The briefing, which was prepared by Beecham Research, indicates that out of 174.7 million LPWAN chipset shipments in 2022, 65.9 million were LoRa, while 22.4 million were NB-IoT, 45.4 million were LTE-M and the balance a combination of others including Sigfox and Wi-SUN.

By 2027, with growth expected of almost 20% per annum, shipments are projected to reach 424.8 million. Of these, 148.4 million are LoRa, 61.8 million NB-IoT, 107.1 million LTE-M and 107.5 million others.

(To give a broadly global picture, these numbers exclude China, which has adopted NB-IoT as the standard for massive IoT applications, whereas elsewhere a mixture of NB-IoT and LTE-M is offered by mobile operators).

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“Choosing the right connectivity technology for a use case is the most important decision an end-user will make,” states Donna Moore, chairwoman and CEO of the LoRa Alliance.

She comments that without the in-house expertise, solutions providers can help find the right-fit technology.

“Solutions providers analyse use cases, provide education on available technologies and allow project managers to envision the full scope of an IoT deployment. System integrators bring those ideas to life by integrating IoT sensor data into a platform that consolidates data from numerous end-user platforms.”

The briefing reviews the key features of LoRa as a long range, low power technology, initially developed for utility application, with the ability to penetrate concrete and steel and provide connectivity underground, but also finding application in smart building and smart city IoT use cases, particularly where low latency is not a key requirement.

As a result approximately 35-40% of all LoRaWAN deployments are estimated in the utility sector but the other sectors are increasing rapidly.

The briefing also reviews IoT use cases in the three sectors, with its use in the utilities sector for smart gas and water metering to improve the control and measurement of these commodities.

Current example projects cited include an over 3 million LoRa water meter digitalisation by Veolia and subsidiary Birdz in France and a Middle East utility harnessing low Earth orbit satellites with LoRaWAN to gain visibility on its approximately two million smart meters.

Smart building trends include an increasing emphasis on safety and comfort, with IoT applications such as HVAC and lighting control and air quality monitoring.

In cities, IoT applications include smart parking and street lighting, water and waste management and environmental sensing.

One Energy’s digital substation, intended to power its “Megawatt Hub,” was built as proof of concept for the company’s new, fully digital station architecture.

One Energy’s Megawatt Hubs provide high-volume power connections for industries that require significant loads of power for their operations, such as electric truck charging, digital currency mining, and indoor farming. A typical factory might use between five and ten MW of power. The Findlay Megawatt Hub is a 30MW site that is expandable to 150MW and includes the first fully digital, plug-and-play, transmission-voltage substation in the United States, said the company.

“It is time we completely rethink how substations are designed so that the industry stops making the same mistakes they have been for the last 50 years,” One Energy CEO Jereme Kent said.

“Traditional substations are not secure; they can fail during inevitable severe weather conditions, lack basic condition monitoring, and rely on thousands of small wires to send status and control signals back to the control building. This is why we’ve designed our fully digital substations at One Energy to be secure, digital, resilient, embrace real-time condition monitoring, and survive every conceivable weather event.”

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To build a fully digital substation, One Energy elected to use Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories’ TiDL system, marking the first time a substation is connected entirely by fiber optics using the TiDL system in the United States, according to the company.

One Energy said it preferred the simplicity of physical security that comes with TiDL’s point-to-point fiber communication. This is why the TiDL system was chosen over the IEC 61850-style digital architecture that is gaining traction in Europe.

The TiDL merging unit can be factory installed, tested, and commissioned in all major equipment, making field wiring as simple as connecting a fiber optic cable.

The substation’s 30 MVA transformer, built by Hitachi Energy, includes the Coresense M10 real-time dissolved gas analyser and condition monitoring system.

The system can detect an anomaly in the transformer and, through the control system, automatically send alerts via text to system operators.

The Coresense M10 performs a full dissolved gas analysis on the transformer every 10 minutes, compared to most substation transformers that only test oil once a year.

The high-voltage circuit breakers were also supplied by Hitachi Energy and feature a full condition monitoring package as well. Early and real-time communication and condition monitoring identify smaller issues before they potentially advance into larger issues.

Measures were also taken to increase the substation’s safety and resilience.

To provide physical security for the site, it is surrounded by permanent walls that are all modular and made of solid concrete.

To reduce risks related to animal interference and blowing debris, which are common and are major sources of fault for traditional substations, it was designed to allow for no exposed live parts on the medium voltage buswork.

To prevent what traditionally causes substation fires, it includes environmentally friendly oils and passive and automatic fire suppression systems, the company said.

Originally published on Power Grid.

Aiming to bring together industry leaders to raise awareness about the grids’ crucial role in the energy transition and develop input for EU-level policy discussions, the immense investment needed to reinforce the grid stood out as a key topic.

“Let’s make no mistake: investments in the grid will be needed,” said Damian Cortinas, chairman of the board of ENTSO-E, the European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity.

“Even if we (fully leverage) digitalisation and coordination with and between TSOs; even then we will need massive investments to connect new generation, for the solidarity between regions and countries of Europe and, in particular, for the sharing of flexibilities we will need for tomorrow.”

The grids forum is the latest initiative coming from European Associations to spotlight the state of the grid and the initiative needed to get it ready for a net-zero scenario.

Earlier this week, Eurelectric reported the need to prioritise grid expansion to meet Fit or 55 and REPowerEU goals, and the European distribution system operator (DSO) association E.DSO set out key pledges for the future grid with a call for investment to be high on the EU’s future agenda.

Investment first

According to Simson, one of the keynote speakers during the forum, although there are several key topics to tackle in readying the power grid, “the first one is investment.

“Europe needs to invest €584 billion ($624.6 billion) by 2030 to modernise and expand its grids. This is huge. But we can get there.”

Referencing an announcement from the European Investment Bank (EIB) back in July of additional financing of 50% (€15 billion ($16 billion)) to the REPowerEU Plan, Simson pointed out how there has been initiative to fast track financing.

“The proposed new electricity market reform will also make a difference. We expect it to change the remuneration mechanism for grid projects and boost anticipatory investments.”

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Regulation and interconnection

The second key issue to address, adds Simson, is that of regulatory barriers. Namely, the potential offered by breaking them down and fast tracking procedures.

Third was that of the importance of cross-border interconnection, as highlighted by the energy crisis.

Stated Simson: “Europe stands to gain much if we revitalise regional cooperation and make progress on cross-border interconnections.

“ENTSO-E’s latest 10-year network development plan 2022 shows how Europe needs to invest €6 billion ($6.4 billion) per year to 2040 on cross-border infrastructure; the 15% interconnection target is not just a benchmark – it is the best way to bolster our security of supply and competitiveness.”

Digitalisation and industrialisation

As the fourth point, Simson emphasized that we need to have more efficient grids by digitalising our energy system and investing in smart grids.

“With increasing shares of solar and wind, it’s becoming more important to match demand and supply. This requires real time data and pricing, allowing consumers, business and smart energy appliances to respond to the system’s needs.”

The fifth and final point that Simson highlighted is that of industrial and commercial opportunities for the grid.

“We all read the reports of project delayed or suspended because waiting times for components go beyond 2030, or because of rising costs.

“But let’s not forget that the three largest cable manufacturers in the world are based here in Europe. If we are to boost out industrial capacity, expand the pool of skilled labour, improve supply chain, all of this would turn into jobs , growth and opportunities.”

Simson here referred to the Net Zero Industry Act, one of many tabled back in March 2023 that aim to drive Europe’s prowess within the energy transition by, among other points, boosting European supply chains and upskilling the workforce.

Further conclusions to each of the discussed topics will be released in the coming weeks.

The integration, believed to be a first for quantum-based cyber protection in smart meters, sees quantum computing-hardened encryption keys integrated into all Honeywell’s smart meters for gas, water and electricity.

This enhanced security is aimed to set a new benchmark for protection against data breaches and to help ensure the uninterrupted operation of the utilities infrastructure.

“By integrating Quantinuum’s encryption technology into our smart meters, we’re advancing data security for our customers and shaping the dialogue on how the utility industries should approach cybersecurity in the quantum era,” says Hamed Heyhat, President of Smart Energy and Thermal Solutions at Honeywell.

