global smart energy elites

METERING &SMART ENERGY

INTERNATIONAL

The GlobalSMART ENERGY

ELITES 2015

Projects and PeopleThe definitive guide to the Projects & People driving global

smart grid development

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Foreword

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015

Foreword The Global Energy Elites is a publication that recognises projects that have changed the way utilities interact with their clients or have had a critical impact on the utility and its operations.

A focus on Elite projects... The Metering & Smart Energy International editorial team had the pleasure of working through the more than 60 submissions we received in order to settle on the projects contained in this publication.

Settling on the final projects was a difficult and challenging undertaking, resulting in many intense conversations and days of checking and re-checking submissions and outcomes.

This is not an awards programme, but rather, a look at projects against which utilities of all shapes, sizes and across all regions can benchmark themselves. Because each utility has its own unique challenges, operational and regulatory environments, these are also not meant to be ‘cookie-cutter’ solutions for other utilities. However, they do serve as an example of how utilities the world over are challenging perceptions, innovating and embracing technology, and engaging with their customers in a completely different way.

As the utility sector continues expanding, changing and evolving, successful examples are ever more important to continue encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit in a traditionally conservative sector.

The categories we considered for the Elites were multi-faceted, interlinked and of importance to all utilities.

1. AMI & Smart Metering Which AMI project or applications

has significantly improved utility operations, efficiency or revenue collection in the past year?

2. Cyber Security Which utility has successfully deployed

technology to avert hacking, intrusions and cyber-attacks, to the benefit of both the utility and its customer base? Where has cybersecurity been

appropriately integrated and best practice developed for driving security awareness?

3. Data&analytics Which utility has significantly

improved on the way it is handling and analysing data, and what have the benefits been to both the utility and its customer base?

4. BillingandCustomerengagement Which utility has increased levels of

customer satisfaction and how have they achieved these results. How has the project aligned customer expectations with the utility offering?

5. Thedigitalutilitytransformation Recognising utility that has most

embraced the evolution to the digital age through implementation of smart grid, smart metering and integrated smart communication systems.

6. Smartwaterproject Which water utility that has seen

the most benefit due to the rollout of ‘smart’ systems? Benefit can be measured through management of resources, revenue management or collection or improved customer satisfaction.

7. Innovationoftheyear The most innovative produc or

project of 2014/2015.

8. Emergingmarketproject Acknowledging utilities in Asia, Latin

America, Eastern and Central Europe and Africa, across the gas, water and electricity sectors.

9. IntegrationofITandOT Which utility has successfully

integrated information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) for more streamlined operations?

10.Demandresponseproject Which utilities have successfully

integrated a demand programme for better energy efficiency or seen a measurable improvement in electricity/water or gas usage?

and Elite people Without great people, great projects or innovation or vision will fail to materialise, and we are pleased to recognise a collection of people from around the world who are driving that innovation and vision. They are involved in the smart energy sector either as vendors, utility personnel or association leaders – each one of them driving excellence in their particular field.

Speaking of Elite people... we’d like to thank our friends and advisors at KPMG, VaasaETT, I.H.S and Northeast Group for assisting us in the final selections. Your help has been invaluable.

We hope you will enjoy reading more about these people and the projects we believe are noteworthy.

Happy reading!

Claire and Amy

ClaireVolkwyn AmyRyanManaging Editor Deputy Editor

This is not an awards programme, but rather a look at projects against which utilities.....can

benchmark themselves”

rethinkeverythingDeploy a network of devices with the intelligence to anticipate and manage rapidly changing grid conditions in real-time.

OpenWay Riva™, a revolutionary approach to active grid management, providing distributed intelligence and adaptive communications. Innovation for a more resourceful world.

itron.com/openwayriva

rethinkeverythingDeploy a network of devices with the intelligence to anticipate and manage rapidly changing grid conditions in real-time.

OpenWay Riva™, a revolutionary approach to active grid management, providing distributed intelligence and adaptive communications. Innovation for a more resourceful world.


www.itron.com/openwayriva

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DIRECTORYThe Global Smart Energy Elites 2015

DIRECTORY

INDUSTRY PROJECTS6 Showcase project drives smart grid foundation for Central Maine Power

8 Innovation drives TEP AMI programme

10 EDP cybersecurity initiative

13 BC Hydro’s digital evolution

16 Enel analytics

18 Roanoke Electric Cooperative outsources billing and collections and scores on customer service

20 British Gas drives unique customer experience

22 Eskom embraces IT/OT integration

24 Focusing on NRW: Karnataka Water Board reaps the benefits

25 High consumption customers benefit from remote reading, revenue billing and meter performance monitoring system

28 Itron Riva: Dynamic distributed intelligence

30 Plug and play hardware enables cost-effective energy monitoring

32 Data analytics utilising cloud computing

34 Innovation sees Zambian water utility manage water better, clear arrears and curb wastage...

36 Security and reliability of AMI in Latvia

38 Antwerp active wind farm control

40 EXPO 2015 showcases Enel Distribuzione energy management

42 BC Hydro and the benefits of AMI

INDUSTRY PROFILE46 Ronnie Belmans, CEO, EnergyVille

48 Paul Budde, Managing Director, BuddeComm

50 Maher Chebbo, General Manager, Energy & Natural Resources, SAP

52 Livio Gallo, Head of Global Infrastructure and Networks, Enel

54 Philip Lewis, CEO and Founder, VaasaETT

56 Philip Mezey, President and CEO, Itron

58 Wayne Pales, Head of Smart Grid, CLP Power Hong Kong

60 Manuel Sánchez Jiménez, Team Leader Smart Grids, European Commission

62 João Torres, CEO, EDP Distribuição

64 Andreas Umbach, President and CEO, Landis+Gyr

66 Maria Vellano, Revenue Management Director and Smart Grid Project Lead, AES Eletropaulo

www.holleymeter.com

mailto:[email protected]

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015AMI AND SMART METERING

The Central Maine Power (CMP) smart grid project showcases a smart grid implementation that delivers real benefits to a utility’s operations, customers and the environment.

A US Department of Energy (DOE) showcase project, it has won seven JD Power & Associates awards for customer satisfaction and two Edison Electric Institute (EEI) awards for its outstanding role in leveraging the ‘smart’ platform to help with safe and speedy recovery during emergency outage situations.

CMP’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) project featured territory-wide deployment of more than 625,000 smart meters, covering all of CMP’s residential, commercial, and industrial customers. This project

Showcase project

drives smart grid foundation for Central Maine PowerSubmittedby: Sonita Lontoh, head of global marketing, TrilliantProjectleader: Laney Brown, director of smart grid planning and programmes, Central Maine Power (CMP) smart grid programme

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created a technology platform for providing customers with electricity usage information and alternative electricity rates from third-party energy providers. Customers view their energy consumption through a web portal and can use that information to help manage electricity bills. CMP is constantly assessing the load-shape and consumption impacts of providing customers with different types of information using web portals and proactive bill alert messages.

Implementation requirements

Two-way communication between customer meters and the CMP control centre

Cybersecurity requirements of AES 128 encryption, identification and authentication

All designs to be standards based, with reference to AMI-SEC, CIPS, FCC, IEEE, NERC, NIST and network-based upgrades

Situational network awareness, auto configuration, fault tolerance and transparent operation

Message-layer latency of less than three seconds.

Four major programme components were identified for the CMP installation: the AMI network; smart meters; a meter data management system (MDMS); and meter and network installation, along with related field services required for the implementation.

The project deployment commenced with the rollout of the AMI wide area and neighbourhood area networks (WAN/NAN) and the replacement, with smart meters, of all installed electro-mechanical meters. This was coupled with the integration of the customer information system with the meter data management system, a customer Web portal, remote connect/disconnect, outage management, asset management, and the ability to make customer load information available to the power producers. An important element of the implementation was the integration of future-proofing into the grid to support additional applications in the future.

Driving successIn order to drive the success of the project, CMP worked with an AMI project governance plan, held regular project team meetings and

References:

Iberdrola USA: Central Maine Power, a Trilliant case study

https://www.smartgrid.gov/files/Central_Maine_Power_Case_Study_0.pdf

https://www.smartgrid.gov/files/B1-093014_0.pdf

http://www.iberdrolausanetworks.com/AboutIberdrolaUSANetworks/SmartGrid/advancemetering.html

identified mitigating measures for eight separate risk areas such as: technology performance, supply chain, IT integration, field exception, records exception, dynamic pricing acceptance, regulatory and financial.

The successful rollout was supported by an educational campaign for customers, community leaders and stakeholders, whereby they were kept abreast of the project development and informed of the benefits.

CMP utilised existing infrastructure such as poles, service centres, substations etc, to mount, and simplify the deployment and maximise budget efficiency.

The complete project team included CMP plus vendor partners, Trilliant, GE, Landis+Gyr, Black & Veatch, Itron, IBM and Siemens.

Way forwardAn initial investment of $164 million was made into the programme, and the implementation was completed in 2012 — on budget, and on time. Coupled with this, was a $6.5 million investment into grid automation in which 99% of existing substations were automated, along with 38% of reclosers. By 2019, 100% of all CMP’s automation goals will be met.

CMP’s smart grid project is underpinned by a future proof smart communications platform, which serves the utility’s smart metering needs today, along with its advanced distribution automation, demand-

side management and renewable/distributed energy integration in the future.

Benefits derived from the implementation:

OperationalEfficiencies: $8 million in annual savings, 90% reduction in safety incidents, 87% reduction in estimated meter reads and 50% reduction in high bill calls

CustomerSatisfaction:significantly reduced estimated bills, reconnect in less than 30 minutes, faster outage restoration and improved customer communication

Reliability: 7x more information to assess and restore outages, 519K faster assessment of power status, 20% reduced outage time using automation, two EEI Awards for Excellence in Emergency Recovery

MarketAnimation:1st in ISO New England to settle on customers’ actual usage, over 100,000 supplier requests for historical usage and ICAP tags, $100,000 saved by customers managing ICAP tags

Sustainability: Over 2 million miles saved annually, 65,000 gallons of fuel saved, 569 tons of CO2 emissions avoided.

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015AMI AND SMART METERING

Tucson Electric Power (TEP) provides safe, reliable electric service to more than 414,000 customers in southern Arizona. TEP and its parent company, UNS Energy, are subsidiaries of Fortis, which owns utilities that serve more than 3 million customers across Canada and in the United States and the Caribbean.

In 2009, working with the Arizona Corporation Commission (ACC), TEP along with other public utilities in the region, prioritized energy management and shifting demand to off-peak hours, in order to defer the cost of new generation. For this strategy to succeed, TEP needed to expand the number of customers who use Time of Use (ToU) tariffs. Ideally, the supporting programme also needed to provide customers with tools to manage their energy consumption and costs.

Cost implications of a supporting metering system such as replacing existing meters and extra monthly meter reading costs were a deterrent

for TEP. TEP’s innovative spirit led the TEP metering team to work on a cost effective system that met the project requirements and stayed within the allocated budget.

TEP is using automated meter reading (AMR) meters and a fixed network system to gauge customers’ monthly electric usage, an affordable and accurate alternative to manual readings of analogue meters.

The fixed network technology uses wireless communication to automate interval data collection from the meters. It relies on TEP’s meter data management (MDM) system to aggregate the interval readings for time-based rates and serve the data up to the utility’s customer information system (CIS). It also provides positive outage and restoration notification to improve outage response and grid reliability.

The system has facilitated the automation of settlement processes associated with

contract and wholesale billing. This back-office solution is different from most advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) implementations that require customer meters to be reprogrammed for different rate plans. TEP’s solution centralises those functions, allowing the use of simpler, less-expensive meters that provide only usage data – including the interval reads necessary for time-of-use (TOU) rate plans.

The relative simplicity of TEP’s data collection system allows the cost-effective development of redundancy from the meter to the collection engine. This provides exceptional system reliability and energy diversion notification while improving the utility’s outage response capabilities. The system also mitigates the high costs and efficiency issues associated with off-cycle reads.

TEP has combined its MDM data with the output of its CIS and geographic information system (GIS) to create business intelligence (BI) reports that support successful operations. These reports have contributed to improvements in energy diversion detection, distribution asset management and network status awareness. For example, TEP can correlate the loss of power with other meter alarms and a change in the

Innovation drives TEP AMI programme

Nominatedby:Jim Taylor, senior director engineering and operations technology, Tucson Electric Power Co.

Projectleader: Chris Fleenor, manager meter and protection engineering, Tucson Electric Power

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interval data to detect efforts to tamper with equipment to divert energy. Interval data also can be aggregated to forecast potential equipment overloads or identify areas of the fixed network where coverage should be reinforced.

Information provided by the MDM has improved other processes as well. Efforts to calculate unbilled revenue that once relied on estimates are now informed by calculations using actual interval reads from AMR meters. The usage data also has been integrated with other software applications to provide better decision-making capabilities, limit field work and reduce reliance on automated design. Additional applications are likely as employees across TEP imagine new ways to employ usage data to streamline operations and serve customers’ energy needs.

After a careful cost benefit analysis, TEP determined that an AMR meter, fixed network meter reading system and MDM system implementation satisfied the requirements that were being sought at the lowest cost. The implementation cost to install an AMR system in conjunction with a MDM and fixed network meter reading system allowed for all the typical AMI implementation benefits minus remote connect/disconnect for electric

meters, at a fraction of the cost of an AMI two-way communicating electric meter reading system.

The fixed network meter reading system also can be leveraged to read AMR-equipped gas and water meters. TEP’s sister company, UniSource Energy Services (UES), provides both gas and electric service in northern and southern Arizona. UES has been able to use the same system to read and store the interval data from its customers with no additional back-office integration or additional systems. TEP and UES can use their fixed-area networks and MDM systems to gather readings from AMR-equipped water

meters installed by other service providers in their areas. This capability provides new revenue opportunities while reducing costs for local residents by avoiding the need for different providers to install separate meter-reading systems.

TEP’s automated meter reading system is part of a smart grid strategy that seeks to leverage existing installed equipment in conjunction with enhanced communications and MDM technologies. Its strategy encourages a flexible implementation of any technology or application that will bring value to customers and investors at a speed that is appropriate and cost-effective.

Investments in supervisory control and data acquisition/distribution management systems (SCADA/DMS) systems, advanced metering, asset management, efficient operations, as well as in advanced, reliable, and secure information and communications technologies (ICT) have significantly impacted distribution networks over the last decade.

However, with the deployment of ICT, data privacy and systems security risks

keep rising. The European Commission (EC) has been taking a bold approach to fully realise a secure, customer-driven European Energy Union that is making energy more secure, affordable and sustainable and EDP Distribuição (EDPD) is playing a very active and leading role in the process.

The InovGrid initiative undertaken by EDPD (Cunha, 2014), is based on a holistic and systematic approach

that will extend from smart meters to data delivering processes, through vendors’ roles, to main players in the cybersecurity field, such as the European Network for Cyber Security (ENCS). Importantly, by sharing results between all members of the European Distribution System Operators (EDSO) for Smart Grids Association, it is possible to extend best practices and technologies to the overall European distribution networks, thus helping to set the way forward.

EDP Submittedby: Ângelo Manuel Sarmento, Member of the Board, EDP Distribuição

Teamleaders:Aurélio Blanquet Director of Automation and Telecontrol and Luís Vale da Cunha, Adviser to the Board for Energy Policies and Smart Grids, EDP Distribuição

Table1:Relevantstakeholdersandusecases

The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015CYBERSECURITY

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EDPD’s approach and main results so far

FacingdigitaltransformationThe smart grid represents a significant technological transformation for DSOs. As the technological perimeter gets closer to the residential consumer, which in Portugal represents more than 6 million connection points, DSOs have to adapt their strategy towards an even more resilient and secure infrastructure.

EDPD work in the areas of “cybersecurity perimeter” and “cybersecurity in depth” (Medeiros, 2013) are constantly evolving to adapt to the changing environment.

RiskassessmentprocessThreat identification To have a clear understanding of the threats and the intricate challenges posed by the extension of the technological layer, EDPD went through

Table2:Exampleofthreatlistadopted

a risk assessment process, based on the “HMG IA Standard No. 1 Technical Risk Assessment methodology” (UK, 2009). Mainly, it was intended to acknowledge the potential threats for cybersecurity and privacy under the changing environment, and to understand the biggest impacts on stakeholders, such as energy suppliers, aggregators, consumers, amongst others, in case of a “successful” attack.

Identification of the main threats was based on the most relevant functional use cases for each one of the different stakeholders, as shown in table 2.

Risks evaluation A risk evaluation process was performed through quantification of the probability of each of the threats that could occur, and the potential impact for each of the stakeholders. For EDPD’s own risk analysis, the company standard classification matrix was used in order to estimate ‘probability’ (i.e. frequency), potential impact for each threat scenario and risk rating. (Table 2)

The key output resulted in a list of prioritized risks to be used as a standardised basis for the definition of risk treatment requirements, with ‘risk appetite’ of the organization and the business context being also selected as important criteria to decide whether to accept these risks or to define a specific list of requirements to mitigate them.

