Echelon Corporation (Echelon) said that its networked energy services (NES) value added reseller partner, GORLITZ Schweiz AG (GORLITZ), has received a contract from EV Energieversorgung Biberist (EV Biberist). The contract is to provide advanced metering infrastructure to all of its 5,000 household customers over the next three to five years. The NES system's powerful web services based network operating system provides a standards-based platform for enterprise applications and integration.
EV Biberist is an innovator, leading the Swiss smart metering market by committing to deploy the first advanced metering system in the country in order to provide its customers with superior service, said Frits Bruggink, Echelon’s senior vice-president and general manager, service provider group. As the first region in Switzerland where private customers can select their energy supplier, it is important for utilities to offer better service, advanced features and more accurate energy consumption information. We’re pleased that EV Biberist has chosen our partner, GORLITZ Schweiz AG, as the provider of their new system.
With nearly 3.7 million electricity meters and 850 grid operators, we see a significant opportunity in the Swiss market, said Ingo Schmitt, CEO at GORLITZ Schweiz AG. And, we believe that by winning the first project in the market we have an important first-mover advantage and have established a model for other utilities to follow.
Building on a successful pilot program, we now look to expand the NES system to all of our customers. We expect a rapid return on our investment as we will save the cost of labor for the manual meter reads, and having more precise data regarding customer’s energy demand will allow us to save money in the process of energy procurement, said Peter Kofmel, chief executive officer at EV Biberist. The NES solution provided by GÖRLITZ not only provides the most sophisticated smart meters on the market to help us improve quality while lowering costs, it also provides a foundation for the smart grid. With this system we can transform the existing one-way direct load control equipment that we deployed into our customers’ homes many years ago into a two-way demand response network. The two-way networked NES system not only eliminates the cost of the now obsolete legacy ripple control system, it also enables new load control possibilities.
About the Solution:
The NES advanced metering infrastructure from Echelon consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Unlike systems with a dedicated radio per metering point, multiple NES meters can share a single IP connection through the use of Echelon’s proven standards-based power line networking technology. This drives down the per-point connection cost and enables the system to easily and cost-effectively incorporate new wide area networking technologies over the life of the system.
As shown in this project, the NES system is more than just an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system; it is the backbone of a smart grid solution. Unlike AMI systems, which focus primarily on billing related applications, the NES system provides the utility with detailed information on the health and quality of their grid. With this information, utilities can more efficiently operate and maintain the grid, reducing cost and increasing reliability and quality in the process.
The EDW3000 software application from GORLITZ uses the services of the NES system software to provide a full-featured meter data management system (MDMS) and a rich set of utility applications.
GORLITZ is a Switzerland-based supplier of automatic remote reading, data transmission, and data gathering and preparation systems for utilities serving the European commercial and industrial sector.
EV Biberist is a Switzerland-based energy supplier.