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“This integration underscores the necessity for continuous innovation to stay ahead of the evolving threat landscape. It is a level of protection that is imperative in our increasingly digital and interconnected world.”

Quantinuum’s Quantum Origin generates keys through quantum computing-enhanced randomness – a feature of the quantum world – which makes them unpredictable and thereby able to significantly enhance the data security.

Specifically a quantum cryptographic seed is generated on a quantum computer, which is then verified for strength and the keys are generated.

Tony Uttley, President and COO of Quantinuum, comments that robust cybersecurity requires a multifaceted approach, taking advantage of the latest technologies.

“Our work with Honeywell demonstrates the importance of using the power of today’s quantum computers to create a more resilient cyber infrastructure to better protect customers.”

Quantum Origin is designed for both devices and infrastructure, with keys generated directly into devices or on demand via the cloud.

The smart meter products with Quantum Origin from Honeywell are available now to customers in North America and Europe.

In a new study on the region’s electricity market design, Eurelectric states that with around 70% of the planned new renewable capacity being connected to the distribution grids, these require reinforcement and expansion.

But for efficient and timely connection, the way the grids are developed needs to change from an essentially reactive approach to a ‘build-for-the-future’ approach that includes inter alia anticipatory investments.

“Getting our electricity networks fit for net zero should be a top priority in the coming years, both at EU and national level,” says Kristian Ruby, Secretary General of Eurelectric.

“This requires a new mindset among regulators and legislators. One that anticipates Europe’s capacity needs to integrate more renewable projects, and one that accommodates unprecedented electrification of transport, buildings and industry to match the speed and scale needed for Europe’s energy transition.”

The REPowerEU plan anticipates around 50 to 60 million heat pumps, 65 to 70 million electric vehicles (EVs) and over 600GW of additional renewable capacity by 2030.

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A scarcity of grid capacity translates into longer waits for connections, more congested areas and higher costs for network users.

In its earlier ‘Decarbonisation Speedways’ study, Eurelectric found that the EU currently invests €23 billion (US$25 billion) per year in grid infrastructure. However, the investment in distribution grids should reach no less than €38 billion per year until 2030 and up to €100 billion per year until 2050 to deliver on the decarbonisation’s agenda.

Eurelectric proposes in its report that the distribution networks should be planned at least 5 years ahead, with the option of reaching 10 years and with a 2050 horizon projection.

Further regulators must be flexible on DSO investment instruments, removing regulatory obstacles and adopting output-based remuneration taking into account both capex and opex.

EU policies and funds also must promote investments in the physical dimensioning of the grids. In this connection, dynamic line rating is one of the basic means to expand capacity.

Likewise, significant digitalisation efforts are needed and should be incentivised for grid management and forecasting and flexibility should be promoted, with local production and consumption stimulated.

A key for infrastructure development is permitting and Eurelectric urges for a “dedicated and permanently simplified procedure” for grid development, including a possible ‘one-stop-shop’ concept for a single permit for a generation project and the associated grid expansion.

Underlying much of these actions is the need for accurate information and Eurelectric calls for “robust data-sharing mechanisms” among the various players.

Through the agreement between the clean tech major and the British water holdings company, the EnergyIP MDM X platform will connect the meter points, aiming to enhance the Group’s ability to detect and reduce household water leaks.

The water utility is undergoing a major rollout of smart meters, which report data back to the cloud on an hourly basis.

Siemens’ Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution will allow the utility, which services 4.5 million people in the North East of England and in the South East as Essex & Suffolk Water, to analyse the data from the water meters to identify household consumption anomalies and alert customers of potential leaks on their properties.

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Siemens collaborated with NWG’s team to design, develop, test and launch the meter data management SaaS, which is powered by the technology company’s EnergyIP software.

According to Siemens, it represents the largest solution of its kind implemented by the company for the water industry in Europe, as well as its largest deployment of grid software to date.

Gary Adams, head of smart transformation at NWG, said: “The EnergyIP MDM implementation is a critical cornerstone in our smart metering journey, allowing us to effectively manage the large volumes of metering data we will receive and to drive efficient operational activity for both our customers and our wider business providing access to granular smart data at the click of a button.”

The system will ultimately help NWG to meet UK water regulator Ofwat’s targets for reducing leakages and per capita consumption.

EnergyIP MDM X for Water is part of Siemens Xcelerator, the company’s digital business platform.

The retrofit, which encompasses electricity, gas and water meters, is aimed to enable remote meter reading in the diverse environments around the capital Jakarta.

There the meters are in locations including inside private apartments, residential areas, industrial water utilities and shopping malls, which has resulted in meter reading being both challenging and expensive.

Chen Deyu, CEO at Sindcon, says ST Microelectronics’ STM32WLE5 LoRaWAN wireless microcontroller was selected “for its high integration benefits to our customers and because it enhances performance, size, security and power consumption.”

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The STM32WLE5 wireless MCU is a sub-GHz wireless microcontroller featuring an Arm Cortex-M4 core operating at 48MHz.

The MCU contains 256kb of Flash memory, 64kb of SRAM, LoRa modulation, and AES 256-bit encryption.

With the STM32WLE5, Sindcon’s retrofitted meters contain an advanced battery management system that can support accurate remote readings for up to 10 years.

The project is Sindcon’s first deployment in Indonesia using the STM32WLE5CC wireless MCU and is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.

Sindcon is involved in several LoRaWAN smart meter installations in Indonesia.

Over the past five years, the company has installed more than 1,000 LoRaWAN smart gas meters for restaurants and other commercial customers in more than 20 shopping malls in the country.

A recently reported new customer is Indonesia KFC, which has adopted Sindcon’s gas meter technology.

In another project, Sindcon has partnered with IoT solution provider IoT Kreasi Indonesia on prepaid gas metering in Jakarta for the country’s state-owned gas transmission and distribution company PGN Group – believed to be a first in Southeast Asia.

In the first phase, some 2,000 LoRaWAN prepaid gas meters have been deployed in collaboration with Chint, whose G1.6 model gas meter has been re-engineered to offer prepayment and LoRaWAN wireless data transmission.

Sindcon also has partnered with IoT Kreasi Indonesia on Semtech LoRa and LoRaWAN based smart electricity and water meter deployments in multi-tenant residential buildings.

Most of these households were in the outlying rural areas, which meant the usual method of revenue collection using post payment was going to be a huge challenge. It was decided to instead use the prepayment meter as the technology of choice to deliver this service.

Meters were manufactured and deployed into the field, but very soon after there were several problems discovered. None of these systems could talk to each other, and they all had varying levels of cryptographic security and functionality.

The solution was to have a system that allowed interoperability between these systems, whilst sharing the same level of state-of-the-art security. This is where the STS, or ‘Standard Transfer Specification’ was born.

It was developed based on an Eskom NRS specification, and essentially it defines the secure transfer of credit into a prepayment meter. One of the requirements for this was to encode every token created with a unique ‘Token Identifier’ or TID, which is then stored in the meter to prevent token replay – 1 Token, 1 Meter, Only once!

The STS system was so successful that it has now become the only globally accepted open standard for prepayment systems, with over 70 million STS certified meters in over 100 countries.

With the latest version of the specification, STS Edition 2, the doors are now opened to an exciting world of ‘Smart STS Systems’ with two-way communication and powerful smart meter functionality, all whilst retaining the proven STS standards.

Watch the video on STS Edition 2 here

STS, the only globally accepted open standard for prepayment systems.

Simple, Trusted & Secure.

Electrification and renewables top McKinsey’s tech trends

McKinsey’s Technology Trends Outlook 2023 report has electrification and renewables as the largest of the 15 trends identified in terms of interest and investment.

The survey finds there was a $288 billion equity investment in the area in 2022 and a 27% increase in job postings over the previous year, which is also among the largest recorded for all the trends.

Alongside this climate tech beyond electrification and renewables, such as carbon capture, attracted less interest, with $86 billion equity investment and a modest 8% increase in job postings.

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Other tech trends identified include applied AI, which tops the innovation axis, next-gen software development, cloud and edge computing and web3, these and others are all identical to the previous year.