Stakeholders’ engagement Another relevant success factor resulted from the fact that EDPD has involved several of the main vendors of smart grid solutions in the process in order to align and correctly assess the financial, technical, and operational impact of the requirements to be established. This has been proven to be key in order to provide the necessary criteria to support the decision whether to adopt each requirement in a feasible and cost-effective manner.


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Identification of the main threats was based on the most relevant functional use cases for each one of the different stakeholders”

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References

Blanquet, A. (2013). Developing a flexible, secure, integrated SCADA infrastructure to fully support the evolving. NextGen SCADA Europe. Amsterdam. Comission, E. (2012). 2012/148/EU: Commission Recommendation of 9 March 2012 on preparations for the roll-out of smart metering systems. Official Journal of the European Union. Cunha, L. V. (2014). Évora: InovCity - A ‘living lab’ for the Smart Grids of the future. POWER-GEN Europe & Renewable Energy World Europe Conference. Cologne. Energy, D. (2014). DPIA Template for Smart Grid and Smart Metering Systems. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/content/dpia-template-smart-grid-and-smart-metering-systems Energy, D. (2015). Test phase of the Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA). Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/test-phase-data-protection-impact-assessment-dpia-template-smart-grid-and-smart-metering-systems Energy, D. (2015, May). Workshop DPIA test phase. Retrieved from https://ec.europa.eu/energy/sites/ener/files/documents/DPIA22MayWorkshopfinal.pdf Medeiros, N. (2013). Cyber Security in Mission Critical Systems – A DSO Perspective. European Utility Week. 2013. Medeiros, N. (2014). Building a Secure & Robust Smart Grid Solution. European Utility Week. Amsterdam. Studies, L. a. (2015). Business Blackout: The insurance implications of a cyber attack on the US power grid. Torres, J. (2015). Toward a more flexible grid. Metering International Issue - 2. UK, N. T. (2009, October). Retrieved from National Technical Authority for Information Assurance: http://www.cesg.gov.uk/publications/documents/is1riskassessment.pdf

CYBERSECURITY

A significant number of the adaptations to be implemented will rely mainly on

firmware upgrades”

Security requirements Finally, a new list of security requirements for the smart grid was established based on the different set of criteria (Medeiros, 2014), linking to specific security threats and risks that were identified during the risk assessment phase, and subsequently allowing for the mapping and tracing of each of the requirements to the risks, threats, and stakeholders and related business processes.

Remarkably, one simple but important conclusion has emerged: securing the entire smart grid value chain should be accomplished by implementing technical, procedural and organizational measures specifically designed to prevent, detect and correct security incidents; some of those security measures to be implemented by the equipment providers, others by the DSO.

ImplementationprocessAdopting a systemic approach during the entire risk assessment process proved to be the most adequate option for the improvement of security levels of the Smart Grid architecture.

As a matter of fact, knowledge acquired on the possible threats has raised awareness about what needs to be done to mitigate the risks for the system and for consumers.

In addition, given the EC aims for the large rollout of smart metering systems across Europe, swiftly proceeding with the mitigation actions is key, avoiding the need to replace non-compliant equipment before the end of its expected lifetime.

Most recently, a new phase has been launched based on the previously defined list of security requirements, and is gathering together different complementary expertise and extended experience coming from some of the most relevant players in areas such as the specification, international standardisation, testing, and large scale implementation of security requirements.

This phase begins with the redefinition of the Smart Grid overall security architecture based on the previously identified security requirements, which is then translated into detailed specifications.

All partners have been involved from the very beginning in the definition of the project framework, and are currently very active on the different work packages.

Solutions that keep evolving Vendors, which have been meeting and discussing the plan and its impact with EDPD, will adapt their products in accordance to the specifications; it is worth mentioning that a significant number of the adaptations to be implemented will rely mainly on firmware upgrades to the existing products, which will represent an important effort to keep costs under control.

Developments will then be security tested (validate security requirements and penetration testing) and the interoperability of the several components of the smart grid ecosystem assessed. The last stage before the qualification process will consist of an extended pilot involving different vendors and their products, in order to ascertain the correct operation of the new architecture in risky situations and stressed environments.

Conclusions and the way forward

European policies are bringing consumers to the centre of the energy transformation process, thus demanding secure energy supply, as well as timely and reliable information that will spur engagement and the delivery of new and innovative services.

No matter the sector, digitalisation is a growing trend and no doubt remains about the increasing exposure to cyber-threats. This can be particularly true when merging energy and ICT for the benefit of society.

Therefore, DSOs need to cope with the current challenges and the ones ahead with the adoption of a more holistic and systemic strategy towards cybersecurity and privacy. This strategy should definitely contemplate security and privacy by design as well as a more in depth approach for the different cyber domains.

EDPD is paving the way through strong commitment to these matters, and is fully engaged in several initiatives at the European level in order to spread the best practices and solutions across distribution networks.

This should be achieved in a balanced way, namely through correct evaluation of risks and cost-effectiveness of the solutions to be implemented. Stakeholders in general, and vendors in particular, both play a decisive and important role in this.

The engagement towards initiatives relating to privacy is deeply embedded in the sustained development roadmap for the intelligent grids of the future towards a customer-centric European Energy Union.

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BC Hydro has been undergoing a digital evolution through a number of smart technology implementations. Consistent with its mandate to create a world-class culture of conservation in the province, BC Hydro is leveraging a smart metering and infrastructure programme (SMI) to enable on-going demand-side management (DSM) objectives, increase customer satisfaction, theft detection and facilitate the modernisation of BC Hydro’s electricity system.

Advanced theft detection solution

BC Hydro’s SMI solution for advanced theft detection reached completion in September 2015. The identification and deterrence of energy theft was a significant benefit in the SMI business case.

The business benefits of the advanced theft detection project include:

Reduction in revenue loss due to theft: BC Hydro estimated in 2011 that the revenue loss from theft was 675 GWh annually (CAD $100 million per year). Realisation of this benefit

commenced by rolling out components of the advanced theft detection solution (ATD) in phases. The ATD release puts technology in place to monitor every feeder for energy losses to ensure energy losses, whether attributable to theft or otherwise, are identified and investigated.

Non-financial benefits, such as improved outage management and customer restoration; improved data for load forecasting and regulatory analysis (e.g. rate structure and cost of service analysis) and improved GIS data for business purposes.

Solution and innovationBC Hydro implemented a set of business processes and systems to assure revenue (see diagram below for summary overview).

The solution for advanced theft detection consists of the following main elements:

Feeder meters: BC Hydro reconfigured its SCADA enabled substation relays, reclosers, voltage regulators, underground switches and capacitor banks to collect energy data for feeders, which

provides additional value beyond the typical protection and control functions from existing assets (and in a pragmatic approach integrating OT and IT). Where there are no substation relays or insufficient reclosers, BC Hydro has been working with the vendor Awesense to enhance its check meter solution with telecommunication and power harvesting technology in order to place Awesense check meters permanently at the start of feeders. BC Hydro also uses temporary Awesense check meters (on a rotating basis) for field investigators to locate specific energy losses.

The Energy Analytics System (EAS) has been developed to perform basic, advanced and energy balancing analytics. a. Basic analytics uses mostly smart

metering data for 20+ analytics to identify meters of interest as potential theft or unusually high consumption risk, such as: i. Unexpected correlations

between consumption and voltage

ii. Consumption patterns that match dual and single line theft consumption patterns

b. Advanced analytics uses the whole secondary circuit (all the smart meters and transformer data) to provide meter and transformer leads for potential theft, potential

BC Hydro – digital evolution

Nominatedby:Elizabeth Fletcher, deputy director, smart metering & infrastructure program, BC HydroProjectleaders:Kees Jansen, advanced theft detection lead (SMI), BC Hydro; Ken Bell, in home feedback lead, smart metering & infrastructure program BC Hydro

DIGITAL UTILITY TRANSFORMATION

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015DIGITAL UTILITY

TRANSFORMATIONtopology error or anomalous risks, such as:i. Meter voltage profile analysisii. Voltage at point of common

coupling comparison for theft; iii. Transformer voltage standard

deviation analysis.c. Energy balancing uses data from

output sources (e.g. smart meters, Q1000 meters for large customers) and input sources (e.g. SCADA relays and reclosers, check meters) to determine potential energy losses. Complex analytics have been developed to accurately calculate energy losses, including consideration for technical losses, unmetered load, derived voltage levels along a feeder and estimates for late arriving data (e.g. non-communicating smart meters or legacy meters).

Innovative technology has been used and developed, including:a. Connectivity manager tool

(implemented): Connectivity manager detects topology errors which are then sent to connectivity manager for correction.

b. Field investigation tool (implemented): a tool that enables in-field interrogations of revenue meters in order to obtain on demand readings of billed consumption.

c. Integrated case management (configured): an SAP case lifecycle management tool that is integrated with EAS.

d. Hadoop data lake (currently being deployed): a big data platform used to store smart meter and distribution system energy analytics data (20 terabytes annually) and process complex/time-consuming analytics (e.g.

estimates for non-communicating smart meters or legacy meters) that are subsequently fed into EAS. The data lake allows other business stakeholders to use energy data without having to access EAS.

e. Phase detection tool (deployed): used to identify the phasing from the ground by field crews. The phase detection tool is used to confirm the correct phasing in GIS.

Building on the rollout in 2011 to 2013 of 1.9 million Itron smart meters, SMI has focused in 2014 and 2015 on implementing a broad scope of smart grid technologies:

AdvancedtelecommunicationsIn 2014, SMI built and commissioned a private telecommunications network employing Siemens WiMAX technology. This network provides highly secure, flexible, cost-effective wireless broadband capabilities, without reliance on third party network carriers, for the transmission of smart meter, SCADA and other grid data.

Multi-servicegridnetwork,BCHydro’sIoTIn 2015, BC Hydro will conclude the migration of close to 2 million meters and related telecommunications infrastructure and applications from an IPv4 network protocol to a multi-service grid network (MSGN), enabled by IPv6. IPv6 provides a secure, scalable and reliable communications architecture capable of supporting multiple applications and vendors, including Distribution Automation (DA) devices and gateways. The flexibility of IPv6 enables advanced benefits such as Quality of Service for traffic prioritization, lower latency and network

redundancy, placement of current and future DA devices onto the network – all capabilities that were not possible with legacy networks.

BC Hydro has now started interoperability tests for the MSGN within its Powertech laboratories for DA including reclosers, voltage regulators, load control and street lights.

EnergyanalyticsandbigdataSMI’s EAS combines software applications and business processes to automate the timely discovery of revenue losses. The first phase of EAS was implemented in 2013 on an EMC Greenplum database platform with an SAS analytics engine and Space Time Insight Visualization. It provided the Revenue Assurance team with dashboards under a unified user interface, including an automated overview of potential revenue loss candidates.

Phase 2 of EAS was implemented in 2014 and provided advanced analytics focused on topology error and revenue loss detection, together with visualization of results within a unified analytics platform. It uses advanced Linear Programming and Topology Analytics for improved energy loss detection, and allows the full topology model and associated relationships to be viewed by the end user. EAS generates leads for Revenue Assurance investigation, paired with an integrated investigative

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case management system, to follow the complete lead-to-case lifecycle.

Phase 3 of EAS will enable energy balancing, comparing measurement data from output sources (e.g. smart meters) and input sources (e.g. SCADA relays and reclosers, check meters) to determine potential energy losses. Complex analytics have been developed to accurately calculate energy losses by feeder, including consideration for technical losses, unmetered load, derived voltage levels along a feeder and estimates for late arriving data.

To date, SMI has deployed a total of 384 servers, 38 databases, and approximately 700 TB of storage. In 2015, SMI implemented a Pivotal Hadoop Data Lake to support business use of SMI data. This data has already been used to enhance distribution load shape estimation, manage customer service entrance voltages, balance loads among phases, assess costly protection requirements and determine whether distribution system reinforcements are required.

GISdataqualitytoolsThe BC Hydro Geospatial Information System (GIS) is the source of asset information and the electrical relationship between assets (connectivity model). In 2014 SMI implemented a Connectivity Manager Tool (CMT) to manage topology corrections in the GIS and significantly reduce the time

and effort required to correct errors. This tool improves data quality by leveraging available inputs, existing GIS functionality, and field inspection feedback. The CMT processes smart meter power down/power up events and consolidates topology errors from EAS advanced analytics to identify both customer connection and conductor errors. These errors are displayed geographically with recommended solutions, allowing designers to validate the recommended corrections, field investigators to efficiently perform field checks and analytics teams to refine the EAS algorithms based on the success of detecting the errors and accuracy of the recommended solutions.

Remotedisconnect/reconnectSMI has implemented Remote Disconnect / Reconnect (RDR) functionality for all single-phase meters equipped with an internal disconnect switch that can be opened or closed over-the-air. In 2014 SMI completed the implementation of RDR across all service areas, virtually eliminating the need to “roll a truck” to perform manual disconnections and reconnections for single-phase meters, reducing costs and keeping crews out of potentially unsafe situations. As these disconnections are now completed within minutes as opposed to weeks for manual orders, BC Hydro can more effectively and efficiently manage the collections process. RDR has also helped significantly reduce unsigned

energy by enabling cost efficient disconnections of vacant premises over the air. Seventy-five % of remote reconnection orders are completed within 30 seconds which is especially beneficial to customers in remote areas.

Homeareanetwork–homeenergymonitorprogrammeIn late 2014, SMI launched a Home Energy Monitor (HEM) programme, providing customers with access to real-time electricity and pricing feedback. SMI worked with Itron to certify and make available to residential customers, at a discount, two types of Rainforest Automation home energy monitors. SMI implemented a fulfilment process that ensures only eligible customers with well-communicating meters can purchase a device, to be shipped already paired to the customer’s meter. This has eliminated customer frustration with post-purchase device-to-meter connectivity issues. By April 2015, SMI had registered 9,500 HEM devices on the system, with high levels of customer engagement.

OutagemanagementIn August 2014, SMI integrated smart meter data with its outage management system to deliver “on-demand read” functionality on a per meter basis. This enables dispatchers to determine whether an issue is on the utility or customer side as well as the potential scope of the outage, thereby reducing unnecessary truck rolls.

The BC Hydro Geospatial Information System (GIS) is the source of asset information and the electrical relationship between assets

(connectivity model)”

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015DATA ANALYTICS

Automation and digitisation improves grid reliabilityEnel serves 61 million customers across 40 countries around the world; has deployed 37 million smart meters globally and has 80% penetration of distribution automation systems. This €85 billion company exhibits high system reliability through distribution network automation and fault detection, isolation and restoration.

In 2014, Enel achieved SAIDI scores of 40 minutes per customer. However, Enel is aiming to achieve a SAIDI score of 25 minutes per customer, and further improve performance.

In order to drive this improvement, reduce the occurrence of faults and improve grid reliability, Enel has been working with C3 Energy to deploy the C3 Predictive Maintenance system.

Enel analyticsSubmitted by: Jessica Reiter, chief marketing officer, C3 Energy.Project leaders: Enrico Valigi, head of electricity and gas metering, ENEL

This is not Enel’s first success with predictive maintenance. For the last decade, Enel had been pioneering efforts to enhance equipment performance and electricity delivery quality across multiple areas of its entire operating chain.

Enel first began these efforts in the power generation domain – the company spearheaded several predictive maintenance pilot programmes at its Brindisi power plant to identify and reduce operations-disrupting failure modes.

During early testing prior to 2008, Brindisi maintenance personnel found several equipment issues potentially addressable by predictive maintenance. Over several years, Enel teams developed an internal CSI 2130 [predictive maintenance software], uncovering and preventing issues such as in drive system hydraulic joints on gas-to-air heat exchangers, helping to avoid unplanned shutdowns that would have cost $366,000.

More recently in 2015, Enel implemented the C3 Predictive Maintenance application for generation to identify, diagnose, and predict failures of key rotating equipment components. Teams from C3 Energy worked with Enel experts to address failures of the high pressure feedwater pump system and associated equipment, which were vulnerable to vibration-induced failure as well as cooling system seal failures. The C3 Predictive Maintenance application helped to accurately identify impending cooling system failures with greater than 15-28 day advance warning, allowing for more flexible scheduled maintenance and avoidance of emergency plant shutdowns and lost power production.

Enel has now built on this experience to extend C3 Energy’s predictive maintenance capabilities to downstream components in the electric delivery system: medium voltage electric distribution feeders across Italy.

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There are two key drivers of the implementation are improving network reliability and reducing maintenance costs across Enel Italy’s network.

The implementation of predictive maintenance across the grid has enabled Enel to accurately predict faults on medium voltage (MV) feeders, thereby improving system reliability and reducing maintenance costs. Enel’s previous predictive maintenance approach involved analysis of SCADA data and use of hand-tuned parameters to score and rank feeders-at-risk. By deploying an advanced machine-learning based framework that uses the characteristics of the MV feeders (e.g., asset age, overhead/underground, asset utilisation and duration, weather) to compute the probability and economic consequences of faults on each feeder, Enel is able to obtain a risk score for each asset and feeder in real time.

