Echelon Smart Meter Selected for Fortum Norway 100,000 Customers
Fortum Norway awarded a smart grid project to Echelon partner Telvent to deploy Echelon's smart metering system to Fortum Norway's 100,000 electricity customers, Echelon announced today. Fortum is making the first significant deployment decision that directly addresses Norway's new push to spread smart metering to the country's 2.6 million electricity customers by the end of 2016.
Volume deployments of Echelon's Networked Energy Services (NES) smart grid infrastructure system are targeted to begin in August 2013 and go through 2015.
The smart grid market in Norway is poised to greatly expand. The nation's regulator recently mandated that all 130 Norwegian utilities deploy smart metering systems with highly specific features and attributes, such as daily data collection of 15-minute interval readings, integration of gas and water meters, remote connect/disconnect, secure/encrypted communication, measurement of micro grid generation and interfaces for reliable communication with in-home displays.
Fortum, with 1.6 million customers, is a leading energy company in the Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic region. Fortum Norway is the 7th largest utility in Norway and holds a minority interest in Hafslund, the largest utility in the nation.
"With the new smart meters, invoicing will be based on real electricity consumption," Ari Koponen, vice president for distribution at Fortum, said. "Customers receive more accurate information on their electricity consumption and therefore have better possibilities for saving energy. In addition, the smart meters will be used for more efficient power failure resolution and as a platform for future development of smart grids and services within electricity solutions."
Telvent will deploy its meter data management and supervisory applications combined with Echelon's NES system. Fortum has the option to include Echelon's recently announced open-standard CNX 3000 power line interface, powered by Echelon's Control Operating System, that allows utilities to easily and reliably connect to smart grid devices, such as in-home displays and load controllers.
Telvent is currently deploying the Echelon solution to 550,000 of Fortum's customers in Finland. Fortum is the largest utility in that nation. The project in Finland demonstrated reliability, scalability and advanced functionality of the solution. It figured into Fortum's buying decision for the project in Norway.
"As the Norwegian smart grid market comes alive, we look forward to applying all of the knowledge we have gained in projects throughout Europe," Michael Anderson, senior vice president for global utility market at Echelon, said. "Echelon is the go-to brand for energy control networking in Europe not only because of the proven reliability and scalability we bring but also because our solution offers the most value to utilities and their customers. We enable utilities to quickly achieve the benefits of a smart grid infrastructure that can deliver a positive return on investment -- with the confidence that the Echelon solution can expand to meet their future needs.