Except for the one new entrant to the line-up, namely generative AI. McKinsey records generative AI as representing the next frontier for AI and also attributes to providing much of the credit for an observed resurgence of enthusiasm in the first half of 2023 about technology’s potential to catalyse progress in business and society after a tumultuous 2022.

Building upon existing technologies such as applied AI and industrialising machine learning, generative AI has high potential and applicability across most industries, states McKinsey.

Interest in the topic, as gauged by news and internet searches, increased threefold from 2021 to 2022 and generative AI is poised to add as much as $4.4 trillion in economic value from use cases that increase productivity.

DEWA innovates on battery performance

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA)’s Research and Development (R&D) Centre has filed a new patent for an innovation for improving the performance of electrodes in lithium-ion batteries, sodium–sulphur batteries and electrolyte distribution batteries.

This, a low-cost, environmentally friendly method, is achieved by treating the electrodes chemically using a polymer to increase the number of active groups on the surface of the electrodes, which leads to improving their performance.

The patent supports the pilot project for energy storage that DEWA has inaugurated at the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park using Tesla’s lithium-ion battery solution. The project has a power capacity of 1.21MW and an energy capacity of 8.61MWh with a life span of up to 10 years.

“DEWA relies on research and innovation to support the development of energy storage technologies and increase the share of clean and renewable energy,” says HE Saeed Mohammed Al Tayer, MD and CEO of DEWA.

“This supports the Dubai Clean Energy Strategy 2050 and the Dubai Net Zero Carbon Emissions Strategy 2050 to provide 100% of Dubai’s total power production capacity from clean energy sources by 2050.”

This pilot project is the second battery energy storage pilot project by DEWA at the solar park. The first project was implemented in collaboration with AMPLEX–NGK to install and test a sodium sulphur energy solution with a power capacity of 1.2MW and an energy capacity of 7.5MWh.

Solar table for gardens

German solar technology innovator Technaxx is launching its latest product – a solar table for householders to place in gardens or on balconies or terraces and which can double both as a table and a solar power generator.

The table, which is approximately 173cmx114cm in size and can seat up to eight people, has a fold-up top that can be adjusted to set angles up to 35o to maximise the solar generation capacity and produce up to 410W peak power.

With it is a pre-assembled micro inverter, which converts the generated solar power into AC and can be easily plugged into a household socket to supply power to the home.

NYSEG, a subsidiary of Avangrid, is to deploy LineVision’s non-contact LiDAR sensors to introduce dynamic line rating in the Hornell area of New York.

The goal of this ‘non-wires alternative’ is to reduce grid congestion with real-time data to enhance the capacity of the lines.

Traditionally, lines have been operated using ‘static’ line ratings based on fixed values.

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However, with the real-time data combining properties such as sag, temperature and the forecast weather conditions, the capacity can be determined on a ‘dynamic’ basis to enable increases in the capacity without potentially large and costly upgrades.

“We know that we have a critical role in building a smarter, more resilient network that will enable us to deliver clean energy to more customers,” commented Patricia Nilsen, president and CEO of NYSEG and RG&E.

“Investments in innovation like this are very exciting because it will benefit our customers in multiple ways.”

The sensors will be installed on two of the company’s transmission lines – one from Elma in Erie County to Strykersville in Wyoming County and the other from Warsaw to Perry in Wyoming County.

Funding for the project was awarded to Avangrid and LineVision through round two of NYSERDA’s Future Grid Challenge programme.

Capacity optimisation is crucial for the large-scale integration of renewable energies, with their potential for congestion.

New York state’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA) goals to achieve 70% renewable electricity by 2030 call for an additional 10,000MW solar capacity and 9,000MW offshore wind capacity.

Such an increase would likely cause significant congestion on transmission lines.

Twenty years after the first publication of the IEC 61850 standard in 2003, the utility transmission and distribution businesses and operating environments have changed beyond recognition.

Then the first tentative steps into the digital world were taken with the digitalization of substations.

Though the concept of smartening and automating the grids was starting to emerge with the rolling out of smart meters, successive technological advancements have opened more new and innovative applications.

Alongside this, the transition to net zero is leading to the accelerated integration of utility-scale and residential distributed energy sources to the grids, while wide-scale electrification across sectors such as transportation, heavy industry and home appliances is introducing changes and uncertainties unprecedented for the system operators.

At the same time, the legacy communications technologies that have formed the foundations of power grids today, such as time division multiplexing interfaces, and analogue E&M interfaces used in devices such as relays and remote terminal units, have passed beyond the end of their technology lifecycle, necessitating replacement with next generation devices.

With these developments, IEC 61850 has been expanded to offer a one-stop utility automation framework to meet the complex challenges of operating a dynamic, distributed, intelligent, multivendor grid, both now and in the future.

What are some IEC 61850 use cases?

The first publication of IEC 61850 aimed to enable open and interoperable digital information exchanges for substation automation applications.

Today, with the expansion of the scope of IEC 61850, utilities can use it for automation between substations, for automation between substations, control centres and data centres and for a range of grid-related applications including condition monitoring diagnosis, the transmission of synchrophasor information, power quality and distribution automation.

These are significant developments for power utilities. For example, distribution automation in the feeder domain of distribution grids with the automation of monitoring, protection, and restoration to improve reliability, safety and efficiency at the distribution level.

Similarly, synchrophasor data opens the way to optimizing line capacities and efficiencies and facilitating integration with distributed energy resources.

As an example of such a use case, Dominique Verhulst, Global Energy Practice Leader at Nokia, cites a fire mitigation initiative by a US utility that draws synchrophasor data from several points on the distribution network, which is aggregated and analyzed to recognize breaking conductors and from where a goose message can be sent to the appropriate line switches to de-energize the line “before it hits the ground”, mitigating the risk of fires.

Such new use cases rely on the latest high bandwidth, low latency networks, which also offer the opportunity to implement a true multi-vendor environment.

“With the standardizations in these protocols it opens up the opportunity for utilities to step closer to multivendor interoperability for protection and control systems,” he says.

What are the steps to implementing IEC 61850?

Turning to the practicalities and technicalities of an IEC 61850 implementation, Hansen Chan, Product Marketing Manager for Digital Industries at Nokia, advises that the starting point for a utility is to evaluate the status of its communications infrastructure.

Some issues to consider include the right connectivity to support applications – such as distribution automation – that are both bandwidth intensive and latency sensitive, whether in the substation domain or in the wide area network and down to the last mile to smart meters in the feeder domains.

“With software playing a more and more dominant role in grid operation, communication reliability is key as without connectivity there is no visibility. Then the grid control system just would not function.”

Chan mentions that another key consideration is the “human layer” at the organizational level.

“Implementing IEC 61850 is a multi-disciplinary effort, so you need everyone to be on the same page and to work together towards a single vision. There are different teams that need to be involved not just on the communications side but for example in IT, as new software such as ADMS being delivered in a virtualized compute environment, the data centre network has become a critical part of the communication infrastructure foundation for IEC 61850.”

Verhulst adds that this multi-disciplinary requirement mirrors the trend in utilities of new talent hires who are familiar with these technologies at both hardware and software levels.

This will support the ongoing development of IEC 61850 with their ability to develop new solutions around it.

“Our expectation is that IEC 61850 will keep evolving towards more centralized protection and control and centralized remedial actions schemes that are relying on the more recent variants of the protocols such as the routed goose and sampled values that are becoming popular with utilities.”

What are the components of the IEC 61850 communication infrastructure?

IEC 61850 communications start from the station and process buses in substations and extend to the grid edge via the field area network (FAN) as well as to the network control centre and data center via the wide area network.

Thus, a reliable and functioning communication infrastructure is key.

Chan highlights the “service-centric approach” of Nokia, saying that it is an essential requirement of such a network foundation to support many different grid applications.

“There will be more and more applications coming for which one will need more and more network virtual segmentation and so one needs to have a communication network platform that allows them to be rolled out as required,” he says.

Chan also emphasizes the importance of incorporating broadband wireless access technology such as LTE into the service-centric network in order to deploy IEC 61850-based assets at the grid edge where fiber is not available.

Verhulst states that Nokia’s solutions are very comprehensive with radio access networks that allow individual private wireless infrastructures based on LTE or 5G to be built and are based on a “strong utility focus”, considering elements such as the backhaul requirements and the substation communication elements.