Integrate and analyse data from multiple systems in real time

The predictive maintenance system incorporates data from ten source systems, including SCADA, maintenance work orders, fault protection system, asset management, historical equipment failure, known network issues, power quality, lightning, terrain and weather.

Dynamically reconstruct the as-operated grid network state

The software is able to dynamically reconstruct the as-operated network

state for Enel’s distribution system, so that signals on any network element can be accurately linked to specific feeders. For the first time, Enel’s network operators are able to instantly view the configuration of any feeder at any point in time.

Apply machine learning to predict feeder section failure

With the ability to process, in real time, 748 analytics, including transformations of SCADA events, known network issues, and weather data, the predictive maintenance software uses sophisticated, two-stage machine learning to predict both the probability of feeder faults and the potential location (at the individual node or branch level) of faults to facilitate efficient inspections.

In addition to fault predictions, predictive maintenance includes a fully automated scalable algorithm to assess the performance of fault path indicators, and prioritise devices for repair/replacement.

Deliver substantial valueResults of deploying the software across 1,000 feeders in one control centre demonstrated the ability to predict, within a 30-day window, up to 37% of feeder faults. This will enable Enel to further improve network reliablilityand reduce maintenance costs. The annual economic benefit of deploying the predictive maintenance software across 28 control centres in Italy alone is substantial.

Enel has been named in the top five of Fortune magazine’s Change the World list, a new ranking that shines a spotlight on businesses that make addressing social challenges part of their business strategy.

The Group, which is both the only utility and only Italian company to be included in the list was ranked fifth of 50 companies selected by the magazine, and was hailed by Fortune for “charging the barricades when it comes to clean power”.

The magazine praised Enel for leading a renewable energy revolution, something they usually expect “to be led by tiny upstarts, not established giants”, and highlighted the fact that in 2014 the Group generated 38% of its output from renewable sources, with that figure set to rise to 48% within the next four years. Fortune also singled out Enel CEO Francesco Starace’s commitment to make the Group carbon neutral by 2050.

“We are delighted that Fortune has recognized the key role of the power industry in driving progress in the world and Enel’s leadership within it. Electricity is fundamental for industrial and agricultural production and job creation, it improves education and healthcare, and it opens up new opportunities for growth,” said CEO Starace in reaction to the news.

“Our role is to ensure an energy supply that is available to all and sustainable over the long term, and we need to make sure it is delivered in harmony with the needs of the communities it serves.”

Enel analytics

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015BILLING & CUSTOMER SERVICE

Submittedby:Jason Farhadi, McDonnell Group, Inc.Projectmanager: Robin Vogt, Director of Public Relations, SEDC

Roanoke Electric Cooperative delivers electric power to 14,500 members over 2,000 miles of power lines across seven counties in the

northeastern corner of North Carolina”

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Roanoke Electric Cooperative (REC) delivers electric power to 14,500 members over 2,000 miles of power lines across seven counties in the northeastern corner of North Carolina; serving its diverse community of industrial, recreational, educational and community members requires managing multiple business and operational systems without sacrificing quality or reliability. More than just software, the co-op needed a software community to provide solutions along with the knowledge of how to put them to use.

One area REC targeted for improvement was its billing services. The utility needed new ways to bill and accept payment without adding a vast staff. REC first embraced utilityPOWERnet (UPN), SEDC’s easy-to-use suite of integrated billing (CIS), accounting (BIS), and capital credit (CC) utility software, allowing the co-op to produce bills electronically and allowing customers to pay automatically. Bill preparation is thus taken out of the hand of the utility, freeing co-op employees from having to touch payments at all when they come in. REC also gained customer service tools like online chat support and smart apps.

The combination of quality software and engagement has equipped the co-op to

Roanoke Electric Cooperativeoutsources billing and collections and scores on customer service

“work big” within its finite resources. “We pride ourselves on getting the most value out of all the SEDC products we pay for,” said Roanoke CEO Curtis Wynn. “We need to keep a low employee headcount while maximizing value.”

With more information at hand, the customer service team can now answer billing enquiries faster and more accurately.

Customers are empowered to manage their accounts directly, even after business hours. “Really, all the services built around their core consumer accounting system -- such as automated bill pay, producing bills electronically, having an outsourced company prep our bills and not having to touch payments when they come in -- are all huge for us,” said Wynn. “We are doing more with fewer people and providing a higher and more responsive level of service to our customers, which is of paramount importance to us.”

Wynn has seen positive results among customers, too. “Personally, I think our customers have taken to it very well, considering their high participation rates, to all the services we offer them,” he said.

PROJECT

The British Gas smart programme is unique in that it focuses on delivering the best customer experience, satisfaction and engagement. British Gas has deployed almost 1.7 million smart meters to homes across Great Britain, more than any other British energy supplier. The additional data driven by the rollout means the company could be analysing up to 48 data points per customer per day.

This smart metering deployment, incorporating the Trilliant Communications Hub and UnitySuite, has resulted in a number of benefits for customers, including reduced operational costs and carbon emissions. Through smart energy modernisation efforts, British Gas has also been able to significantly improve customer satisfaction and over 100,000 of its customers have been interviewed to hone the offering.

In fact, its net promoter score amongst its smart meter customers has improved by 40% year-on-year since 2014. Looking to the future, British Gas has plans to expand its smart metering efforts to include more innovative smart energy programmes such as prepayment (smart pay-as-you-go is already being trialled with over 9,000 customers), Time-of Use tariffs (free Saturdays or Sundays), virtual IHD (my energy live) and the ability to mode switch between credit and prepay without having to physically removed the meter. All for the singular purpose of delivering a better customer experience that engages customers and increases their satisfaction.

British Gas has run many studies that show that customers are able to save on their energy bills by up to 2% equating to £21

per annum (which is expected to rise to 5% with the addition of the interactive online tool and other apps) and are more satisfied with the additional, value-added benefits the smart programme helps deliver. British Gas is also innovative in its approach to the smart programme in that it truly leverages the high-quality, high-frequency data it gets from its smart platform to perform advanced big data analytics that turn information into insights into actions.

With big data analytics, British Gas is able to offer highly personalised actionable insights to its customers. 74% agree that my energy has helped them to better understand their household’s energy consumption, as of June ‘15; 78% of customers are satisfied with the overall installation process and the way it was handled (Q3 2014); and satisfaction with BG is 28 points higher on the NPS scale for smart meter customers than standard (-13 v +15) (August 2015)

The results show that those involved use 6% less gas and 7% less electricity than similar homes without smart meters: ‘simply by being more aware of their energy use’ British Gas says.

“If this energy-efficient behaviour continues for a year, they will save an average of £66 off their annual energy bill,” the utility adds.

“Just think what this will mean by the time smart meters are fitted in every home. With this data now available, the energy industry has an important responsibility to use it to deliver true customer benefits,” Peter Kennedy, Director of Growth at British Gas Residential Energy says.

BILLING AND CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

British Gas drivesunique customer experience

Submittedby:Sonita Lontoh, head of global marketing, TrilliantProjectmanager: Jorge Pikunic, managing director of smart programmes, British Gas

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He continues: “At British Gas, we have a dedicated team working on this data to ensure the consumer really sees the benefits. This isn’t necessarily a straightforward job, and having a team who can apply the appropriate analysis is vital. We have built specialist platforms and tools to help us analyse this data using the latest open source software.

“Our hand-picked team has been created by attracting talent from a wide variety of industries and companies, including O2, Sky, Nasa, Netflix, PayPal and Zoopla, as well as PhD students from leading UK universities. This team is critical for us to turn all of the data into meaningful insight.”

Smart meters capture readings up to every half hour, meaning an incredibly detailed picture of how people are using energy can be built up.

“We can build a true picture of daily energy usage by day, week, month and year by looking at information that is available from the types of appliances which are used the most (seen by peaks in gas or electricity use), and how our energy use patterns differ across the country.

“However, it goes without saying that this information is hugely beneficial to suppliers and the electricity grid when it comes to managing times of peak demand, but where it gets really interesting is how it is harnessed to benefit the customer.”

British Gas sees opportunity in leveraging personalisation. As Kennedy puts it: “We’re already seeing how

transformative the increased visibility around day-to-day energy use is transformative – our challenge now is to take this data and use it to create truly tailored insights for our customers”.

An interactive online tool gives over 700,000 BG customers an opportunity to view a personalised energy use breakdown. This provides access to itemising daily, weekly, monthly and annual energy use and breaks it down into items like heating, lighting and appliances; and subsequently offers insights which customers can use to drive savings.

Comparisons are also provided with similar homes in the area, highlighting if a customer compares favourably with others and mapping their energy usage with their peers.

Kennedy continues: “Currently our customers review the tool on average for five minutes each visit – we have already doubled the typical time customers spend on their energy use over a typical year.”

Kennedy believes that increased transparency in the energy industry is the only way to build customer trust. He believes this is possible by providing customers with the information they need to reduce energy usage and save on energy bills.

“I am confident that the smart meter rollout and, in turn, the harnessing of smart meter data has an absolutely crucial role to play in doing this. It’s up to the industry to invest the time, money and expertise into getting truly smart with how we apply big data,” he concludes.

Our hand-picked team has been created by attracting talent from a wide variety of

industries and companies, including O2, Sky, Nasa, Netflix, PayPal and Zoopla, as well as PhD students from leading UK

universities. This team is critical for us to turn all of the data into meaningful insight”


The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015IT/OT INTEGRATION

Eskom embraces IT/OT integration

South African utility Eskom has developed a groundbreaking practice note on IT/OT integration that has facilitated solid cooperation and trust between OT and IT resources and collaboration and participation in governance processes never seen before. Although the road ahead will no doubt experience some bumps, the initiative is seen as a giant leap forward in collaboration within the utility. The scene setting for technology convergence,

while sustaining the integrity of Eskom’s operational systems and associated risk, is a significant achievement.

Technological advancements, combined with the increased adoption of similar hardware and software platforms, infrastructure and common communication standards, are creating opportunities for increased interfacing, collaboration and data exchange between different OT systems,

IT systems and between OT and IT systems. Eskom was not receiving the full benefit of the new technology due to prior governance, standards and collaboration practice, nor was the utility sufficiently prepared for the increasing risks associated with the technological evolution.

An Eskom audit and forensic analysis conducted using an IT framework on OT systems highlighted differences between

An Eskom audit highlighted differences between the respective

technologies”

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Eskom embraces IT/OT integration

Nominatedby:Barry Maccoll, general manager - resarch, testing and development, Eskom

Teammembers: Philip Groenewald, Manager protection T&S and smart grid technologies study committee chair, Eskom Group technology; Ken Hales, corporate specialists, Eskom Research & Development; Rob Stephen, master specialist, Eskom Group Technology; Richard Mc Curragh, senior manager, PTM&C, Eskom Group Technology; Ziyaad Gydien, chief engineer telecommunications, Eskom Group Technology.

the respective technologies. OT system owners raised concerns that there was no clear definition and accountability for OT, while at an executive committee level, concerns were raised around the increased cyber risks on OT systems and assurance of OT systems.

A need was identified for increased integration between IT and OT given that many of the underlying platforms used in both spheres were increasingly the same, as well as sharing many of the same infrastructure and standards. Open, software based technology, evolving risks and the need to maximise business value, further drove the necessity for increased integration. Further, it was identified that IT risks in the OT environment need to be clarified and effective policies, controls and standards put in place.

It was decided that OT definition and accountability should be addressed via the Steering Committee of Technology (SCOT) mandate, given the critical requirement of suitable OT and IT collaboration towards technology convergence and managing the network and related risks.

An awareness of the challenge of working around the historic line groups for OT and IT, and breaking down the ‘us’ vs ‘them’ scenario was identified early on.

Practice note developmentA working group (the SCOT smart grid technologies study committee – SGT SC) was established in 2011, with the

mandate to develop a practice note to manage a more collaborative approach. An OT strategy working group (OTS WG) was created under SGT SC, and worked on developing an extensive operational technology strategy. Extensive consultation across industry stakeholders, vendors and internal managers was undertaken.

As a first step, the architecture design review (ADR) and enterprise architecture review committee (EARC), both of which are IT based, extended representation to OT (predominantly Engineering Protection Telecomms Measurement and Control (PTM&C) centre of excellence and System Operation) with a view to enabling better collaboration and collective governance and influence.

Strong links were forged between the OTS WG and Eskom’s ‘IT risks in OT’ forum, and the entire process was reviewed in September 2012 in order to integrate Eskom’s smart strategy development process.

The OT definition and the OT/IT collaboration practice note development evolved from the OT strategy development, and team members played a critical and groundbreaking role in determining the direction of OT/IT collaboration going forward.

Honesty, transparency and trust building improved relationships between the OT and IT resources involved in the process.

The next stepClear and aligned accountability for ALL players was determined within the framework of the Eskom corporate strategy and divisional mandates. The practice note enabled various processes to be managed in an improved way in line with divisional plans. New and increased convergence risks were effectively managed, and multiple ‘design-to’ criteria developed. Importantly for the team, the goal posts and outcomes were clear and unequivocal.

The practice note defines operational technology within Eskom, clarifies accountability and governance responsibilities and stipulated additional accountabilities and governance for IT and OT required to timeously establish the required degree of collaboration and convergence.

The impact of the practice note on subsequent IT/OT collaboration has paved the way for the next step – review and possible redesign of the strategy and IT/OT operating model to ensure it is in line with international practice.

Eskom plans on opening an enquiry for a consultant to advise Eskom on the most appropriate organisational design in order to take the utility to the next level in a world of increasingly converging utility technologies. The first review of the existing practice note is set for 2017.

IT OT

Purpose Process transactions Provide information

Manage assetsControl physical processes

Architecture Enterprise wide infrastructure and applications (generic)

Event-driven, real-time, embedded hardware and software (custom)

Interfaces GUIWeb browserTerminal and keyboard

Electro-mechanicalSensorsCoded displays

Ownership CIO and computer gradsFinance and admin departments

EngineersTechniciansLOB managers

Connectivity Corporate network IP-based

Control networksHardwired

Role Supports people Controls machines

Table1:GartnerdefinitionsoftherolesofITandOT

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SMART WATERThe Global Smart Energy Elites 2015

Karnataka Water Board (Dharwad Division) (KWB) has been able to reduce non-revenue water (NRW) to 28%, which is considerably lower than many other cities in India. Estimates put NRW in India at between 53% and 40%, although some cities claim to have NRW levels as low as 12%.

In Karnataka, KWB initially had NRW levels of almost 53% – one of the highest in the country, along with the highest number of illegal connections. This, combined with poor operations and maintenance and even poorer customer service, put KWB in a very bad position financially and in terms of customer dissatisfaction.

KWB has undertaken the deployment and implementation of a suitable integrated management information system which enables the recording and processing of maintenance requests, allocation and scheduling of work orders for preventive and proactive maintenance, revenue collection, debt management, meter reading and monitoring of flow measurements. Also demand forecasting, load analysis and dynamic master planning for forecasting of network components, suitable cash management and financial accounting, network management with ability to do simulation and digital terrain modelling, graphical interface with zoning facilities for 44,000 water connections out of a population of 400,000 citizens in Dharwad city. This project was the first of its kind in India’s water sector.

To carry out the above activities, KWB worked with SPML, an infrastructure development company, to facilitate the following:

Consumer survey with GIS referencing including pipe network assets etc

GIS data collection, cleansing, and purging of 57,000 properties along with a consumer survey mapped onto a 3D elevation map of Dharwad city

Study on network analysis including demonstrating field validation

and simulation of various aspects/parameters like pressure, flow etc.

Water loss analysis and NRW study Data migration for metering, billing,

and collection. Historical data was migrated from the legacy system to the new system for a complete, integrated automation approach

By using SPML’s bespoke software SPMLAQUA, KWB has access to the following information across a single system:

a) Billing and customer information system

b) GIS and network asset managementc) Operation and maintenance

management systemd) Network analysis e) Demand management system and

asset management f) Finance management system

The implementation has enabled improved customer service and the tracing and regularising of illegal connections. With the help of a mobile app, citizens are now made aware of their bill payments, water supply timings etc. which has increased consumer servicing.

By properly maintaining the pipe network assets of the city (close to 600 km in length), KWB has been able to track down and arrest water leakages. This has required the upgrading and replacement of the existing pipe network by a new system which reduces UFW (unaccounted for water) drastically.

The implementation of an operations and maintenance system has been set up for KWB to implement preventive maintenance. This proactive strategy has resulted in leaks and maintenance requests from consumers being handled in a methodological way that has reduced unnecessary expenditure and improved efficiency for the water board.

