and associated equipment.

Interoperability is too often used as an excuse to push a particular technology, regardless of its actual suitability for the application. Such agendas manifest themselves as a “choose one standard” technology approach. Technologies will continue to evolve. Instead of requiring a single standard, utilities need a smart grid system with an open infrastructure, one that many companies have adopted and upon which they have built custom solutions. These solutions may be proprietary to each vendor, but because they’re built upon a common, open infrastructure they can be mixed and matched, offering the utility competition, innovation and choice. Various EU standard initiatives support this type of approach and indicate there will be many appropriate smart metering and grid standards, not just one. However, the key factor is that interoperability will still exist at the higher levels within the systems enabling a more future-proof solution ready to adopt new technologies. Figure 2 illustrates a scenario of a residential autonomous micro-grid that includes electric vehicles, solar energy generation, smart meters, and smart appliances.  Communications within the smart grid devices amongst each other micro-grid occur over power line or RF.  The utility communicates with the micro-grid and devices within the micro-grid via an intelligent control node located at the low voltage distribution point.