“Our implementation is an end-to-end IP/MPLS solution including a full series of substation and wireless fieldrouters, packet microwave and DWDM optical transport as well as the backbone networking infrastructure.”

He adds that cybersecurity concerns also have been considered and that secure encryption and key cycling are provided to safeguard grid communications.

What are the benefits of an IEC 61850 implementation?

Some of the stated benefits of an IEC 61850 implementation include the ability to roll out applications in a unified manner, interoperability with legacy devices and future-proofing for new technology integrations.

Verhulst says that utilities with which Nokia has worked on network implementations have seen improvements in SAIDI averaging between 30% to 50%.

Further, a JRC study on UK utilities found that they could save around £13 billion (€15.2 billion/$16.5 billion) in grid infrastructure investment with their implementation.

He also returns to the interoperability benefits, saying that Nokia sees IEC 61850 as clearly indicating the trend of utilities being able to “pick and choose” from among the vendors.

“It’s not going to be about whose hardware or software we should buy but more about who has the best to do what we need.

“And added value is going to come with the innovation from the vendors so it’s an interesting move that we will see more of ahead in the next five to ten years.”

The installations will start in the company’s southern communities and will lead to the installation of more than 260,000 of the new smart meters in the service area through 2025.

For Xcel Energy, the rollout marks the next step in the modernisation of its power grid, which so far has focussed primarily on boosting the capacity and reliability of the system through new and improved lines and substations.

With the smart meters, customers will be empowered to manage their energy use better while improving reliability and helping Xcel Energy restore power more quickly after an outage.

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“We’re excited to take this next step in building a smarter, more resilient and efficient energy grid and making it easier than ever for customers to understand and manage their energy use,” said Karl Hoesly, president, of Xcel Energy – Wisconsin.

“Smart meters are the starting point for this advanced grid, boosting reliability and providing new tools and technology to help customers lower costs.”

Smart meters will give customers near real-time energy use data with access through the company’s ‘My Account app’ or online.

They also will have access to programmes and services that will help them better understand their energy usage and how to improve efficiency and find more savings.

Currently, the majority of Xcel Energy’s old meters are AMR meters.

In addition to Wisconsin, Xcel Energy has smart meter rollouts underway in its service areas in Colorado, Minnesota and Texas.

The rollouts in North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico are tentatively scheduled to start in 2024 and in Michigan in 2025.

Xcel Energy serves approximately 3.7 million electricity and 2.1 million natural gas customers across the eight service territories.

The implementation plan is comprised of 19 ‘priority project concepts’ (PPC) that should be delivered in the period starting in 2024 as well as a further 13 PPCs that should get underway in the following year.

These PPCs, which are categorised under the previously established ‘high-level use cases’, are considered as “families of projects”. They are not intended as specifically defined individual projects, that would be the task of project funding applicants.

The implementation plan is intended to detail the most urgent R&I needs that should to be tackled through the European Commission and national work programmes within the period towards delivering the 2050 neutral carbon energy system.

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With extensive electrification combined with significant energy efficiency improvements and CO2 reductions in all sectors, this will require inter alia the massive use of renewables and smart grids technologies as well as sector coupling of all energy carriers via storage and conversion technologies.

The PPCs for 2025+ are as follows:

HLUC 1 – Optimal cross sector integration and grid scale storage

• Integrating hydrogen and CO2-neutral gases
• Regulatory framework for cross sector integration.

HLUC 2 – Market-driven TSO-DSO-system user interactions

• Develop a digital twin of the European electricity grid
• Viable business cases through market mechanisms and incentives
• Governance for TSO, DSO and system users.

HLUC 3 – Pan European Wholesale Markets, Regional and Local Markets

• Validation of new market concepts.

HLUC 4 – Massive RES penetration into the transmission and distribution grid

• Well-functioning markets for a RES based energy system
• Policies and governance for a RES based energy system.

HLUC 5 – One stop shop and digital technologies for market participation of consumers (citizens) at the centre

• Data spaces
• Building skills needed for developers and users of the energy system to accelerate its transition through its digitalisation
• Service management and operations
• Sharing IT infrastructure investments.

HLUC 7 – Enhance system supervision and control including cybersecurity

• Grid operator of the future
• Grid field workforce of the future
• Human machine interface
• Cybersecurity of energy networks.

HLUC 8 – Transportation integration and storage

• Integrated planning of energy and transport sectors
• Adapting policy and market for seamless cost-effective merging of transport and energy sectors.

The implementation plan gives a description of each of the priority project concepts and their budgetary requirements.

Three further R&I Implementation plans are planned to cover all the time periods until 2030.

Rather than relying on the traditional uni-brand battery-based system, the utility is focusing on the integration of smart thermostats, such as rooftop solar and other connected resources, such as water pumps, alongside battery storage within a centralised system to reduce energy demand.

SDG&E has been piloting the unique virtual power plant (VPP) system since December 2022, which consists of multiple customer-owned devices, to support the grid during peak hours.

According to SDG&E, most VPPs typically involve only one brand or one type of device, usually battery energy storage.

SDG&E’s VPP pilot involves a diverse range of devices within the same system, including smart thermostats, well water controllers and battery energy storage systems.

The pilot is taking place in Shelter Valley, a remote community in eastern San Diego County.

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Participants in the pilot include single-family homes with existing rooftop solar and the Shelter Valley Community Center, which serves as a resource centre for the community during emergencies. The centre received free installation of two batteries onsite.

In August, as temperatures increased, SDG&E deployed its VPP pilot three times to support the grid during peak demand periods. The connected devices functioned as expected.

When VPP participants receive a message about the potential for their devices to be turned off or discharge electricity to support the grid, they can opt out for certain devices, except battery storage. According to the utility, to date the opt-out rate has been very low.

The pilot first came online December 2022 and will run through December 2023.

Because of how well the pilot project has performed, SDG&E is now considering expanding the programme to other areas in the future.

Since the start of the pilot, the VPP has been tested through 17 simulated demand response events.

Virtual Power Plants

VPPs use advanced software to aggregate and coordinate the functions of a collection of small-scale, decentralised resources located at customers’ homes and businesses to meet grid needs.

A VPP network can comprise many devices and resources, including home appliances such as electric vehicles and chargers to HVAC equipment and solar plus battery energy storage systems.

Software programmes run VPPs in concert with grid operations to dispatch communications signals to devices in the VPP network to either power down or discharge electricity from existing resources back to the grid.

“The beauty of a virtual power plant is it can leverage existing resources to provide significant grid reliability benefits – with zero incremental emissions,” said SDG&E chief commercial officer Miguel Romero.

“When hundreds or thousands of businesses or homes are connected to a VPP and their resources are flexibly managed to charge or discharge electrons, they can help keep the lights on during hot summer days.”

The Powerledger Chain is the third generation blockchain from the company, which was one of the pioneers of the technology in the energy sector, and is designed to facilitate the development of scalable decentralised apps that are able to handle thousands of transactions per second at low cost.

Example challenges highlighted include intermittency from solar and wind and grid congestion.

“Today is the most significant day in our blockchain journey as we make our game-changer Powerledger Chain public as it offers scalability, security, and energy efficiency,” said Powerledger technical director and co-founder, John Bulich.

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“It’s the ideal platform for developing green and affordable energy solutions that pave the way to a brighter future.”

The Powerledger Chain is a customised permissioned Solana blockchain utilising proof-of-history and proof-of-stake consensus mechanisms to deliver the required throughput with lower energy requirements compared with proof-of-work blockchains.

Powerledger has developed a range of solutions in the areas of energy trading and traceability, flexibility trading and environmental commodities training.

These are at various stages of implementation in a dozen countries including Australia, India, the US and within Europe and Asia.

Another issue Powerledger highlights is that of centralisation, with the growing distributed energy system challenging the traditional centralised approach.

With decentralisation at its core, the public blockchain’s role in energy does not necessarily dismiss centralisation, but offers the importance of a balanced approach with the power of highly scalable blockchain-based solutions, the company states.

“The responsibility for grid management can be negotiated among stakeholders using a decentralised paradigm that uses smart contracts on our new public blockchain.”