By installing an updated billing and CIS module, effective bills are now distributed

Focusing on NRW: Karnataka Water Board reaps the benefits

* A lakh or lac is a unit in the Indian numbering system equal to one hundred thousand (100,000; scientific notation: 105). In the Indian convention of digit grouping, it is written as 1,00,000. (Information provided by Wikipedia)

to citizens in a timely manner, which helps them to pay their water tax on time. Another strategic implementation was the opening of consumer kiosks across the city, which has improved the collection system and collection rates. This collection is better facilitated by the integration of a finance module so that all the accounting operations are streamlined.

By using a demand management system, KWB is now able to analyse the water demand in newly built up areas, thereby providing them with more effective services. This efficiency has been enhanced by the integration of a network analysis module, whereby small water hydraulic models can be simulated in the system itself, before the reticulation system in new developments is designed and implemented.

Tendering and supplier management has been streamlined, and warehouse management improved.

Monitoring of employee working hours and access has been upgraded by introducing fingerprint bio-scan devices for access – a first in India.

All this has led to an increase in revenue collection by the water board. When SPML took over the per month water tax revenue was INR 36 Lakhs* – today it is closer to INR 95 Lakhs.

The International Water Association (IWA) has developed a detailed methodology to assess the various components of NRW. Accordingly, NRW has the following components:

Unbilled authorized consumption Apparent losses (water theft and

metering inaccuracies) Real losses (from transmission

mains, storage facilities, distribution mains or service connections)

A challenge in many utilities is pinpointing the exact breakdown of NRW components and sub-components, which therefore makes it difficult to decide on the best course of action to reduce NRW.

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The Kocaeli General Directorate of Water and Sewerage Administration (ISU) in Turkey has been a role model for the other water utilities in the region since its establishment in 1995. ISU is known for supplying high quality and healthy water efficiently and effectively to its customers while achieving the highest level of customer satisfaction.

Kocaeli, Turkey has a population of 1.7 million and has been governed by the Metropolitan Municipality since 2004. It is one of the biggest cities in the country, with a high number of industrial areas.

ISU has 678,000 customers and approximately 1,400 customers of these have water consumption which is higher than 500m3/month. In order to support ISU’s mission to provide world class services, the utility invested in a project aimed at driving improved meter readings and efficiency for their high consumption customers. This ‘first of its kind’ implementation for Turkey was managed by Manas Energy Management Industry and Trade.

High consumption customers benefit from remote reading, revenue billing and meter performance monitoring system

Submitted by: Burak Yayla, Business Development and Project Manager, Manas Energy Management Industry and TradeProject leader: Ilhan Bayram, General Manager, Kocaeli General Directorate of Water and Sewerage Administration (ISU)

SMART WATER

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As seen in figure 1, 32% of ISU’s revenue (m3) is generated from high consumption customers even though they are only 0.2% of the all ISU customers.

The focus of the project was to:

Increase service quality levels for high consumption customers

update customer meters and their installation data

reduce non-revenue water by minimizing unauthorized consumption and metering inaccuracies with meter replacements and improvements to metering conditions

enable proactive and reactive meter management by monitoring customers 24/7

eliminate index reader error by enabling remote reading

build required infrastructure for invoices to be prepared digitally

be a role model to the other utilities in terms of reducing non-revenue water in Turkey.

In March 2015, the Kocaeli Metropolitan Municipality and Kocaeli General Directorate of Water and Sewerage Administration (ISU) hosted the Smart Water Management Symposium, in order to share the results of the project. Thirty-one metropolitan municipalities and water utility authorities were invited to attend, along with high level government officials.

The most significant benefit derived from the project was the increase in revenue by $8,620,000, over the period of one year and the project was paid off in 6 months.

How did ISU gain maximum benefit from the project?

By selecting the correct segment of customers to include in the implementation given that the high consumption customers of ISU contribute the highest revenue to the utility

By improving meter installation and operating conditions and by virtue of this step, reducing unauthorised consumption

By replacing utility customers’ existing meters with high technology meters designed with a wide measuring range and high level of accuracy. These in fact contributed to the reduction of water losses, which was primarily caused by metering inaccuracies

By setting up the most advanced metering infrastructure for commercial and industrial customers. This infrastructure included consumption analysers, with the benefits of intelligence at the metering point, consumption analysis and meter audit functions

By performing analysis of the meters regularly

By regularly monitoring the correlation between meters and corresponding consumption data

By obtaining analysis results via the GSM operator and transmitting these to the central software with added billing, investigation, alarm and work-order preparation functionality on the system. This is how ISU has been able to prepare and take urgent action to on-site situations

Project Details: Start Date: June 2012 End Date: July 2013 1,143 different sized meters were

installed 802 analysers were installed Central software was set up System monitoring centre was

set up at ISU and all relevant employees were trained.

1143 different sized Itron’s higher metrological class meters which are built with highly engineered materials as well as with low flow accuracy and peak flow capacity, were installed

By reducing the reading errors of index readers, since readings are now remotely done within the project

By increasing customer satisfaction levels — since high consumption customers are now able to monitor their consumption hourly, daily, monthly and yearly on the web portal that is customized for them. This in fact enables these customers to do their production planning more efficiently

Training, Training, Training! As always the biggest ‘must’ of any project.

Says ISU general manager, Ilhan Bayram: “We provide services to more than 645,000 customers. We have approximately 1,400 customers that we call high consumption customers which consume more than 500 m3 water monthly. Even though the number of high consumption customers equate to a small portion of our total customers; we generate approximately 35% of our revenue from those customers. In other words, they are mostly industrial organizations which are VIP customers for us.

Since we generate so much revenue from these customers, we have launched a project with the thoughts that we should provide reliable, really sustainable, really high-class service to these customers. Since the project implementation, we have gained substantial benefit from the system. We have been able to get the system under instant control.

We have the plan to expand the project gradually both to the public institutions and different types of customers.”

Expansion of the project:Given the benefits that have already been derived from the project, ISU has announced the expansion of the project to 3,000 customers, with the additional rollout due for completion in 2019.

Figure 1: Breakdown of ISU revenue and the number of customers within the utility’s region.

SMART WATER

The most significant benefit derived from the project was the increase in

revenue by $8,620,000”

www.manas.com.tr

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Itron Riva: Dynamic distributed intelligence

INNOVATION

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Itron Riva is the first-of-its-kind distributed intelligence platform that supports sensing technologies and dynamic applications at the device level. This game-changing technology builds on the power of Cisco’s open standards IPv6 network and IOx fog computing platform. Itron Riva delivers distributed computing power, control and analytics for automated decision-making at the edge of the network. It also offers adaptive communications, which dynamically determines the best network path, including RF or PLC to optimise communications. By bringing intelligence to field devices, Itron is helping create a breakthrough sensing ecosystem to enable

growth in global markets ranging from smart grid to the Internet of Things (IoT).

The Itron Riva edge intelligence platform enables easy integration of third-party devices, creating numerous possibilities for realising the promise of the IoT to empower smarter utilities and smarter cities worldwide. Itron Riva also embeds an operating system and processor into field devices and sensors, enabling real-time decision-making at the device level. Action at the edge reduces network traffic, eases the burden of transmitting high volumes of data back to the utility for analysis and minimizes human intervention to perform tasks that can now be automated.

Itron launched the Itron Riva Developers Community, inviting developers to create applications for its platform. With the developer’s community, Itron is accelerating app software development for the Itron Riva platform, further enabling an ecosystem of Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The Itron Riva Developers Community offers developers the tools to prototype, validate and develop turnkey IoT applications. These applications could cover various IoT verticals, such as energy and water management, building energy management, smart street lighting and solar monitoring. The applications will run on interconnected devices, which could include parking meters, appliances, streetlights, sensors and more.

The Itron Riva edge intelligence platform enables easy integration of third-party devices, creating numerous possibilities for realizing the promise of

the IoT to empower smarter utilities and smarter cities worldwide”

Itron launched the Itron Riva Developers Community, inviting developers to create applications for its

Itron Riva platform”

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Plug and play hardware enables cost -effective energy monitoring

Data analytics is increasingly penetrating all domains, including the smart home market. The large presence of data today, combined with increasing processing power built into devices and significant improvements in analytical skills, techniques and algorithms, have made it possible to more effectively deploy the underlying power of data.

Connecting appliances enables the collection of a wide range of data, which enables energy monitoring and improved energy efficiency, enhanced comfort and even increased peace of mind. It can also help manufacturers to learn more about the use of their appliances and gain insight in operating characteristics. However, without proper context, raw data alone will rarely prove meaningful. A prerequisite for interpreting and using data is knowing which appliance has been connected. Without this basic but essential information, data becomes rather useless.

INNOVATION

Connecting appliances enables the collection of a wide range of data, which enables energy monitoring and improved energy efficiency”

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The large presence of data today, combined with increasing processing power built into devices and significant improvements in analytical skills,

techniques and algorythms, have made it possible to more effectively deploy the underlying power of data”

Rising energy costs, stricter energy legislation and the goal of reducing energy consumption by 20% in 2020 has increased the need for insight into how energy is consumed.

One of the most publicised measures is the large-scale rollout of smart meters across a number of regions globally. The smart meter is a new generation of digital meters that will replace the current, traditional meters. But the smart meter is only really smart, if you are able to read it in real-time.

SMART METER DONGLE

Enter the fifthplay Smart Meter dongle.This plug and play low-entry device gives consumers real-time insight into electricity, gas and water usage to the second. Easy connection of the device to the P1 port of any smart meter and all measurement data will be transferred wirelessly to the fifthplay platform. The platform analyses the data and abnormal usage is automatically detected.

The application enables real-time analysis and comparison of energy

usage against both current and historical data.

Key features

Measures electricity, gas and water

Easy installation, plug and play Connected to standard home

Wi-Fi network Powered by Smart Meter Real-time insight DSMR compliant

Experience shows that more than 50% of smart plug users expect automatic appliance identification when an appliance is connected. Moreover, when they switch the plug to another appliance, this information should be automatically updated.

Automatic appliance detection enables analysis of each appliance’s characteristic energy consumption pattern. Fifthplay has developed intelligent software which analyzes the energy usage of the connected appliance and compares it with predefined models and algorithms. The algorithm is able to learn and

AUTOMATIC APPLIANCE IDENTIFICATIONwill, after a short learning period, automatically identify the connected appliance group. Ten differenct appliance groups can be identified: multimedia, white goods, oven, refrigerator, airconditioning, lamps and lights, coffee machines, office equipment, internet routers and pumps. However, the self-learning ability of the software allows it to ameliorate each group with the goal of identifing individual appliances over time.

These mining algorithms and models are based on real life user data and reliability is therefore extremely high.

Key features

Plug and play Automatic identification – no

pre-configuration needed Compatible with the fifthplay

smart plug and DIN rail module

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015DATA ANALYTICS

With severe water shortage conditions threatening many parts of the world, more and more water utilities are adopting a smart meter system, which will help reduce cost, manage meter readings and increase efficient utilisation of the resource. However, the cost of such systems can be prohibitive, which is why the water industry lags far behind the electric power industry in the number of smart meters currently deployed and used.

Most water utilities can’t afford to build private wireless networks or data centres filled with servers and sophisticated analytical software. At the same time, vendors of smart metering solutions for the water industry are faced with the technical challenges of transmitting data from the meter point to the utility, and then working through the data to gain meaningful insights.

Transparent Technologies (T2) in Colorado, US, overcame these obstacles by devising a smarter smart meter solution. Working with Verizon Wireless to utilise the existing cellular network and using Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform for meter data management and analysis, T2 was able to eliminate the major capital outlays faced by water utilities in setting up smart meter systems.

Launched in June 2014, the T2 Virtual Network solution is deployed across 150 utilities within the US as customers, including water utilities for Cooper City, Florida, and Long Beach, California.

Utilities install the T2 Innov8-VN electronic registers – “the brains of the T2 smart meters” into existing or new meters. These devices gather water usage data from the meter and send it back to the utility via the Azure cloud. Azure is a suite of cloud services, from virtual servers and networks

to sophisticated big-data analysis capabilities to programming tools, that obviates the need for substantial investments in data centres or IT staff.

For each utility, T2 sets up a highly secure, customised data collection infrastructure in Azure, which takes a couple of hours. Once the Innov8-VN registers are installed, the utility starts collecting data, yielding a smart meter programme start-up time measured in days rather than years. Multiple Azure services receive, validate, authenticate, process, store, and secure all incoming meter data, and communicate via the Verizon Wireless network. Portals are created for each utility and its end customers where both groups can view water consumption data. The utilities have access to a more comprehensive portal that includes additional reports, a billing interface, system status, and individual account access.

A low-cost path for utilities

The T2 Virtual Network solution gives water utilities a quick and painless path to smart metering. Benefits include:

No infrastructure to manage. Utilities have no need to budget for servers, environmental controls, relational databases, backups, upgrades, or other on-premises IT administration.

More accurate and consistent billing. The virtual network fills any data holes automatically, which eliminates billing estimates, and it lets utilities arrange to have all accounts billed on the same date. This makes monthly billing much simpler.

Improved ability to influence consumption behaviour. When they can give consumers detailed insight into their water consumption, utilities

open a channel to encourage mindful usage. Utility customers have been able to identify continuous leaks and have also learned new patterns of intermittent leaks and usage events previously missed or misunderstood. Utilities are now implementing end-consumer programs to promote consumer interaction with water usage data.

A notification engine currently in development will send consumers email or text-message alerts to let them know about abnormal consumption patterns such as high usage, zero usage, and different types of water leaks.

Deep water-usage insights. The virtual network system offers utilities a variety of reports on all accounts or specific groups of accounts –showing aggregated consumption, for example, or consumption in a specific neighbourhood or apartment complex. The system can also identify continuous water usage, which usually indicates a leak, and it can enforce mandatory or voluntary water restrictions by monitoring regular high-usage patterns on residential accounts. Zero usage is monitored too, as it may indicate a change in resident, a seasonal vacancy, or water theft.

Big-data analytics. Taking advantage of the big-data analytics software and processing power available in Azure HDInsight, T2 offers sophisticated analytics to help utilities identify revenue-sapping water loss across the system, peak usage periods (to create pricing structures), seasonal usage (to aid in long-term planning), aggregated consumption totals (to build forecasts), annual consumption statistics and flow rate analysis (to assist with maintenance planning), and much more.

Data analytics

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Time-to-market cut in halfTransparent Technologies not only runs the Virtual Network mobile data management system in Azure, but the company also developed its solution (and the Innov8 smart meter) using the platform. The rich suite of Azure services and their ready availability speeded up T2’s production process.

About a year into developing its Virtual Network, T2 brought in Saviant Consulting, an India-based member of the Microsoft Partner Network with expertise in Azure, to help with the project. “Because Azure provides an integrated development environment with ready access to servers, networks, software, and development tools, it reduces development time by about 50 percent,” says Sujit Karpe, Chief Technology Officer at Saviant. “That’s a phenomenal acceleration.”

Scalability to Internet of Things level“When we started using Azure Storage, for example, it had a limit of 100 terabytes, but now it’s up to 500 terabytes,” says Karpe. “In our experience, Azure is far more scalable than other cloud platforms, and it’s getting more robust all the time.”

By creating a data management system that integrates smart meters, business software, and a cellular network on a cloud platform, T2 has created an Internet of Things environment that helps utilities monitor assets to drive efficiencies. And by taking advantage of Azure scale and flexibility, T2 can easily handle a projected 300 percent annual growth rate that includes hundreds of terabytes of data, an ever-growing array of smart meters, and virtually any data source.

“A city with 500,000 water meters will generate about 15 million records per month, or 180 million records a year,” Shamley says. “There’s no way that a traditional data centre environment could handle that kind of volume. Only a global cloud provider like Microsoft has the economies of scale to accommodate the billions or trillions of data records that come with an Internet of Things application like meter reading.”

Submitted by: Anubhav Dwivedi, CEO, Saviant ConsultingProject leader: Mark Shamley, VP operations, Transparent Technologies

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Lusaka Water and Sewerage Company (LWSC) has rolled out more than 15,000 prepaid meters under the first phase of a project to improve water management, support increasing demand, meet the needs of the end user efficiently and extend service coverage. The prepaid meter, provided by Utility Systems a, South African company, includes the implementation of bulk prepaid meters in government institutions in Zambia.

In sub-Saharan Africa, a severely water-stressed region, smart water metering can go a long way to ensuring residents have access to water and that the water utility recovers as much revenue as possible.

The Utility Systems metering system enables households to purchase prepaid water using standard transfer specification (STS) tokens bought through a variety of outlets, while ‘smart’ two-way communication and control of the meter gives Lusaka Water the ability to set restrictions on consumption during drought.

With the application of the bulk prepaid product (bulk WMD) in government institutions, LWSC has been able to curb wastage and improve revenue collection significantly. This is helping to reverse a situation where government arrears accounted for the bulk of the utility’s turnover. These have been successfully implemented by LWSC to reduce

wastage and claw back lost revenue. LWSC now has a collection ratio of 120% and it is clearing arrears.