Superfast charging LFP batteries for EVs

A 10 minute charge providing a driving range of 400km and a full charge delivering 700km?

That would satisfy most EV drivers and eliminate range anxiety – and it is claimed to be coming with Chinese battery manufacturing company CATL’s new lithium iron phosphate (LFP) battery named ‘Shenxing’.

CATL reports leveraging the super-electronic network cathode technology and fully nano-crystallized LFP cathode material to create a super-electronic network, which facilitates the extraction of lithium ions and the rapid response to charging signals.

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Its latest second-generation fast ion ring technology is used to modify the properties of graphite surface, which increases intercalation channels and shortens the intercalation distance for lithium ions, creating an expressway for current conduction.

A new superconducting electrolyte formula, which effectively reduces the viscosity of the electrolyte, resulting in improved conductivity, also has been developed.

Other improvements include reduced resistance of lithium-ion movement, while cell temperature control technology ensures that cells heat up to the optimal operating temperature range rapidly, allowing a 0-80% charge in just 30 minutes in temperature as low as -10°C.

CATL anticipates that mass production of Shenxing will be achieved before year-end and the first vehicles with the battery will be available on the market in the first quarter of next year.

Improving Bitcoin mining efficiency

With Bitcoin mining notoriously energy intensive and miners rushing to adopt greener and more sustainable operations, another alternative, which is being pursued by the London-based Quantum Blockchain Technologies, is to improve the efficiency of the mining itself and thus in turn its energy consumption.

The company’s ‘Method A’, unlike the standard approach of running as many hashes as possible within the available period, decides at the beginning of each block hashing whether to hash using a traditional search or a spaced confined search, with testing demonstrating an approximately 10% in mining speed.

But its ‘Method B’, for which a patent application was recently filed, is even more efficient, based on partial pre-computation on upcoming blocks prior to the current one being closed and guiding the search by deciding where the most promising winning hashes are likely to be found.

With this approach, the number of logic gates on the chip is reduced and the processing of a large number of hashes is avoided to obtain the results in less time.

In this case, there should be a 2.6x improvement in the ability to find a winning hash, compared to standard search, while saving up to 4.3% of energy.

However, its implementation requires a new architecture and the design of a new mining chip.

Setting sail with ‘Windwings’

Mitsubishi Corporation’s ‘Pyxis Ocean’, a 229m long bulk carrier vessel on charter to the global food giant Cargill, has become the first to be fitted with a novel wind propulsion system that could be key for the decarbonisation of shipping.

The two ‘Windwings’, which were designed by BAR Technologies in the EU Horizon 2020 supported initiative, are large wing sails measuring up to 37,5m in height with a 10m wide central component and front and rear 5m wide flaps that can be fitted to the deck of cargo ships, both new and as a retrofit, to harness the power of the wind.

The windwings can rotate and also pivot, right down to deck level, to allow for the differing wind angles and speeds.

With this wind assist, the windwings are expected to deliver average fuel savings of up to 30%.

The ‘Pyxis Ocean’ is currently on its maiden voyage with the windwings from Shanghai, where they were fitted, to Paranagua in Brazil with their performance being closely monitored to further improve their design and operation.

Hundreds of wings are planned to be built over the next few years and BAR Technologies is also researching new builds with improved hydrodynamic hull forms.

The solution, believed to be the first to use Amazon Sidewalk for data communication, is comprised of the Subeca ‘Pin’ as a Bluetooth meter register to replace the standard register on the water meter.

Once commissioned, the utility is then able to utilise the Amazon Sidewalk communications network, with the free communications benefit that it offers.

“This is a very inexpensive way for a utility to start building out an AMI platform,” says Patrick Keaney, CEO of Subeca.

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Subeca’s Pin is claimed to work with the majority of existing water meters and that it can be retrofitted in less than a minute.

To get the product out on the market the company has launched an ‘Explorer kit’ comprised of three Pins and the use of its Engage data platform for one year, available to 100 utilities.

Amazon Sidewalk is a long-range, low-bandwidth, low-power community wireless network for IoT that is enabled on Amazon Echo and certain other devices.

It is based on Bluetooth low energy and 900MHz LoRa and is believed to potentially provide coverage to over 90% of the population in the US – its only country of availability so far.

Subeca’s Pin includes the Bluetooth meter register as the core data collection component and the Bluetooth low energy and LoRa modules.

The company’s product offering also includes the ‘Act’, a Bluetooth wireless ball valve that will open, restrict or close upon command from a Bluetooth-capable mobile device or through the company’s Link data collection device.

Subeca has previously developed a LoRaWAN solution with a Pin featuring AWS IoT Core for low-cost communication.

Keaney, who has been CEO of Subeca since May, is the former worldwide head of development at AWS Water, with a focus on the development of IoT and cloud services in the water sector.

Through their combined acumen, the two will develop and deploy new solutions for electric utilities and renewable energy producers.

Namely, the collaboration will draw on Hitachi Energy’s Energy Portfolio Management (EPM) solutions combined with Google Cloud’s data analytics capabilities, artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) services, as well as scalable and secure infrastructure.

“Data and analytics are at the centre of the energy transition and play a critical role in the evolving grid,” said Massimo Danieli, managing director of grid automation for Hitachi Energy. “Our customers worldwide have asked for solutions that help them achieve sustainability goals and business outcomes at speed and scale.”

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A first demonstration

The first demonstration of the collaboration is that of Hitachi Energy’s Velocity Suite Power Prices, which delivers sub-hourly energy pricing data for users.

The product’s launch marks the first milestone in the collaboration and, states Hitachi Energy, signals the partners’ aim to address growing market and customer needs for cloud-based solutions that drive the energy transition.

Global developers, operators of renewable generation and battery energy storage systems (BESS), as well as traditional generators, traders and energy market participants can use the data from Velocity Suite Power Prices to make “better, faster decisions about energy projects and investments in North America,” states Hitachi Energy in a press release.

Added Danieli: “Delivering Velocity Suite Power Prices through our partnership with Google Cloud helps global customers accelerate decision making, optimize investments, and digitally transform their own businesses.”

According to Hitachi Energy, Velocity Suite Power Prices informs and accelerates planning and revenue analyses for transformative grid and renewable energy projects.

The computing power of Google Cloud technology, adds the company, is instrumental in automating and consolidating the suite’s dataset.

“By delivering Velocity Suite Power Prices on Google Cloud, Hitachi Energy is enabling customers to deploy its platform on trusted, sustainable infrastructure and helping them better utilise massive amounts of data on their journeys to become more profitable and sustainable businesses,” said Roi Tavor, managing director at Google Cloud.

“Sustainability is a driving factor behind many organisations’ digital transformations, and we’re proud to partner with Hitachi Energy to help global businesses operate responsibly and sustainably.”

Also on the radar are two further acquisitions: that of a Chinese EV manufacturer by a Dubai-based tech company, as well as of a grids-focused advisory company by a US-based global consultancy.

SMS acquires heat pump division for flexibility services

The Scottish smart metering company has announced the acquisition of Evergreen Energy’s domestic services division, which specialises in the installation and maintenance of renewable energy assets, including heat pumps, solar and battery storage for homeowners.

According to SMS, the acquisition will enhance their capacity to deliver an extended range of low-carbon, behind-the-meter energy solutions to the UK’s domestic and commercial marketplaces.

The company, which earlier this year pointed to their flagship smart meter services and storage portfolios as key profit areas, is calling the acquisition “highly complementary to SMS’s leading role in the delivery of Great Britain’s smart meter programme, owning and managing c.4.5 million meter and data assets for customers,” they state in a press release.

Heat pumps are a key clean tech asset for enabling demand side response, which is gaining attraction in the UK as a method of alleviating peak demand on the country’s grid system.

The acquisition is thus hoped to deliver associated data solutions and demand flexibility services to energy suppliers, businesses and consumers.

Earlier this year in February, SMS announced a demand side response project, part of the UK Government’s Flexibility Innovation Programme, to design and deliver testing schemes for flexibility applications.

Earlier this week, UK market research company Cornwall Insight released research illustrating the crucial element smart meters represent for flexibility services, which have exponential savings potential, should households participate.

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SMS’s acquisition follows other strategic investments made last year in EV charge point software company, Clenergy EV, and of smart energy data platform, n3rgy, which similarly bolstered SMS’s presence in the EV charging infrastructure and data services markets.

Evergreen Energy’s other divisions, including the Homely and Easy MCS brands are not included in the transaction and will operate independently from the Evergreen Energy brand going forward.

Stated SMS CEO Tim Mortlock: “Whilst we will continue to operate the Evergreen Energy brand that has been successfully established within the northwest, the acquisition will bolster the Group’s overall capacity to deliver these carbon reduction assets on a wider national scale to a fast-growing domestic and commercial marketplace.

“The location of Evergreen’s Manchester base close to our national training academy and innovation centre in Bolton, where we are focussed on upskilling our engineering workforce and testing new technologies, will also be highly beneficial.”

A Middle Eastern acquisition of Chinese EV manufacturing

Dubai-headquartered mobility tech company NWTN has reached an agreement to make a strategic investment of $500 million in China Evergrande New Energy Vehicle Group (EVGRF), a Chinese automobile manufacturer that specialises in developing EVs, aiming to accelerate the company’s position in the EV space.

NWTN and EVGRF entered into a share subscription agreement pursuant to which NWTN will acquire approximately 27.50% of shares of EVGRF alongside the right to nominate a majority of EVGRF’s board.

The proposed transaction is expected to close in Q4 2023, subject to customary and other closing conditions.

NWTN, a mobility and green energy company, has a full vehicle assembly facility in Abu Dhabi. Technologically, the company has expanded its capabilities to include PV generation, green hydrogen production and energy storage.

The strategic acquisition forms part of the company’s continuing expansion, vying in growing markets in the Middle East, North Africa, China and other countries.

NWTN states an emphasis for their business on the use of AI technologies, autonomous driving and personalised passenger experience as key to its market positioning.

The company believes a partnership with EVGRF will be instrumental in addressing the EV needs of the Middle East and will facilitate EVGRF’s research and development and mass production of new car models for eventual export overseas.

According to Reuters, the deal forms part of a $3.2 billion plan unveiled by Evergrande to reduce its debt and stay afloat.

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Consultancy’s acquisition to reinforce grid expertise

US-based ICF, a global consulting and tech services provider, has acquired CMY Solutions, a power and energy engineering firm that advises on decision-making for grid modernisation, programmes and investments.

Founded in 2016, CMY’s team of 50 specialised experts advise senior leaders of utilities and developers across the US, Europe and Asia, including investor-owned utilities, electric municipalities and electric cooperatives.

ICF on the other hand consists of approximately 9,000 employees, consisting of business analysts and policy specialists who work alongside digital strategists, data scientists and creatives in the public and private sectors.

The acquisition brings to ICF strong backgrounds in renewable energy integration, distributed energy resources (DER) impact studies and management.

Additionally, CMY brings “deep technical expertise in substation, transmission and distribution system design, protection and control, North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) compliance, as well as system planning and capital strategy consulting,” states ICF in a press release announcing the acquisition.

Commenting on the acquisition was John Wasson, ICF chair and CEO, who stated how the deal will “strengthen our ability to support utilities’ needs for grid transformation, reliability, resilience and renewables integration in a much more holistic way.

“As one team, we will scale our industry-leading energy service offerings and continue to grow our rapidly expanding technology and data management capabilities across the various markets we serve.”

Acquisitions have been key in this week’s Smart Energy Finances with smart metering for flexibility, EV manufacturing and grid modernisation expertise for consulting all seen driving strategic corporate moves.

What are your thoughts? What have you seen as having a large influence on decision-making when it comes to acquisitions in the energy sector and what would you like me to cover?

Let me know.

Cheers,
Yusuf Latief
Content Producer
Smart Energy International

Follow me on Linkedin

Over the past few decades, commercial buildings have become a focal point in the fight to minimise the global carbon footprint because they consume a lot of energy due to the increased use of cooling, heating, ventilation systems, lighting and computers. Some companies even use cleanrooms, which require up to 50 times more energy than non-classified spaces.

This means that commercial buildings, although unable to choose whether they use fossil or renewable energy as they are subject to the grid’s supply, have a lot to gain and contribute by using more renewable energy sources. In the near future they may not have a choice as commercial buildings face evolving regulation that either incentivizes owners to make the sustainable move or requires them to do so.

Although fossil fuels remain a prominent power source due to their replacements’ intermittency, Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) will solve this unreliability problem and propel buildings and businesses in the right direction. Here’s how.

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Virtual power plants to the rescue

It’s already widely acknowledged that sustainable energy is the future for power, with the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) recently declaring long-term energy storage “the most pressing utility scale needed in the next decade” – the ability to store energy from renewable resources for later use is the answer.

VPPs have been around for the better part of 40 years. They give the ability to harness sustainable energy by bringing together multiple energy sources, also referred to as Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), such as solar panels, electric batteries, wind turbines.

The VPP then forms a system based on supply and demand that can be controlled according to the current grid needs so that it can avoid consuming power when it’s expensive and limited to consuming power when it’s cheap and abundant, all the way to providing power back to the grid when supply is limited – all in the hope of reducing the grid’s reliance on fossil fuels.

Some of the above mentioned energy resources are only relevant during the daytime (for example, solar panels) and become less efficient on cloudy or rainy days; wind-based energy depends on the fluctuating airflow, wave energy relies on ocean waves to generate electricity, and hydropower utilizes the gravitational force of falling or flowing water.

So there is some justification for businesses to hesitate in relying more on renewable energy sources, which they deem as unstable. Considering that a single hour of downtime can cost organisations over $100,000 from lost revenues and reputational damage, businesses are rightfully hesitant to rely on these solutions without fossil fuel backup.

However, although the grid currently runs in a one directional way and renewable energy sources are less consistent individually – when they become part of an extensive network of devices that supports a building’s energy needs around the clock, regardless of the time of day or weather conditions, they create a consistent and reliable energy supply alternative.

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VPPs: Multiple energy sources, multiple advantages

In our ‘smart’ age, the new generation of VPPs present a far more efficient way of using renewable energy. Today’s VPPs live up to their promise by eliminating integrating more resources into the grid, leveraging its flexibility, enabling greater share of renewable energy sources thus optimizing the grid’s capacity so it can do more with less.

This means that the VPPs are able to perform two activities. The first is control demand flexibility, the easier of the two, which turns off power demand when the grid is overworked. The second is to provide a supply service by supplying power back to the grid in exchange for lower rates, flat fees or similar.

Through these services, the risk of relying on sensitive sources is minimized and the ability to provide a continuous supply of energy based on actual demand is strengthened. Simultaneously, at times when supply is high, onsite or ‘ behind the meter’ energy storage solutions ensure that the surplus energy isn’t lost but stored to be utilised when needed.

Commercial buildings can then be part of a grid that provides a smart, reliable, cost-effective solution that considers both the planet’s and their business’ needs. Additionally, buildings can choose whether to include their energy assets as part of the VPP network, such as EV charging, and help the grid become more stable.

By doing so, VPPs enable commercial buildings to contribute to a greater solution together with the climate-responsible grid, to do their best without taking unreasonable risks, creating an energy ecosystem that is better for businesses, communities, and the planet.

As VPPs advance, so does our ability to move away from harmful energy resources and offer future generations a more sustainable approach. Doing so without asking businesses to sacrifice their ability to plan ahead and meet revenue goals is critical.

As the load on the grid is expected to grow exponentially in the coming months and years, now is the time to scale up and move forward to make the VPP part of the solution. The time is ripe to give VPP its time to shine.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yoram Ashery has been the CEO of storage tech company Nostromo Energy since May 2021, specialising in managing technology companies, designing and executing international go-to-market plans and leading business development and complex financing and commercial transactions.

The UK market researcher’s report, The power of flex: Rewarding smarter energy usage, outlines the importance of enabling household flexibility, which has the potential to benefit individual households, the national energy system and the environment.