According to Topsy Sikalinda, LWSC public relations officer, “it has helped curb wastage. There was a lot of careless use of water before. Leaks were not addressed, but now water has become everybody’s business. All the government institutions are paying up and have become responsible.”

Sikalinda explained that in addition to reducing areas in payments, the new system was forcing government departments to rethink consumption.

“The reduced consumption in government entities has freed up capacity for under-served areas,” he reported.

“Together with leak and tamper control, the prepaid water meters improved revenue collection and reduced non-revenue water,” explains Peter Rodseth, managing director of Utility Systems.

Stage 2 of the rollout will provide almost 40,000 Zambian households with prepaid water meters including flow control, enabling the utility to restrict usage where necessary.

Innovation sees Zambian water utility

The Bulk WMD from Utility Systems has seen the control unit from the revolutionary WMD integrated into larger valves.

manage water better, clear arrears and curb wastage...

EMERGING MARKETSThe Global Smart Energy Elites 2015

Together with leak and tamper control, the

prepaid water meters improved revenue

collection and reduced non-revenue water”

+373 22 930 012 [email protected] Metering Infrastructure

+373 22 930 015 www.addgrup.com

mailto:[email protected]

www.addgrup.com

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The deployment of 120,000 ADDAX meters in Latvia has successfully enhanced data security and driven highly reliable, future-proof AMI communications. The positive impact on utility operations, as well as customer acceptance, confirms the effectiveness of the project.

A preliminary pilot deployment of an end-to-end smart metering solution covered eight substations and 932 meters, eight data concentrators and AMI software SIMS.

Security and reliability of AMI in Latvia

The pilot analysed the LV grid, network topology, specific features of transformer substations and distances. In addition, it prepared AS Sadales tīkls staff for the mass rollout and autonomous management of project business processes.

AS Sadales tīkls chose eight substations featuring four different environments:

High density urban area with partial coverage;

Urban area with complete coverage

Rural area Mixed area consisting of private

houses (within metropolitan area).

Ilvars Pētersons, Chief Customer Officer at Sadales tīkls AS, points out: “Looking at the opportunities and benefits offered by smart electricity meters, Sadales tīkls AS, just like other distribution system operators in Europe, modernizes its electricity network by automating processes, employing innovative technical solutions and introducing smart network elements,

EMERGING MARKETS

37


including smart meters. Development of a smart electricity network is important for the growth of Latvia’s economy, since a modern and innovative power network increases the reliability of electricity supply and the quality of services and also promotes technological and industrial development of the industry, making the country more competitive.”

Enhanced security for smart meteringAS Sadales tīkls needed highly secure AMI communication to ensure that customer data remains safe in order to comply with EU regulations and national data protection legislation. The issue of compliance to high security

regulatory requirements is a high priority for European DSOs. Additionally, smart meter data needs to be protected because customer privacy is of the utmost importance. Inappropriate or unauthorized processing of personal data can damage the reputation of AS Sadales tīkls and have legal repercussions. The final driver for AS Sadales tīkls implementing secure AMI communications is an imperative to protect its infrastructure from cyberattacks and technological risks.

Working with ADD GRUP, who in turn partnered with Thales, a world leader in critical information systems and cybersecurity, AS Sadales tīkls has realised all the objectives initially set out for the project.

To fulfil the security requirements, ADD chose Thales’s keyAuthority to manage keys for its SIMS (head-end system) product. Given that the key management solution is hardware-based, it offers the highest level of security by delivering keys to meters and data concentrators, ensuring a full lifecycle key management, and assures strong authentication capabilities. keyAuthority also provides important functionality for key management including secure storage, key generation and high availability, enabled by replication of security materials between several hardware instances.

Multiple interoperable protocols for maximum reliability over PLC

What is special about the AMI communication system in Latvia is the use of PRIME, G3-PLC and LTE (4G) technology on the same meter platform. The meters deployed to Latvia have multiple PLC technologies. The utility can switch between PRIME and G3-PLC protocols, with the option of using S-FSK technology. By having so many interoperable communication options, the utility is

guaranteed to have the highest possible data collection performance.

Future proof 4G communication, when timely response is critical

The implementation of future-proof 4G LTE achieved two goals: to permanently service large customers and to mitigate any PLC issues to ensure top performance. In case a particular meter had insufficient performance on PLC, the network operator could easily include a cellular module.

To mitigate the risk that the 4G signal could be weak, the module was designed to automatically change over to 3G or 2G (whichever is most powerful), to improve the stability of communication with the centre.

The smart meters enable the following smart grid applications:

Integration with the dispatch control system for faster detecting and repair of damage in the system

Development of distributed generation Incorporation and use of electric cars Access to new suppliers: users can

now purchase power from the Nordic power pool

The smart meter implementation enables innovative services and allows electricity suppliers/traders to propose more flexible and innovative offers.

Since the implementation, customers have paid more attention to the amount of energy they consume. As a result, there has been more disciplined energy consumption in households, as consumers now understand which appliances use the most energy. The results of pilot projects implemented so far demonstrate that the availability of detailed information can reduce electricity consumption by 10% and more.

Submitted by: Nicole Tarlapan, marketing manager, ADD GrupProject leaders: Maxim Granatiri, head of innovative technology implementation, ADD Grup

What is special about the AMI communication system in Latvia is the use of PRIME, G3-PLC and

LTE (4G) technology on the same meter platform.”

Security and reliability of AMI in Latvia

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The Global Smart Energy Elites 2015DEMAND RESPONSE

Located on the left bank of the Scheldt River in the port of Antwerp, a new wind farm of 34 wind turbines is being installed. Developed by Antwerp Port Authority and the Left Bank Development Corporation, the project is making use of an OT-based solution in order to facilitate active network management (ANM). ANM enables the real-time control of production and consumption of power, with the goal of optimizing grid infrastructure use.

The goal is to maximally exploit time-varying grid constraints through real-time line rating (RLR), advanced wind power forecasting, and demand-side management (DSM) optimization algorithms using both RLR and wind forecast as inputs.

Antwerp active

By opting for this solution, more renewables can be connected to the distribution network close to the consumers, meaning fewer network losses and ensuring that even in a degraded network state, the renewables are allowed to produce, depending on the local load situation.

The benefits are to be found in three categories:

Green benefits:

The possibility of injecting green energy into the network is optimised. Even during degraded network situations, the ANM systems make it possible to inject the maximum amount of green energy

into the grid owing to the very large capacity of the network.

Financial benefits:

The optimised use of the existing network infrastructure lowers the investment costs. As the wind turbines can be installed earlier, the farm owners are able to start earning sooner.

Thanks to the ANM systems, the wind park is also able to offer ancillary services to the network. This is primarily reactive energy regulation as modern wind turbines are able to do VAR control without efficiency losses.

Energy efficiency benefits:

As most of the wind turbines are installed on the existing cables of industrial consumers, the renewable energy produced is mostly consumed locally. This results in lower losses, and also enables local consumers to further optimise this with the demand response signals provided to them.

Implemented solution:The active network management solution is a fully-automated solution, including:

An ICCP link between the distribution network operator and

wind farm control

39


Antwerp activewind farm control

the transmission network operator for, firstly, congestion in the transmission network and, secondly, for voltage support through reactive power management;

An IEC-104 link between the newly-installed distribution management system (DMS) and the local controllers of the wind turbines and the load management system. This is implemented in a secure way, including firewalls and the corresponding NATs (network address translations) and DMZs (demilitarised zones);

A link with the provider of the wind forecasts; and

A private external website to send information about the active network management system to the wind turbine owner.

Extrapolation steps:

The automation programmes developed during this project will be made available to the other distribution management system clients in the next upgrade;

Internally, the distribution network operator is building an organisation allowing it to integrate this kind of active network management schemes into its ‘business as usual’ processes.

The automation programmes developed during this project will be made available to the other distribution management system

clients in the next upgrade”

Submitted by: Prof. Dr. Ronnie Belmans, CEO, EnergyVille; Executive Director, Global Smart Grids Federation Project leaders: Patrick Reyniers, Programme Manager Smart Grids and Lieven Degroote, Project Manager, Eandis

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Enel Distribuzione, Italy’s main DSO and part of Enel Group, has been appointed to create the electrical grid infrastructure at EXPO 2015, the universal exposition hosted in Milan between May 2015 and October 2015, serving the needs of the more than 20 million visitors expected at this year’s fair.

The EXPO 2015 theme is “Feeding the Planet”, with particular reference to

sustainability of food production and security of food supply for the entire planet. Sustainability is therefore at the core of this year’s fair, as all stakeholders have been requested to drive their engagement with sustainability as a key asset.

At a greenfield unused site, Enel Distribuzione has designed and implemented critical infrastructure,

leveraging state-of-the-art smart grids technology and serving roads, buildings, pavilions, services, restaurants and theatres.

Enel Distribuzione, serving as the smart energy partner of EXPO 2015, has implemented fully automated and cutting-edge smart infrastructure for the distribution of electricity operated through a dedicated monitoring and control centre.

EXPO 2015 showcasesEnel Distribuzione energy management

Submitted by: Dr. Robert Denda, head of global infrastructure and networks – network technologies, ENEL Project manager: Marina Lombardi, head of new technologies and innovation projects – network technologies Italy, ENEL Distribuzione

DEMAND RESPONSE

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Amongst the key metrics of this unique project:

75 MW of power delivered 100 secondary substations for

power delivery to national pavilions with smart sensors and full grid automation

EV charging infrastructure provided through more than 50 Enel charging stations

Active Energy Management

Active energy management enables the integration, management and control of metering, electric appliances and devices, facilitating easier and automatic usage of electric facilities where and when needed, managing energy consumption in real time.

Smart Metering integration with smart management of lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) sensitive to the presence of people, temperature and natural light, allows the efficient usage of energy and includes:

Controlled loads through the use of tools to either power-off/on or modulate requested power of the appliance in each pavilion;

Update information and data about the energy usage of the main controlled loads; Active management of the energy produced from the pavilion’s renewable energy

sources, thus achieving a truly CO2 neutral pavilion.

Electrical storage for energy flow management deployed at Palazzo Italia, the Italian pavilion

Smart grid monitoring and control centre

Customer showroom for of Enel smart grid technology

Smart metering Real-time energy management system

(EMS) for completely automated rule-based active demand control of the pavilions and LED lighting.

Enel’s effort for the smart city expo project has produced an offer including active energy management and smart E-mobility.

The former delivers an energy management service for pavilion managers, building on top of Enel’s smart metering and smart info flagship technology and technology providers’ building automation products, promoting energy efficiency during the EXPO 2015 operation.

Energy management is delivered through Enel’s EMS system, the new innovative real-time IT platform designed by Enel to enable energy efficiency services to be provided to final customers, leveraging on completely automated rule-based demand response control.

As part of an energy management service, the public lighting solution provided by Enel is based on the latest LED technology. All the lamps are remotely monitored and controlled through the Archilede Active Control system, the new infrastructure designed and developed by Enel to make available to municipalities a unique solution to increase public lighting efficiency and to enable capillary value added services.

The latter, smart E-mobility, provides an example of Enel’s engagement in promoting sustainable transportation. EV drivers can move through the expo grounds and receive information regarding the sustainability of their trip and how many charging stations are available or occupied in the surroundings.

All these IT platforms are integrated to provide a single cloud-based multi-tenant solution effectively controlling over 1,000 sensors and actuators at the expo, enabling fully automated demand response.

The technologies designed, developed and deployed by Enel for the Expo 2015 provide an unequalled fully-operational grid with automatic and real-time demand-response solutions for a mid-size smart city environment.

As part of an energy management service, the public lighting solution provided by Enel is based on the latest LED technology and all the lamps

are remotely monitored and controlled through the Archilede Active Control system”

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BC Hydro and theBenefits of AMI

Today’s utility environment is complicated, with increasing demand for affordable and clean energy, continual resource constraints and aging infrastructure. Many leaders in the industry are looking to optimize and streamline operations to decrease costs while providing top-notch service and value to end-users. Through the adoption of smart grid technology, including a network that brings together smart meters, grid management devices, communication networks and data management and analysis, utility leaders can leverage two-way communication down to the meter and better achieve

these goals. BC Hydro, the primary electric utility in British Columbia, is a prime example of the benefits achieved by a utility adopting and deploying a full IP-based smart grid system.

BC Hydro, a Crown corporation owned by the Province of British Columbia, serves 4 million customers with 1.9 million meters over an area of 850,000 square kilometers – approximately 95% of the province. Following a decade of research examining solutions for better meter management, electricity theft detection

and customer conservation tools, BC Hydro designed a smart metering program to modernize its energy system infrastructure. The program’s purpose was to make BC Hydro’s grid more reliable, increase public and employee safety, reduce energy theft and provide savings to help keep rates low while continuing to invest in the system.

As the program was developed, BC Hydro identified additional operational and end-user benefits from transitioning to a wireless smart metering system, including outage detection, reduced line losses and improved customer service. In early 2011, BC Hydro released the Smart Metering Program business case, which showed a positive net return over 20 years. The business case established a clear baseline for key business activities and included comprehensive details about the program’s operational and end-user benefits.

When the smart metering program launched in 2011, BC Hydro had an aggressive 18 month legislated deadline to complete meter installations. They were successful and installed the vast majority of the 1.9 million meters during the 18 month timeframe, implementing the fastest smart grid rollout in North America to date.

SPONSOR’S PROJECT CHOICE

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As the program was developed, BC Hydro identified additional operational and end-user benefits from transitioning to a wireless smart metering system, including outage detection, reduced line losses and

improved customer service”

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Since the adoption of its ambitious smart grid project, BC Hydro has realized

numerous benefits”

Foundational to the program is the Itron OpenWay® smart grid solution, including Itron smart meters communicating over a multi-application communication network powered by Cisco. The system, including a network based on IPv6 architecture standard and meter data management software, provides BC Hydro with a cost-effective, end-to-end solution. The system supports not only smart metering, but other grid applications and devices that can plug and play on the same network.

In 2015, following the successful installation of the network infrastructure to connect the meters, BC Hydro completed the transition from Itron’s RF Mesh smart meter architecture to the standards-based IPv6 smart grid network, making it one of the first utilities in North America to deploy a full IP-based network at scale. The IPv6 network standardizes the way that grid devices connect and integrate with applications, accelerating the development of other smart grid technologies and creating additional avenues for BC Hydro to support critical smart grid use cases.

Since the adoption of its ambitious smart grid project, BC Hydro has realized numerous benefits. These include cost-saving operational benefits such as integrating energy balancing and theft detection solutions, power outage and restoration notifications as well as analysis of smart grid data for business intelligence. Additionally, over 95% of BC Hydro customers are now using smart meters and have converted to automated billing, which allows BC Hydro to collect and provide interval data to customers to help them understand how they can save energy and money. More specifically, customers can engage through the use

of the MyHydro web portal, providing customers their electricity use interval data, and through the Home Energy Monitoring device, a home area network-enabled near real-time feedback device.

The increased performance and stability of the network also provides BC Hydro with the ability to download new firmware to its Cisco Connected Grid Routers (CGR) and smart meters with minimal human intervention, allowing BC Hydro to keep up to date without affecting operational costs.

Since the full deployment of the IPv6 network infrastructure, BC Hydro is moving forward with plans to cultivate additional benefits including value-added applications such as distribution sensing and automation, additional customer engagement applications and other initiatives in support of the smart grid. With the new system, BC Hydro can also support and accommodate new sources of clean, renewable energy such as solar and wind.

Of note, BC Hydro is reviewing results from early field trials for streetlight management applications on the same network as its smart meters that could help to improve energy efficiency capabilities in its service territory. This demonstrates the versatility of the IPv6 network to support multiple applications and the assistance it provides to utilities in adoption and development of additional smart grid technologies. Additionally, through the deployment of an IPv6 network, BC Hydro is able to further propel its smart grid efforts, integrating multiple technologies over the network into the future.

BC Hydro has set an example for utilities around the world on utilizing smart grid technology to deliver operational efficiencies and enhanced service in addition to automated meter reading, providing savings for both the utility and its customers.

SPONSOR’S PROJECT CHOICE

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www.itron.com/openwayriva

INDUSTRY PROFILE

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Dr. Ronnie Belmans is deeply ingrained in the Smart Grid arena. As a full professor at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium where he teaches electric power and energy systems, co-founder of the KU Leuven Energy Institute of the European Energy Institute, and executive director of the Global Smart Grid Federation, he is recognized as a leading authority on smart grid.

Ronnie Belmans Professor, KU Leuven, Belgium | CEO, EnergyVille | Executive Director, Global Smart Grid Federation

How did you get involved in the energy sector and in ‘smart energy’ particularly?

My working career and academic pursuits have centred around energy – an industry which I have been active in for more than 30 years, beginning as a university professor at KU Leuven university – a position I still hold today.

Outside academic circles, I have held various roles including chairman of the board of Elia, Belgium’s electricity transmission system operator and chairman of the European Technology Platform for Smart Grids (ETP SmartGrids). I am also currently the Executive Director of the Global Smart Grid Federation (GSGF) and CEO of Belgium-based smart energy research centre, EnergyVille.

I have played an active role in the smart grid sector particularly, since its inception around 10 years ago. I was part of an early group that suggested the electric grid get “more involved in ICT”. From my point of view, one of the single most important factors is to convert ‘passive customers’ in active customers through engagement and empowerment of them – assisting them to managing their energy better.

What project have you worked on that best defines smart energy for you, and that is an example of the possibilities smart energy could realise

We [EnergyVille] and its industrial partners have completed a 40 million Euro Active Demand Side Management project which investigated new ways to improve energy flexibility by consumers. The LINEAR project which began six years

ago, studied ways in which households can tailor their electricity consumption to the amount of solar and wind energy available, both in terms of technology and user interaction.

It was a government sponsored project (25%) and 75% came from companies that joined the project – including grid operators to ICT companies.

The Linear project finished in March this year and revealed some very interesting trends. For instance, when customers are confronted with time-varying prices (other than simple day-night tariffs) they can shift their consumption significantly, but only if the device can be programmed in advance. The largest cost savings for the consumers were found with domestic hot water buffers. Already during the research stage, several products were developed and/or perfected by our industry partners. Also, several prototypes were developed which are now being finalised and launched on the market.

Where do you see room for more growth in the sector, and what opportunities are not being exploited sufficiently?

Decentralisation – Products and services offered by manufacturers and utilities alike are driven too much from the approach of “I know what the customer wants”.

This is where utility companies can learn from telecommunications providers. Rather than assuming the needs of its customers, utility companies need to listen to what its customers want, act and structure innovation and its deployment around customer requirements.

Outside academic circles, I have

held various roles including chairman of the board of Elia, Belgium’s electricity transmission system operator and chairman of the European Technology Platform for Smart Grids (ETP SmartGrids)”

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Too often utilities implement certain technologies – and the benefit is one sided – so that the utility can operate their grid better.

Why not install the appropriate grid-connected technology to operate the grid and communicate with customers via apps, let them control the systems in their home.

What is standing in the way of some of these growth opportunities being realised?

Defensive regulation – regulators and governments are too preoccupied with

and decide on the required regulation. Now, technology is blocked by regulation that has to be changed step by step – this all takes time to get the system going.

What are your top 3 predictions for the smart energy sector for the next 24 months?

Links between different grids – links between heat distribution and electricity distribution grids

Popping up of bigger storage units in commercial buildings – these will be planned into the design of buildings and installations.

integrated. There will be a move toward utilities being a ‘one-stop-shop’ for household services – eg. one bill for all services including electricity, water and sewerage.

From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges facing utilities today?

Change management – Apart from its customer base, utilities also need to educate and train their human resources in line with the utilities forward-looking strategies. Utility companies need a supportive and capable team to be able to carry out utility modernisation plans.

As utilities move to a more decentralised and deregulated model, utilities need to manage several relationships with new players and aggregators’ entering the market. Eg. Utilities need to work in conjunction with telco’s and wireless connectivity providers to enable communication platforms for Internet of Things applications.

What do you see being the new technology or software that will be the next step in the smart energy revolution/evolution?

There will be a move away from 50/ 60 Hertz frequency geared for the masses to systems which are set to a certain point. Direct Current technology solutions will be more prominent in the home as homeowners seek greater control over their energy use. There will also be an increase in local generation and local grids.

trying to figure out what the customer can do and cannot do – rather than providing a framework within which technology can work. Governments are now being advised to adopt regulation free zone practices – a zone where the normal market rules are not needed and regulation is not enforced. Under regulation free market rules, an authoritative institution like EnergyVille is able to evaluate which innovations are technically and economically sound

Many new products for the control of energy in the home

What do you think the utility of the future will look like? Is there any truth in the rumours of the demise of the utility?

While utilities in Europe are moving toward a deregulation utility model as is the case in Japan, utilities in other parts of the world will remain vertically

Too often utilities implement certain technologies – and the benefit is one sided – so that the utility can operate their grid better”

There will be a move toward utilities being a ‘one-stop-shop’ for

household services”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

48


Paul Budde is the Managing Director of BuddeComm, a global research and consultancy company covering telecommunication, the digital and sharing economy, smart grids, smart cities, e-health and e-education. He is also the Founder of Smart Grid Australia, co-founder of the Global Smart Grid Federation and co-initiator of the UN Broadband Commission for Digital Development.

Paul Budde Managing Director, BuddeComm


In 2001 I established UtiliTel bringing together the majority of Australian electricity distribution companies to discuss the opportunities that existed for utilities using their infrastructure for the purposes of telecommunications.

This took place when the national incumbent telecoms monopoly Telstra was at its high point. It was refusing to build new national broadband networks and was demanding exorbitantly high transmission charges.

With the telecoms market becoming more competitive, opportunities in the industry had slowed. At the same time, in 2006/2007, climate change, carbon emissions and energy efficiency became hot topics with the focus shifting from looking at communications simply as a new business opportunity, to a critical aspect to the internal operations of DSOs. UtiliTel was subsequently changed to Smart Grid Australia (SGA) in 2008.

We decided to open up this new industry alliance to the broader industry (vendors, ICT companies, renewable industry, R&D organisations and so on – in all some 50 organisations are now part of SGA).

In the same year we also established the Global Smart Grid Federation (GSGF) of which I am a founding member.

During 2006/2007 I fought hard to get smart grids included in the Council

of Australian Governments (COAG) discussion held by the energy ministers following severe electricity outages in Victoria and South Australia. This discussion focussed on smart meters, but I argued that smart meters were only a part of the solution and that the government should take a much broader view of the electricity grid. Smart grids would be able to deliver a far greater range of smart energy benefits to the country, the industry and the consumers. This also was the message that the GSGF was sending out to governments around the globe.

What project have you worked on that best defines smart energy for you, and that is an example of the possibilities smart energy could realise?

In 2009, SGA was called upon by the Prime Minister to incorporate a broad outline of its ideas around smart energy into a proposal for the federal government to consider.

This request developed into the “Smart Grid, Smart City project”.

Linked to this plan was the government’s decision to base the rollout of a national smart grid on the outcomes of this three-year project. The project took the broadest possible view in relation to smart energy: renewables, electric vehicles, consumer devices, the grid itself. It was also stipulated that, since a smart grid would require a national broadband connection, the project should look at the roll out of the National broadband network in Australia (NBN) to establish if there was synergy between the two projects and align developments where possible.

In 2001 I established

UtiliTel bringing together the majority of Australian electricity distribution companies to discuss the opportunities that existed for utilities using their infrastructure for the purposes of telecommunications”

49



In Australia, the change in government in 2013 saw an end to the Smart Grid, Smart City project and all the elements that had been developed within the project were not followed up. As a consequence there was no longer any incentive for the industry to make further investments in these areas. Confusion around policies and the lack of regulatory leadership meant that the industry currently is more or less muddling along. There is progress, but efforts are not based on a national vision.

Given the lack of political leadership, I am shifting my focus from the federal government to local council leadership. The notion of smart cities is gaining traction and sustainability is a key issue within this concept. This of course, is linked to energy issues. We now see cities taking a leadership role.


Lack of political leadership and an inability of regulators to step in.

A risk-averse industry is one that will be unable to grab the new opportunities that are becoming available within an increasingly disruptive environment.


Innovations and major changes will be coming from outside the traditional energy industry and will be driven by companies active in the digital economy and consumers.

Continual lack of national political leadership will force the industry to step up their role in new developments. In some cases, state governments will show more leadership as well.

Smart energy developments will be community/city-driven, with developments such as microgrids, community storage, solar and wind farms LED street lighting.


If the industry takes leadership, changes business models and starts developing new products and services for consumers, communities and cities, they can drive new innovations and chase the new opportunities.

If they don’t take leadership, the development of smart buildings, smart homes, smart communities and smart cities will happen regardless and the new opportunities will largely bypass the industry.

It is highly unlikely that we will have a totally decentralised energy environment – in which case, given the absence of leadership, the industry will become the ‘dumb pipe’ operators (wholesale providers to the innovators and those developing new energy business models).


In reality utilities face an uphill battle. Large investments are needed in new business models based on new and innovative technological developments (renewable, batteries, micro-grids, smart cities, etc) while at the same times revenues declining. The natural tendency is to then cave in, protect the incumbent business, and try and stop changes which undermine their old business model.

As the energy industry is a heavily regulated one (for both state-owned enterprises and private companies) there is a heavy reliance on government policies and regulations. A lack of vision and leadership from government will have a detrimental effect on the industry.

Disruptive (often unexpected) developments from outside the industry, based on innovations coming from companies operating in the digital/sharing/networking economy, can result in rapid changes that cannot be controlled by the industry or by governments.


Customers pushing the industry out of the driver’s seat. With an increase in energy prices customers have become energy-aware and are now driving energy savings. They will look for applications (services) and devices (hardware) that will assist them in this.

In Australia, the change in government in 2013 saw an end to the Smart Grid, Smart City project and all the elements that had been developed

within the project were not followed up”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

50


Maher Chebbo General Manager, Energy & Natural Resources Sector for Europe, Middle East and Africa, SAP| President, European Smart Energy Association (ESMIG) |Chairman, Demand Group and Digital Transformation at the Smart Grids European Technology Platform

Dr. Maher Chebbo joined SAP in 1996 where he co-founded its Corporate In-Venturing Unit (SAP INSPIRE) in 2003 and where he held various responsibilities as a Regional Business Unit Manager and Director of Innovation. Maher co-founded a German Renewable start-up and before joining SAP, led the Power & Communication industries at Capgemini for 6 years. He is currently the General Manager for the Energy & Natural Resources Sector for EMEA at SAP.


My career in energy began in the 90’s gaining experience through various roles in the French power sector including research, national energy planning and forecasting, LV customers load predictions modelling, HV network real time dispatching, nuclear cooling models, access security and radiation measurement and customer care and billing. I also led the Power and Communication industries at global consulting firm, Capgemini for 6 years.

My career in smart energy progressed when I joined SAP in 1996, where I co-found its corporate in-venturing unit “SAP INSPIRE” in 2003, a corporate accelerated innovation group based in Palo Alto, California and Walldorf, Germany dedicated to seeking intrapreneurship talents as well as innovative start-ups enabling the growth opportunities in line with the Strategic investments and vision of SAP.

The group manages the full innovation process from idea generation to commercialisation and incorporation into business.

In 2004, I co-founded a German Renewable start-up (Ergion Gmbh) providing micro-generation power for households from combined solar energy and waste heat or small scale combustion, a company still active in the market.

In 2005, I was one of the co-founders of the SmartGrids initiative through the set-up of the ETP SmartGrids supported

by the European Commission. Later on, I joined the executive committee of the EEGI (European Electricity Grid Initiative), the steering committee of the Task Force SmartGrids, co-chaired the EU ICT Consultation group for Energy Efficiency.

More recently, in 2014, I was nominated President of the European Smart Energy Association (ESMIG) which started as the European Smart Metering Industry Group and was recently transformed to focus on smart energy management.


I would have to say the EU’s Horizon 2020 initiative. Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the largest EU research and innovation programme which brings together the public and private sectors to achieve a smart, sustainable energy system and spur economic growth.

Flexiciency is one of the H2020 projects made up of consortium of 18 companies, led by ENEL with a contribution from SAP, ERDF, Vattenfall and others. Flexiciency is a pan-European marketplace for information and applications exchange between energy distributors and retailers in Europe, a kind of “Apple Store” package for energy efficiency and demand management services.

Where do you see room for more growth in the sector, and what opportunities are not being exploited sufficiently.

Many large energy players will appoint Chief Digital Officers to

My career in smart energy

progressed when I joined SAP in 1996, where I co-found its corporate in-venturing unit “SAP INSPIRE” in 2003, a corporate accelerated innovation group”

51


drive the digital strategy of their companies – empowered by advanced technologies such as IoT, real -time information platforms, IT & OT integration, Big Data and predictive modelling.

There is an opportunity for cloud technology to be used as a vehicle for dissemination for applications reducing CAPEX investments and affords fast time to market for energy actors who cannot afford individual investments.

Business networks between buyers and sellers and networks between the business partners who exchange information and make electronic transactions. An example is asset intelligence networks – a collaborative management of assets between asset owners, engineering and construction actors and asset operators.


The evolution of the energy leadership culture, or a new generation of energy managers who believe in the following: Energy of the future is energy information intelligence where digital energy, digital smart grids, digital homes and predictive energy will deliver new value-added services to consumers.


50% of the largest utilities in Europe will implement a digital strategy covering the end-to-end energy value chain

Smart meter rollouts in Europe will exceed 70% and smart grids R&DD projects will exceed 600

Cloud solutions will be a serious alternative for 60% of digital projects launched


The future utility will be one that leverages the advanced technologies to improve their business operations, delivers a secure, reliable and

transparent service to its customers – and be as flexible, as reactive and as adaptive as Telecom companies would be. The utility of the future will not only be concerned with their bottom line, but also with their corporate social responsibilities, complying with the socio-economic factors – caring about their end customers, the society and the environment. Utilities will be digital, customer focused and always one step ahead of what their customers need.


Cost reduction – doing more with less, getting the maximum of return out of their assets and out of their investments

Digitisation – in relationship with suppliers, customers and business partners to keep flexible, agile and reactive

Flexibility/ Real-time reaction time

What do you see being the new technology/software or trend that will be the next step in the smart energy revolution/evolution?

New technology or software will be embedded in business processes, will expand digital technologies (eg. internet technologies, in-memory and predictive modelling) across the whole energy value chain. There will also be software available on the cloud for all energy services available to utilities and energy service providers - with fast time to market through open electronic public marketplaces.

Many large energy players will appoint chief digital officers to drive the digital strategy of their companies”

The future utility will be one

that leverages the advanced

technologies to improve their

business operations, delivers a secure,

reliable and transparent service

to its customers”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

52


Livio Gallo was appointed Head of Global Infrastructure and Networks Division in July 2014 after a 15 years’ experience leading different Italian business lines within the group. He is also the Vice-Chairman of the European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (EDSO), aswell as a member of the executive committee of Italian Electrotechnical Committee.

Livio Gallo Head of Global Infrastrastructure and Networks, ENEL | Vice-Chairman, European Distribution System Operators (EDSO) | Member, Italian Electrotechnical Committee


I got involved in 1999 by joining ENEL, which in 2001 became the first utility in the world to promote remote management and to install smart meters. In the same year, ENEL started deploying its own automated metering infrastructure (the Telegestore project) and was the first distribution system operator in Europe to adopt smart metering on a large scale. After this early involvement, I consistently pushed for the adoption of advanced technologies in order to provide an even more efficient and cost-effective service to our customers. Later, together with other European distribution system operators, ENEL co-founded European Distribution System Operators for Smart Grids (EDSO for Smart Grids), an association that promotes the benefits of smart grids in Europe.


One important example is Expo Milano 2015, which thanks to ENEL is the first

fully electric exposition to operate like a smart city of 160 buildings. The ENEL Group created the first greenfield smart city and has built the most advanced real-time power grid management and control system, making the following services available to the event:

Solutions for making electricity consumption in the exhibition area efficient and controllable

Electricity storage systems Smart LED lighting network with

innovative control systems Charging points for electric cars

Where do you see room for more growth in the sector, and what opportunities are not being exploited sufficiently? What is standing in the way of some of these growth opportunities being realised?

There are many opportunities in the smart energy sector, e-mobility, in particular, which currently is not sufficiently exploited. For instance, as it stands there is no stable and homogenous regulatory framework that provides for economic incentives or other legislation. There are multiple other equally important opportunities, such as microgrids, there is exists enormous room for growth.

There are many opportunities in the smart energy sector, e-mobility,

in particular”

I got involved in 1999 by joining

ENEL, which in 2001 became the first utility in the world to promote remote management and to install smart meters”

53


What are your top 3 predictions for the smart energy sector for the next 24 months.

Infrastructure convergence in the smart city arena (in particular closer synergies between infrastructures, such as electricity, gas, transportation and telecommunications)

Greater demand for infrastructure and services in emerging markets due to the massive growth of the middle class population and urbanisation

Increasing importance of the grid operator’s role due to the shift from conventional energy generation to distributed energy generation

What do you think the utility of the future will look like? Is there any truth in the rumours of the demise of the utility? From your perspective, what are the biggest challenges facing utilities today?

Utilities will change their approach for two main reasons: technological innovation and altered customer expectations. An important change took place at ENEL five years ago with the expansion of distributed energy generation. ENEL regularly reviews its industrial strategy to make the most of our unique offerings. Utilities are facing a revolution in which renewables, energy efficiency and smart

grids are key areas that will need to be addressed properly, but which at the same time, bring about many growth opportunities for utilities to exploit.

Do you see the rise of ‘prosumers’ as a threat to your business?