The report highlights four key findings:

• Smart meter-enabled flexibility can cut peak consumption by 3GW;

• Household flexibility could deliver annual savings for consumers and the energy system of £14.1 billion/year ($17.9 billion/year) in 2040;

• Individuals engaged in flexibility could save 52% in wholesale electricity costs in 2040;

• Carbon savings increase 45% with the engagement of household flexibility.

Smart meters crucial for enabling flexibility

According to Cornwall Insight, the research focussed on the system-facing benefits that can be realised by managing and deploying the flexibility potential in household electricity use.

The flow of relevant data between different parties engaged across the energy system is essential to delivering opportunities, states the company, and smart metering infrastructure is a core component in ensuring this information is available to all relevant parties when they need it.

Using the half-hourly data from smart meters, customers can also be rewarded for reducing their use of electricity at certain times, in a way that would not be possible with a traditional meter. With a traditional meter, suppliers typically do not have visibility of consumption at different times of day, states the research, and therefore could not reward customers for making a change in their consumption pattern.

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Enabled by the presence of smart meters, household flexibility was found to support substantial reductions in peak consumption, the equivalent of four new gas-fired power stations.

Specifically, states the research, managing flexible demand technologies like EV charging, heat pump operation and solar and storage activities to market prices and system requirements equates to 3GW of peak demand on the network avoided overall in 2030.

This reduction is equivalent to saving almost £1 billion ($1.3 billion) in spending on the electricity network, including wires and other infrastructure which delivers electricity to homes.

Further savings are seen in 2040, with a 1.5GW reduction in peak demand facilitated by household flexibility, saving £1.7 billion ($2.2 billion) in avoided network upgrades and the building of new gas-fired power stations.

£14.1 billion saved by 2040

According to the study’s comparison between two scenarios, one with enabled flexibility and one without, the flexibility scenario sees consumers and the energy system benefit from £14.1 billion in savings in 2040.

This arises from three key areas, states the report:

• Lowered wholesale electricity prices accounting for £12.3 billion ($15.6 billion);
• Lowered peak demand, reducing the need to build additional power stations, delivering savings of around £1.2 billion ($1.5 billion);
• Reduced need to build additional network assets, equating to a saving of around £500 million ($634 million).

These financial savings relate to single-year scenarios modelled for 2025, 2030 and 2040. The scenarios are stand-alone and are not cumulative for the time periods between the scenarios, states the research.

Also of interest:
EU flexibility requirements to increase significantly towards 2050 finds JRC
Energy Transitions Podcast: Enabling flexibility with district self-balancing

Looking nearer term, in 2030 the research finds overall savings of £4.6 billion ($5.8 billion) and by as soon as 2025, the ability to shift some consumption out of expensive peak periods supports wholesale power price savings, with overall power costs £21 million ($26.6 million) lower.

Flexible households could save 52% in wholesale electricity costs in 2040

According to the research, for households with EVs, heat pumps and other smart-capable assets that are managed in line with flexibility incentives, wholesale electricity costs are 52% lower in the Flexibility Scenario, saving £3755 ($4759) in 2040.

These savings take account of the additional electricity demand required to transition to electrified heating and transport and come from these households being rewarded for moving the flexible parts of their electricity consumption into cheaper periods. This means these customers won’t face additional costs from petrol and gas, states Cornwall Insight.

45% increase in carbon savings

According to the report, engagement with household flexibility results in a 45% increase in carbon savings compared to the no flexibility scenario, the equivalent of planting 630,000 trees, states the research.

By engaging with flexibility, households can have a positive environmental impact, shifting consumption from peak times when gas-fired power stations are often used to meet demand, to other times of day when renewable energy is generating more.

The first phase of the rollout was focussed on the southwest region of Paraná state in Brazil’s southeast, while the second started in the metropolitan region of the capital, Curitiba.

The smart meter and smart grid programme was launched in 2021, following a 5,000 smart meter pilot introduced in 2018 in the southern state municipality of Ipiranga.

The programme is expected to see the introduction of around 4.5 million smart meters in total.

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In the first three phases, the entire southern region of the state will be supplied with smart meters, approximately 1.5 million by 2025, with a budget of the order of R$820 million (US$169 million).

Daniel Pimentel Slaviero, President of Copel, says the goal is to apply the technology to improve the efficiency of service to customers.

“Paraná has once again come out ahead, and today we have the most advanced smart grid programme in Brazil,” he asserts.

“It is the best in solutions for the power distribution system.”

Benefits provided by the smart meters include a reduction in the time to locate and fix breakdowns, remote meter reading and connections, the availability of meter data to customers via a smartphone app and digital billing, in addition to a reduction in carbon emissions due to improved efficiencies of field workers.

For example, the company estimates the avoidance of 75t of CO2 emissions in the first half of the year due to the latter.

The latest municipality in which the rollout is being introduced is Ponta Grossa, which is among the largest in the state and considered among the more challenging due to the geography of the city and the characteristics of the local power grid, according to Copel.

Approximately 800 units per day are expected to be installed there.

According to the regulator, domestic DSR, which entails consumers adjusting consumption in response to the needs of the energy system and being rewarded through reduced bills, is a key element in achieving Government plans to decarbonise.

New market reforms and regulations are being developed in the UK to manage the expanding domestic DSR market, underpinned by digitalisation and decentralisation, which enables better monitoring and response to grid activity.

However, for domestic DSR to work at scale, states Ofgem, it also needs large scale consumer participation. Ofgem is thus seeking input from energy sector stakeholders on how to facilitate the transition to consumers becoming flexible energy consumers.

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Marzia Zafar, deputy director of digitalisation and innovation at Ofgem, said: “domestic demand side response is about optimising the way we consume energy, so it works best for a decarbonised energy system and consumers. The key to unlocking high consumer uptake is making it both attractive and easy to participate in.”

“It is not Ofgem’s role to specify what this domestic DSR journey should look like, but it is important that it is not left to chance.”

According to Ofgem, it’s anticipated that in the UK there will be many different ways for consumers to engage with Domestic DSR both manually and via automation.

The simplest and most common method of engagement, they add, is expected to be automated DSR, whereby consumers configure smart devices with default off-peak time settings, optimising consumption against time-of-use tariffs and choosing to have a third party manage their participation in flexibility markets.

Zafar added that “as the regulator, we are seeking input from a wide range of stakeholders including those working in industry, the providers of smart home and transport assets, consumer representatives and other parties’ interested in flexibility.

“This will help build a shared vision of what the emerging domestic DSR customer journey should look like and how to make that vision a reality.”

Ofgem’s inquiry comes in as energy demand in the country continues to grow with the proliferating number of clean tech assets, such as EVs and electric heating systems, coming online and adding stress to the UK’s electricity grid.

The call for input is now open and will close on Friday 29 September 2023.

Put simply, smart metering is key to managing energy, water and gas consumption effectively. And critically, Lightweight Machine-to-Machine (LwM2M) technology plays a pivotal role in making smart metering more efficient and responsive. Let’s explore how.

Understanding smart metering

Smart metering solutions provide valuable, real-time insights into resource consumption. In contrast, traditional metering systems suffer from a host of limitations. These include infrequent data collection, reliance on manual readings and limited visibility into real-time consumption. These systems also often fail to detect anomalies or leaks promptly, leading to wastage and higher user costs.

But how does LwM2M fit in here? LwM2M both facilitates and improves smart metering. It has the capability to enhance its efficiency and accuracy (if the LwM2M data model is in use) while boosting its real-time monitoring capabilities.

Through IoT device management, LwM2M ensures seamless smart metering connectivity, transforming how we monitor resource use.

LwM2M: Unveiling the technology

At the heart of today’s smart metering revolution is the Lightweight Machine-to-Machine (LwM2M) technology, designed for efficiency, scale and interoperability. Key features and advantages include:

• Lightweight: Consumes less bandwidth and power, making it cost-effective and ideal for large-scale IoT deployments. With LwM2M, IoT-based smart metering systems can offer massive benefits without bloated hardware and data storage.
• Efficient: Enhanced transmission rates enable swift and accurate data flow.
• Remote management: IoT device management is seamless, offering real-time monitoring and control.

In smart metering, LwM2M has a capability to foster robust machine-to-machine communication. It may simplify data transmission, making it faster and more reliable, and amplifies remote management capabilities, transforming how we monitor and control infrastructure elements such as routers, gateways and last but not least smart meters.