We are talking about an opportunity, not a threat. Due to the rise of ‘prosumers’, with owning photovoltaic panels and other systems, it is important to be efficient in distributing electricity. The medium voltage and low voltage distribution of electricity will be very important for growth. ENEL will invest a significant amount of its resources in both new grids and the renewal of distribution assets.

How have you managed the technology push in terms of integrating smart technologies to match the requirements of your basic utility operations?

At Enel we began the digitalisation of the electricity grid in Italy almost 15 years ago with the rollout of smart meters, which was followed by the introduction of medium voltage network automation. These upgrades resulted in a 45% decrease in the cash cost per customer. ENEL then disseminated that technology, which was proven in the field, to its subsidiaries such as smart metering at Endesa Spain and the network automation in Latin America

companies. However, digitalisation has some way to go.

ENEL has consistently improved grid operations by introducing new emerging technologies like smartphones and augmented reality, both of which are the cornerstone of the new ENEL Work Force Management system that is currently deployed in Italy and being rolled out in Latin America. Finally, ENEL has strongly supported new uses of the electrical carrier, e.g. deploying one of the largest e-mobility systems in Europe, which has more than 2,400 charging stations in the south of Europe.


The next step in the smart energy sector will be the convergence not only of information technology and operational technology (IT/OT convergence), but, more importantly, the convergence of the operations and objectives of different infrastructures (electricity, gas, hydro, transportation) in the near future.

The first examples of convergence can be found in early smart city projects where, for example, smart metering infrastructures can be used to collect data from wireless sensor networks as well as perform multi-utility (electricity, gas, water and heat) meter reading. Another example is e-mobility, which is pushing a convergence between transportation and electricity infrastructure, characterised by the electricity grid supporting the expansion of charging networks.

An important change took place at ENEL five years ago with the expansion of distributed energy generation”

We began the digitalisation of the electricity grid in Italy almost 15 years ago with the rollout of smart meters”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

54


Philip LEWIS CEO and Founder, VaasaETT | Co-founder and Board Member, Smart Energy Demand Coalition (SEDC)

Dr. Philip Lewis is recognised as an expert in customer centric behavioural, competitive and smart issues in the global energy market. He has analysed energy customer behaviour in over 40 markets spanning 18 years. Philip is a Member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on the Future of Electricity 2014-2016 and Co-founder and Board Member of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition (SEDC).


I fell into energy by accident. I graduated with a PhD in marketing (focusing on customer psychology) from Edinburgh University, just as the residential gas and electricity market in Great Britain was about to open to competition. I saw an advertisement in The Times for a marketing analyst for a gas company. I thought it would be an amazing challenge to apply what I knew about customers in a market for a homogenous offering, where marketing is the differentiator – not the product. It was a massive success, at least in terms of influencing customers – millions of customers switched in the first year alone – and as other energy markets followed suit, I then took my experience from the UK market and started to apply it to the others as a consultant. I established my own consultancy business, VaasaETT, with the intention of understanding what drives customers, competitive markets and successful offerings around the world.


One project that we are currently working on is an EU supported project, Flexiciency. It will develop a platform for all stakeholders to participate in the smart offerings of the future. To me, the smart offerings of the future will be characterised not only by smart products and smart concepts,

but also by the smart integration, communication and collaboration of products, services and stakeholders. This goes way beyond the Internet of Things or just Internet Protocol at every point. Smart offerings represent the very way in which we interact with communities (physical communities, remote virtual communities and social communities) at every level. At the heart of this connectivity will be platforms. The possibilities that come from connecting customers with all other stakeholders are endless.


I see the real room for growth in the field of energy communities – not necessarily off-grid or even in the same location, but on many different levels. I feel that in this industry, we are too focused on the needs of individuals and are not focusing enough on identifying and developing exciting solutions for the needs and potential of communities. In this area, the growth potential is huge.


The narrow-mindedness of the energy industry and its desire for control. If we cannot dream it, we think it will not happen. Our business models for the future, therefore, are often too simplistic and inflexible. The reality is that we have to accept that we cannot predict the future. We have

I graduated with a PhD in

marketing (focusing on customer psychology) from Edinburgh University, just as the residential gas and electricity market in Great Britain was opening to competition”

55


to develop the skills and supporting infrastructure as best we can, based on what we can estimate for the future. We have to create cultures of creativity, open-mindedness and, extreme responsiveness – yet realism – in our businesses, if we are to be able to adapt to changes in the future.

What are your top three predictions for the smart energy sector for the next 24 months?

I do not see any major changes in the sector over the next 24 months, but I do see a steady progression in the same direction. Everything is falling into place: costs and efficiencies of solar and storage; better data and connectivity; increased consumer awareness and engagement; better smart offerings and so forth. We are moving closer to the time when the sum of everything makes sense in a mass market context and when it finally happens, it will be sudden. We are not there yet, nor will we be in 24 months’ time – I estimate this time period could be as little as three years’ and certainly within the next five to six years.


Absolutely – the rumours are true in my opinion. Not for the utilities that manage to change sufficiently, but for those who don’t. I think that in future there will be little, if any, profit in the energy commodity per se, apart from what regulators give them (which might be a lot). What’s more, unlike pure switching in traditional competitive liberalised markets, the best customers will be the ones more likely to leave, with utilities retaining the least or less profitable ones. Retail (if it can be called that in future) will become a subcontracted service and utilities, other service providers and consumers alike will be interconnected through platforms with aggregated energy solutions.


Well, I do not see prosumers as a threat to any business so long as it is prepared to adapt to new business models and see the prosumers as customers, who will be buying services to prosume.


What I have seen with the utilities we cooperate with and analyse is that the push to digitalisation is massive. I feel that digitalisation is a positive step towards the integration of smart solutions. However, often this change is without a clear view of why they are doing it – the focus concentrated more on processes than on customers, offerings and business models. Smart technology related services are often isolated rather than forming a central part of the utility business model. Digitalisation processes can therefore at times appear to be leading service change, rather than supporting it.


Primarily the ability to be patient, realistic, flexible, creative and customer focused. The opportunities are out there for the taking, provided utilities can change to become the kind of business they can be.

What do you see as the new technology or software that will be the next step in the smart energy revolution/evolution?

In the next few years, there will be massive imminent improvements in EVs, storage and distributed generation that will change the energy business as we know it.

What I have seen with the utilities we cooperate with is that the push to digitalisation is massive”

I do not see any major changes in the sector over the next 24 months”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

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Philip Mezey was appointed President and CEO and named to Itron’s board of directors in 2013. He has held numerous senior positions during his career at Itron, most recently as Chief Operating Officer for Itron’s global Energy segment. Upon Itron’s acquisition of Silicon Energy in 2003, Philip joined the company as Managing Director of Software Development for Itron’s Energy Management Solutions group.

Philip Mezey President and CEO, Itron


I have long been passionate about helping solve real world challenges. Growing up in California, energy and water were mainstream issues. My career in the energy sector began in 2000, when I joined Silicon Energy as Vice President of software development. Today, I am proud to lead a company that is dedicated to the resourceful use of energy and water.

What project have you worked on that best defines smart energy for you, and that is an example of the possibilities smart energy could realise

There are so many, it’s hard to pick just one. I get excited about projects that create real business value and consumer benefits. Whether it is helping modernise the infrastructure of an Island like Tonga, or providing electricity and enabling in-home refrigeration in parts of Brazil, or helping detect and stop theft in places like British Columbia. Sometimes it’s

not the technology, it’s about business model innovation. I also believe that sometimes, simple things can generate the largest innovational impacts.

Where do you see room for more growth in the sector, and what opportunities are not being exploited sufficiently.

Solar is a real growth area in the utility space. With prices coming down, solar photovoltaic systems are more accessible and feasible on a broader scale. Utilities will play an important role in deploying technology to integrate solar generation onto the grid, balancing loads and mitigating intermittency. According to the 2015 Itron Resourcefulness Index, 64% of surveyed consumers agree that they would like the utility industry to focus on renewable integration.


Purpose-built networks inhibit progress, as these networks cost

I have long been passionate

about helping solve real world challenges. Growing up in California, energy and water were mainstream issues”

Solar is a real growth area in the utility space. With prices coming down, solar photovoltaic systems are more accessible and feasible at

a broader scale”

57


more and don’t spur innovation. With open, interoperable standards-based networks, utilities can accommodate various technologies and applications. To realise the potential of the smart grid, we need an ecosystem of partners and technology, not proprietary systems.

What are your top 3 predications for the smart energy sector for the next 24 months.

Moving from a smart grid to an active grid. Beyond being smart, the modernised grid will become active, meaning devices in the field will make real-time decisions versus bringing data back for analysis then decisions. The active grid harnesses the power of IoT to improve efficiencies and create value for both utilities and communities.

More utilities will take advantage of managed services, which offload the burden of day-to-day system management and optimisation tasks. This will free up utility staff to focus on gaining more benefits and

capabilities from their smart grid investments. Meanwhile, vendors, will deliver actual outcomes to utilities instead of hardware and software solutions, to ensure that true value is derived out of these technology investments.

Leveraging the right data not big data. The focus will shift from big data to uncovering the right data and leveraging it into meaningful actionable intelligence that optimises where information is managed, stored and when and where decisions get made which, which improves customer relations, increases service reliability and optimises assets.


There is no question that the utility business model is changing, but utilities provide fundamental services that need to be in place and will not go away.

Utilities will adapt to the changing landscape and incorporate new smart grid applications – which they are already doing. We are seeing utilities create microgrids, implement community solar power, integrate renewables, enable energy efficiency and more.


Consumer expectations for reliability and value are higher than ever. Utilities are challenged to deliver consistent, reliable service at a steady price. In addition, 54% consumers surveyed in the 2015 Itron Resourcefulness Index, believe there is a lack of information about consumption and conservation available to them. Smart grid technologies will help address these challenges, enabling utilities to more efficiently and effectively manage the delivery of electricity, while creating awareness among consumers.


Looking ahead, the Internet of Things will play an integral role in helping utilities solve problems that could not be feasibly solved before. Utilities can capitalise on the potential of connected devices that have the computing power to not only measure and communicate, but solve grid-related problems in real time. Data analysis and decisions will take place where it makes the most sense – at the edge of the network, rather than only in the utility back office.

Consumer expectations for reliability and value are higher than ever. Utilities are challenged to deliver consistent, reliable service at a

steady price”

... the Internet of Things will play an integral role in helping utilities solve problems that could not be feasibly

solved before”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

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Wayne Pales has worked in the energy industry for over 15 years holding numerous senior leadership positions. In 2012, he led CLP’s smart grid programme and is currently exploring how CLP can play a lead role in Hong Kong’s smart city journey. In 2015, Wayne co-founded The Chapel Group to help utilities with their digital ambitions.

Wayne Pales Head of the Smart Grid Programme, CLP Power Hong Kong


My career in energy began in 2000 when I left the UK for Australia, working for United Energy and subsequently moved to AGL Energy in 2004. During the 4 year period, I oversaw IT Governance, Information Security and Architecture. In 2009, I started with CLP Power. Up until the end 2011, I remained in IT focusing on cybersecurity and architecture. The move to smart energy came at the start of 2012, when I had been increasingly vocal about the smart grid being transformational to a utility with the injection of digital technology into every aspect of the grid. I maintained too that silo investments were no longer viable. I took on the role as head of CLP’s Smart Grid Programme in 2012. It was a new business group within the organisation operating outside of the IT, retail and network business units, so that new disruptive technologies could be explored, free from operational constraints.


Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) best describes what smart energy means to me. In the early days, AMI focused on the meter and not the meter infrastructure. As the business and the market matured, the focus shifted from the meter to strategic infrastructure investment. AMI slowly gained recognition for its ability to improve the quality of products and services delivered to customers,

improve safety and reliability of supply and help optimise infrastructure investments.

We are now at the start of a new exciting phase of advanced metering technology, where the meters and routers have operating systems embedded in them. This evolution has transformed AMI into the world of edge processing, removing barriers associated with data granularity and latency. These devices become part of the IoT world as they connect to other devices. This is an exciting new movement highlighting the evolving world of smart energy.


We will continue to see growth in distributed generation and solar, in the adoption of electric vehicles and the adoption of smart home technologies. When integrated into utility operations, these technologies can provide opportunities to improve grid performance. They can also provide new areas of revenue through services and financing models.

If the utility does not seize these opportunities, new entrants will. It is up to the utility to decide what role they want to play.


This is quite unique to each utility, however, there are some common

My career in energy began

in 2000 when I left the UK for Australia, working for United Energy and subsequently moved to AGL Energy in 2004”

59


themes. Regulatory structures in some cases, limit utilities’ capacity to innovate compared to new entrants.

If the current regulatory environment does not support what the utility wants to achieve, it should attempt to change it. If this is not possible, a utility company can create its own new entrant or partner with another organisation. Utilities should always be looking at ways to disrupt its own core business and generate new streams of revenue.


Increased pace of adoption of in-home technologies such as smart thermostats, smart air conditioners, which have real disruptive potential.

Governments will also adopt a more holistic view, due to a growing understanding of smart city benefits. This will result in more public-private partnerships formed as part of broader smart city roadmaps.


I am not a supporter of the concept that the electric utility will lose its relevance. Forward thinking utilities will see the opportunities and embrace them. The future utility will be part of a smart city ecosystem that focuses on delivering services rather than merely providing electricity. New energy technologies may hit traditional revenue streams.

The mistake utilities can make in regulated markets is the notion that they are protected from competition. There are many ways a utility’s operating model may be disrupted, regardless of regulatory structure.


Prosumers present far more opportunities than risks. Prosumers are far more engaged than consumers. They have a greater awareness of the impact their actions have and are more likely to take part in energy conservation schemes that help optimise the grid. Prosumers are also more likely to have limited discretionary time and will want ‘set and forget’ type services. This opens up opportunities to provide energy management packages, where the customer pays a fee to have the use of their energy optimised.


The best way to describe the technology push is that ‘we have chosen our battles’. For example, CLP has anticipated the move to an advanced distribution management system.

Due to a number of factors, it made sense not to push for its immediate adoption, so the business remains with the DMS and OMS as separate systems. Instead, we have focused on areas such as smart metering and demand response as they deliver far greater

benefits to our customers in the near to medium term.

My team’s focus is at the edge of the network, identifying technologies that can disrupt our business and deliver step change improvements.


Transformational change is hard for any organisation in any industry. This is magnified in the utility sector where people may have worked for many years with little change.

Utilities need to embrace the digital revolution and understand customer intimacy. IT is no longer a separate department looking after corporate systems. IT is now integral to every part of the business. This presents a huge internal shift to learn how to operate in competitive markets. Successful utilities in the future will be those that best manage the change impacting its workforce.


Open data, whilst not a technology or software, is an untapped opportunity. Open data is not just a customer granting access to their consumption data to a third party, although this is a key area that has yet to be fully exploited. With open data, utilities can reduce operational costs whilst improving performance, as it starts to collaborate with experts from outside the organisation.

Regulatory structures in some cases, limit utilities’ capacity to innovate compared to new entrants”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

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Manuel Sánchez Jiménez joined the European Commission in 1996 as a Project Officer within the Renewable Energies Unit in the Directorate-General for Research. He has held the role of Team Leader for Smart Grids at the Directorate General for Energy since 2009 and launched the European Task Force for Smart Grids in November of the same year. He also Chairs the Commission’s Reference Group for Smart Grids.

ManuelSánchez Jiménez Team Leader Smart Grids, Directorate General for Energy, European Commission


I started my career in the energy sector in the mid-80’s working as the Director of the Plataforma Solar de Almería, the largest solar test facility in Europe. I continued my work in the renewable energy sector when I joined the European Commission almost 20 years ago as Project Manager of R&D activities for the integration of renewables into energy systems. Ten years later I launched the European Technology Platform “Smart Grids”, which developed the European vision and the R&D roadmap for smart grids. From 2007 to 2008 I facilitated stakeholder’s consensus about suitable solutions from the information and communication technologies to enhance energy efficiency. Finally, I launched the European Task Force for Smart Grids at the end of 2009, operating with a wide range of stakeholders to advise the Commission on key smart grid challenges such as regulation issues, standards, privacy and security.


I am constantly contributing to map smart grid projects in Europe and to identify best practices on key smart grid applications in Europe. To date, we have analysed c.a. 450 projects, accounting for over 3.15 billion Euros of investments. To select one single project out of them will not be the right approach. I would rather prefer to describe what are the main goals and achievement of these projects.

Smart network management applications have attracted the highest investments and successfully tested solutions to improve the monitoring and controllability of the networks. The integration of distributed energy resources, particularly variable renewable generation, has also attracted much interest. Project results show that technical solutions for their integration are becoming consolidated.

Investments in smart customer/smart home projects are also rising steadily, with growing attention to the interaction between the new technological solutions and end-users. Consumers’ attitudes, concerns and expectations are increasingly factored in the design of the new technological solution and in the development of consumer engagement strategies.

Looking ahead, European R&I in smart technologies will lead to the next generation of enabling technologies, such as power electronics and storage solutions.

Where do you see room for more growth in the sector, and what opportunities are not being exploited sufficiently? What is standing in the way of some of these growth opportunities being realised?

Smart grids are clearly one of the enablers for realising the Energy Union Energy Strategy – both in terms of infrastructure and market. Smart grids are a part of the solution for managing our grids in times of increasing shares of renewables, decentralised generation and new loads, but also for creating new

I started my career in the

energy sector in the mid-80’s working as the director of the Plataforma Solar de Almería, the largest solar test facility in Europe”

61


value streams (i.e. new services and products).

Smart grid technology provides an important opportunity for European manufacturers to develop attractive smart solutions and boost their global competitiveness. Moreover, smart technologies, including smart metering systems, will enable consumers to reap benefits from the energy market by taking control of their energy consumption and providing their flexibility to the system. This is part of the “new deal” for consumers, strongly advocated in the Energy Union.

What are your top predictions for the next years?

If Member States’ plans materialise, by 2020 almost 3 out of 4 European households and businesses will have electricity smart metering systems; an investment of 35 billion Euros on ca. 200 million of meters. Additionally, about 40 millions of smart meters for gas will be installed by 2020, amounting to an additional investment of about 10 billion Euros. The key issue is whether all this equipment follows recommended functionalities and recent developed standards which make these systems interoperable.


I am convinced that the energy markets and utilities will follow the new requirements of the energy system and its transformation during the next decades towards more flexibility – concerning the integration of variable renewable energy sources, increased energy efficiency and further electrification of energy uses, such as electric vehicles. Existing legislation and new market rules need to be fully implemented for achieving an efficient energy transition.


The most distinguishing feature of future electricity grids in Europe will be the ability for end-users to play an active role in the supply chain. The key challenge for utilities is adjusting to this change will lie in mitigating losses and investments on the generating side and advocating for more flexible systems, new tariff structures and opening new win-win possibilities for the electricity market. In this transition, new and emerging markets are expected to cover generating capacity, reserve capacity, ancillary services and demand response.

Some of these services are currently handled by the trading systems; others will be based on the full potential that smart energy devices can provide when they are assembled together in a system. I am convinced that much of their success will depend on how information is packaged and presented to the consumer.


In my view, Smart Grids will stand for the digitalisation of the electricity grids of the 21st century.

The main feature of future electricity networks will be the use of more and more intelligent control and less hardware – such as lines and generators- to provide the required level of reliability for power supply and to improve the overall cost/benefit ratio.

In addition, current regulatory concerns such as online demand response, data protection, privacy and marketing concerns in relation to the smart grid’s impact on market growth should be appropriately addressed – at the technical and political level.

Smart grid technology provides an important opportunity for European manufacturers to develop attractive smart solutions and boost their

global competitiveness”

The most distinguishing feature of future electricity grids in Europe will be the ability for end-users to play an active role in the supply chain”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

62


João Torres CEO, EDP Distribuição | Chairman, EDSO for Smart Grids

João Torres joined EDP Group in 1982. Before becoming CEO of EDP Distribuição in 2006, he held various management and executive positions in several companies of the Group. Under his leadership, EDPD has been conducting several initiatives to deploying the innovative grids of the future, notably through its awarded InovGrid project and the InovCity of Évora, demonstrating the technological, societal and economical value of the smart grids implementation. Presently, he is also Chairman of EDSO for Smart Grids.


During my career, I have been responsible for several areas across the electricity value chain (e.g. generation, human resources, shared services and distribution). Having had the opportunity to embrace the electricity sector transformation over the past few decades was critical to developing a strategy capable of putting the distribution business at the forefront of the path towards “smart energy”.

In 2007, when most were paying attention to what is now called “smart metering”, we went through the process of establishing a new framework capable of joining all main stakeholders together with Distribution System Operators (DSOs) to consolidate the definition of the smart grid concept – one that puts consumers at the centre, while creating room for the progressive dissemination of renewable generation and implementation of distributed energy resources throughout local networks. Through EDSO, DSOs are extending “smart energy” across Europe.


We have been fortunate enough to work in a sector that is constantly adapting to new requirements, meaning that DSOs and distribution networks are continually evolving. Liberalisation, operational efficiency, renewable integration are a few of the achievements of the last years.

The InovGrid project has been a major transformative initiative led by EDP Distribuição that involves several vendors, ICT companies and other stakeholders to demonstrate the technological, societal and economical value of the smart grid implementation – making this advanced technology available to all consumers across the country.


There is a huge opportunity to really engage consumers and bring them to the centre of the action. ICT and mobile connectivity are embedded in our daily lives. Distributed energy resources will allow for more innovative services and offers, and also for more flexibility from which consumers may benefit the most.

DSOs are key to raising awareness amongst consumers through better communication and secure data management, whilst integrating user actions, delivering electricity safely and enabling market innovation and development.


Research, Development, Demonstration and Deployment (RDD&D), particularly demonstration and deployment are crucial to deliver the right, most cost-effective solutions timeously. Funding mechanisms and national regulation both play a very important role and will help to pave the way forward.

During my career, I have

been responsible for several areas across the electricity value chain”

63


Another major issue is the role of DSOs in terms of transforming current system operations to further include data management, neutral market facilitation, as well as developing new roles related to market development (i.e. managing the impact of increased flexibility; additional data provision and regulated services.)


Smarter grids, including smart metering, more information and the continuous decrease in prices of solar panels, electric heating, electric vehicles and storage solutions. These technologies will be major drivers to facilitate the introduction of innovative offers, the successful deployment of smart communities and cities and to promote consumer engagement.

Secondly, the European Commission will continue with its work in pushing policies towards a level where the internal energy market can become fully effective.

Lastly, DSOs will be decisive to overcome the challenges the market will still not be able to solve in the short to medium-term and will continue to pave the way in the energy sector transformation process.


The European energy market which has been built up over the past several decades , supported by reliable distribution networks, will form the basis

for new entrants in the market to build on new services.

I believe this will have a relevant impact on utilities in the years to come, as it is being demonstrated right now in a lesser extent through several pilot initiatives, an important part of them being led by DSOs.

DSOs will also need to rely on a regulation structure that will be capable of evolving alongside the sector transformation process and understand the real implications of the paradigm shift towards a more consumer-centric approach.


Not necessarily. Indeed, the “renascence” of distributed generation, is a challenge not to be dismissed by major energy players, as consumers will be put in greater control over their energy, in favour of more sustainable behaviours than before.

I do believe ‘threats’ will come more from technical complexity to integrate distributed resources and user actions.


The majority of renewable energy sources (RES) are connected to the utility’s distribution networks. A lot was done to keep costs under control, along with the implementation of advanced solutions in HV and MV networks and finding the right compromises between the priorities of the producers and utility system operation.

Standardisation, advanced metering, remote operations, load control (e.g. public lighting) and information security, are additional examples of successful technology integration.

InovGrid has been a very successful demonstration of the real technological, economic and societal value of integrating smart technologies into the grid and into the utility’s daily operations.


The timeous rollout of smart metering and implementation of smart grids solution in the current European economic context, where there is pressure not to increase energy costs. Proper communication is key to a successful energy transition.

We also need to reinforce current investments in innovation in order to create the necessary conditions for consumers to benefit the most.

Furthermore, it is important to address the market evolution in a realistic and pragmatic way, balancing expectations with requirements, without jeopardising quality of service and security of supply.


The next step is DSOs’ advanced digital platforms that will further promote consumer, communities and society engagement – adding to our current role of neutral digital market enabler.

There is a huge opportunity to really engage consumers and bring them to the centre of the action. ICT and mobile connectivity are embedded in

our daily lives”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

64


Andreas Umbach President and Chief Executive Officer, Landis+Gyr

Over 15 years ago I became

Head of Siemens Metering and remained to lead the company after it was sold and re-gained the original name of Landis+Gyr”

Andreas Umbach is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Landis+Gyr globally. He was appointed to his current position in 2002 having previously held the position of President of Siemens’ metering division. He was also the founding President of the European Smart Metering Industry Group, (ESMIG).


Over 15 years ago, I became Head of Siemens Metering and remained to lead the company after it was sold and re-gained the original name of Landis+Gyr. In that time, I have seen a number of significant changes take place: The company and its solutions have progressed from electromechanical metering to AMR (one-way meter reading), to smart metering with two-way communication and now encompasses smart grids and smart energy.


TEPCO in Japan is in a of its own – certainly in terms of the number of devices being enabled on our network and the pace of deployment. Twenty-seven million meters will all be communicating on an open standards platform that manages RF mesh, cellular and PLC on a single head-end system. The solution is expected to provide a high performance communications channel into each home empowering customers and the utility to manage

energy better. The project is essentially about creating one of the world’s largest Internet of Things deployments.


The most obvious geographical room for growth is in Europe. While, North America, Australia, China and Japan are rapidly deploying smart metering – or have installed the technology already, Europe has been lagging behind predictions for years. This is ironic, because Europe, with its ambitious energy and climate targets could benefit from the technology tremendously. The achievement of Europe’s noble goals will be dependent upon smart metering and smart grids.


The situation is more complicated in Europe for several reasons. Firstly, there is the liberalised, unbundled energy market, which makes it difficult for one market actor – usually the DSO – to make investments that bring benefits to other parts of the value chain. Although there is solid support for smart technologies

The most obvious geographical room for growth is in Europe”

65


from the European Commission, the difficulties are in the EU Member States where the national regulatory authorities have a double mandate: on one hand they oversee the network operators as natural monopolies, but they also have a consumer protection task, which requires them to keep grid use fees as low as possible.

It is easier for the network operators and the regulators to negotiate over investments in copper and steel to re-enforce the networks, opposed to adding intelligence to the system. However, given the progress of the debate on the EU-level on issues such as demand response and consumer participation in energy markets, we will see progress very soon.


Customer engagement as catalyst for future success: The utility succeeding in engaging customers will not only protect its existing customer base – but will also gain a competitive edge and profile itself as a catalyst for further growth.

All energy related activities will grow together. Today’s separation between the utility world, which traditionally ends at the meter point, home appliances such as water heaters, roof top solar panels and building control / smart home solutions will amalgamate in joint applications. This will allow for intelligent management based on energy availability and dynamic costs on one side and consumer requirements and priorities on the other.

Big Data and the Internet of Things (IoT) are to become an integral element of utilities’ business strategy and daily business. They are the facilitators of the first two points. Smart metering is already providing massive data calling for powerful Head End and Data Analytics systems. Once in place, it is a natural step to link with other appliances, to allow for IoT which then offers new business opportunities to the owner of this ICT infrastructure.


The utilities of the future will certainly not look like the structures we have known for the last century. I wouldn’t go so far as to predict the demise of the utility, but they will certainly have different forms. As the energy supply system becomes more dynamic and more decentralised, the businesses involved will have to become more flexible and agile as well. There will be many more actors in the field: smaller generators, aggregators, retailers, energy management companies. These new entities may or may not be part of a larger utility. The utilities will either have to adapt or they will be left behind.

We are seeing some of that in Europe already, where utilities are being forced to re-think their business model. The utility of the future will no longer just be a supplier of energy, but it may also be a purchaser – from micro-generation, a service provider, a storage operator and may even run transportation infrastructure for electric vehicles.


For over a hundred years, the business model has been to generate electricity, transport and distribute that electricity to final consumers, whether they be factories, commercial enterprises or households and finally, collect payment. That model, where more energy sold equals more profit, is not the formula that will continue to be successful. There is a general consensus that what worked in the past, will not work in the future. There is a lot of hand-wringing however, about what comes next. Many of the things previously mentioned are still very diffuse. We know roughly in what direction developments are taking us, but the challenge for the utilities will be to work out the details.


It is not easy to isolate uniquely transformative technologies. However, if I had to pick one technology trend, it is the one surrounding big-data and the IoT. The global advanced metering infrastructure is already one of the largest deployments in the Internet of Things. What comes next are the applications which sit on top these massive data volumes being generated. Analytics drives business and consumer insights, from grid stability to optimised real time power procurement. These applications are on the brink of exploding. Data is the new oil, and the smart-grid has plenty of it. This is what will enable more than any one person can forecast.

The utilities of the future will certainly not look like the structures we have known for the last century”

INDUSTRY PROFILE

66


Maria Tereza Moysés Travassos Vellano Revenue Management Director and Smart Grid project lead, AES Eletropaulo

Maria Vellano has 32 years’ experience in the electric power sector and has held various high-ranking positions at Eletropaulo Electricity São Paulo and AES Eletropaulo, an AES Brazil Group. Her previous roles inlude Director of Technology and Services and has also worked in the financial, strategic planning and business management areas. She is currently the Revenue Management Director and Smart Grid Project lead at AES Eletropaulo.


I am a qualified engineer and have been working at AES Eletropaulo, Latin America’s largest electrical distribution company, for over 30 years.

AES Eletropaulo operates in a very complex region with a dense market, critical electric loads and high demand for service. These challenges have given rise to a great need for innovation and modernisation of the electrical system to make it more accessible and trustworthy.

Smart grid is a subject that has been addressed by AES Eletropaulo for more than 7 years. Examples include the digitalization of all substations, implementation of more than 3,000 automatic reclosers in aerial power lines, automation of more than 1,200 underground electrical vaults, apart from the modernization of our operation centre.

Several pilot projects have been implemented were performed in the last few years testing the smart grid concept, from which the utility was able to develop a strategic plan for coming years, and as a result – launched a smart grid programme under my coordination.


The AES Eletropaulo smart grid project in Barueri, São Paulo fully

encompasses the smart grid concept. The main objective of the project was to implement technological infrastructure, and functionalities of smart grids adequate for the electrical network, as well as address the operational challenges of AES Eletropaulo. The project was designed to be replicable by all AES Eletropaulo territories, by means of a technological and strategic road map.


In the case of Brazil, the pressure for quality, client demand and lower margins creates a strong need for an increase productivity, operational efficiency and better asset management.

Hence, investment in technology has become a necessity and the Brazilian electrical sector has not yet benefited from all the available technologies.

My expectations are that the sector shall go through a major technological revolution never seen before, leading to a transformation in the way energy companies do business, as well as a change in client interaction – consumers will no longer take a passive role.

With regard to distribution, there is great progress to be made with regard to advanced automation and smart metering. The use of renewable sources to generate energy and the rise of distributed generation and micro-distributed generation are opportunities to be further explored.

I am a qualified engineer and

have been working at AES Eletropaulo, Latin America’s largest electrical distribution company, for over 30 years”

67



In order for advancement of smart grid in Brazil, governmental policy needs to be aligned with regulation. Smart grid brings clear benefits for consumers and society and opens additional value pools through new business models. In Brazil, it is uncertain however, how distribution companies will realize value in implementing smart grid technology, as there is no clear business case yet for full scale rollout, with regulatory support missing.


In Brazil, the shortage of hydoelectric resources (main source of energy in the country) along with the increase in tariffs for electrical energy, the following will likely occur in the next 24 months:

Increase and incentive toward micro and mini-distributed generation

Slight increase in the implementation of smart metering focused on reducing losses and theft

Possible implementation of an hourly tariff aimed at incentivizing energy consumption out of peak periods.


I believe that the global energy sector is going through a major transformation with the change in traditional methods

of generating, transporting and distributing energy.

Such changes will result in the modification of current business models. It will become necessary for utilities to detach tariffs from sales so that energy distribution companies will be incentivised to promote the efficient use of energy. The utility of the future will offer competitive rates and focus on demand management. Technology investments will also have a ROI of less than 10 years. Utilities of the future will leverage multiple sources of energy with tariffs defined on a case by case basis.


The rise “prosumers” is a reality that needs to be addressed. An increase in consumer control has also contributed to changes in the current utility business model and remuneration process. However, several business opportunities will also arise, which may be explored outside the regulated business.


AES Eletropaulo’s smart grid project is based upon proven R&D activities and has had the support of the research entities contributing to the 6 smart grid areas established by the project: automation, metering, telecommunication, client interaction, alternative energy sources study and governance. All actions have been coordinated so that new technologies

implemented are integrated the necessary support for potential adjustments.

In Brazil, we still need public policies which facilitate regulation favoring the implementation of smart grid technology, which will allow the needed modernisation in the sector.


The big technological transformation that utilities are going through presents a great challenge in itself due to the necessary changes in its organization, processes, integration of new and legacy systems, customer engagement, cybersecurity, trustworthy communication systems and Big Data.


I believe that there should be a big advancement in local production systems with the increase of “prosumers”, consumers which also produce part of the energy they require.

Contributing to this growth is that energy can be produced by households at competitive rates, since implementation costs have dropped in the several years. Apart from declining costs, there mechanisms in place provided the sector legislation, for consumers benefit through energy compensation. Another technological revolution is the feasibility of energy storage systems in buildings.

It will become necessary for utilities to detach tariffs from sales so that energy distribution companies will be incentivised to promote the

efficient use of energy”

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ADVERTISERS INDEXThe Global Smart Energy Elites 2015

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