LwM2M in energy consumption monitoring

LwM2M supercharges smart metering systems, boosting their capabilities in energy management:

• Real-time data: LwM2M enables instantaneous data collection and analysis, offering immediate feedback to consumers. The result? Smarter, more efficient energy use.
• Demand response programmes: LwM2M can integrate with these programmes, allowing utility providers to adjust power production based on real-time demand, reducing waste and improving service reliability.
• Predictive maintenance: Leveraging LwM2M, IoT-based smart metering systems can predict maintenance needs, preventing malfunctions before they occur.

In essence, LwM2M transforms cellular IoT smart meters into proactive, precise instruments for energy monitoring and management, offering yet more benefits of smart metering.

LwM2M in water metering

LwM2M is a game changer in the field of smart water metering, driving accuracy and sustainability:

• Accurate measurement: By enabling precise data collection, LwM2M ensures consumers are only charged for actual water usage.
• Leak detection: The technology allows for early detection of leaks, preventing wastage and reducing utility bills.
• Remote monitoring: With LwM2M, consumers have real-time insight into their water consumption, promoting conscious usage and sustainability.

Essentially, LwM2M empowers consumers with the data they need to make informed decisions, optimizing water use.

LwM2M in gas metering

LwM2M transforms the landscape of gas metering, heightening safety and efficiency:

• Real-time monitoring: LwM2M enables live tracking and analysis of gas consumption, ensuring optimal usage and cost-efficiency.
• Anomaly detection: The technology excels in spotting irregular gas usage, helping prevent wastage.
• Leak prevention and safety: LwM2M enhances safety by promptly identifying potential gas leaks, helping to prevent accidents and property damage.

By integrating LwM2M into gas metering systems, users gain a more detailed, real-time understanding of their consumption habits. It’s a leap forward in gas safety and efficiency.

Final thoughts on LwM2M

LwM2M isn’t just a step forward in smart metering; it’s a leap. Revolutionizing energy, water, and gas management delivers real-time insights, enhanced safety and waste reduction. It’s not just about better resource management; it’s about smarter, more sustainable living. The future of smart metering is here, powered by LwM2M.

About AVSystem:

At AVSystem, we pride ourselves on being a trusted and reliable partner for IoT deployments. We understand that proper device management is crucial to the success of any IoT project, which is why we have built our reputation on providing best-in-class solutions to ensure that our clients achieve scalability, interoperability and security.

Website: https://www.avsystem.com/coiote-iot-device-management-platform/ 

Anjay IoT SDK: https://www.avsystem.com/anjay/

Coiote IoT Device Management Platform: https://www.avsystem.com/coiote-iot-device-management-platform/

The company, which supplies water to almost 7 million people mainly in the east of England, launched the programme in December 2022. Based on two complete scans of its service area has reported saving over 2Ml/d – enough to supply 8,000 homes in the region.

Chris Utton, Leakage Intensive Delivery Manager for Anglian Water, says that as much of the company’s region is rural, the satellites are particularly helping to detect any leaks in these areas where traditional monitoring is much more difficult.

“Over the last 30 years, we’ve reduced leaks in our network by 38%, despite putting a third more water into supply to meet the increasing demand of our rapidly growing customer base,” he says.

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“We know we must go even further as it’s one of the most important things to our customers and the wider environment. Gone are all the low-hanging fruits and quick wins, we’re now into the realms of tracking down really hard-to-find leaks, long before they’re visible to the naked eye, to fix them quicker and save as much precious water as possible.”

Anglian Water is working with water solution company SUEZ and California-based earth observation data provider Asterra – the only service in the world to use L-Band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) with patented technology and analysis to find leaks from the satellite images.

The satellites work by sending a pulse down from space and measuring interaction with materials on the Earth as backscatter, in this case the signature of drinking water below the Earth’s surface, which may suggest a hidden leak in the water network.

The satellite imagery is expected to form a regular component in Anglian Water’s leak detection armoury but ultimately it is only one of them, with others including thermal imaging drones and naval hydrophone equipment.

Anglian Water was also recently allocated funding to expand its smart meter rollout as part of its leak reduction plans.

Since the first smart meters were installed in 2020, the company has reported helping customers find and resolve more than 100,000 leaks at their properties.

Details on affected companies have not been released, although the company is conducting an analysis into potentially affected systems.

Energy One offers solutions and services, managing the “entire wholesale energy portfolio” for customers in energy trading and logistics, serving energy retailers, generators, users, customers and traders, ranging from startups to multinational organisations.

According to the company’s statement, immediate steps were taken to limit the impact of the incident. The company engaged cybersecurity specialists, CyberX, and alerted the Australian Cyber Security Centre and UK authorities.

As part of the company’s efforts to mitigate the effects of the attack, certain links were disabled between its corporate and customer-facing systems.

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The company is currently coordinating an ongoing inquiry and response into the incident to determine what information and systems were affected.

Another priority, states the company, is determining the initial point of entry.

Commenting on the incident was Camellia Chan, CEO and co-founder of Flexxon, an AI cybersecurity specialist company, who stated that “the Energy One cyber-attack demonstrates the increasing risk threat actors pose to critical national infrastructure (CNI).”

According to Chan, CNI marks prime targets for cybercriminals as their “systems are underpinned by a myriad of complex devices, meaning the consequences if these are infiltrated can be devastating and put real people at risk. For example, SSE supplies gas and electricity to seven million homes and is an Energy One customer.”

Cybersecurity gaps and QR codes

States Chan: “To meet the fast-evolving threat landscape, businesses need to be proactive in assessing security gaps and address those with innovative and proven tools. Using low-level AI at the hardware level in devices, for example, is a game-changer.

“Unlike traditional cybersecurity measures, this robust last line of defence protects against sophisticated attacks while removing the need for human intervention.

“Ultimately, for all organisations, but CNI in particular, cyber security must be an integral part of IT systems. One Energy shows us you can’t afford to have weak spots.”

The announcement of the attack on Energy One comes as cybersecurity has been growing as a concern for those in the energy sector.

In the same week as Energy One announcement, US-based computer security services company Cofense published an analysis of an observed large phishing campaign.

The campaign utilised QR codes targeting Microsoft credentials of users from various sectors; “the most notable target” states the company in a blog post, was “a major energy company in the US, saw about 29% of the over 1,000 emails containing malicious QR codes.”

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According to Cofense author Nathaniel Raymond, the energy company was the main focus of the campaign, which sent out phishing emails containing PNG images with phishing links or redirects through a QR code, with the majority of them being Bing redirect URLs.

Raymond states that QR codes can reach inboxes with hidden malicious links. These links can also be embedded into other images to disguise the QR code as an image attachment, or embedded image in a PDF file.

“While automation such as QR scanners and image recognition can be the first line of defense, it is not always guaranteed that the QR code will be picked up, especially if it’s embedded into a PNG or PDF file.

“Therefore, it is also imperative that employees are trained not to scan QR codes in emails they receive. This will help ensure that accounts and businesses security remain safe,” concludes Raymond.

The partnership involves a minority investment in Pratexo through ABB’s venture capital unit, ABB Technology Ventures (ATV). Financial details of the investment were not disclosed.

Pratexo’s technology platform supports IoT and AI initiatives which demand compute power at the edge. The company’s technology enables the rapid set up of systems that can process huge amounts of data generated by IoT sensors and run advanced analytics in real time close to the location of the device, rather than in the cloud.

ABB’s Electrification Service will leverage Pratexo’s industry-leading, no-code development platform, Pratexo Studio, to accelerate and revolutionise how edge-to-cloud digital solutions are designed for customers, allowing them to make better decisions for future operations.

According to ABB, the collaboration will help customers deploy edge-based networks and solution architectures that provide real time insights, with the added benefits of reduced cloud data transfer volumes, improved data privacy and security and the ability to run when not connected to the internet.

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One example cited by ABB is customised, decentralised software solutions that allow distribution grid operators to manage, monitor and assess electrical systems in real time, identify what could potentially be causing machine faults and optimise at the local level to adjust to rapidly changing circumstances such as identifying and responding to changes in power availability and consumption.

“We are in a unique position to support customers in their digital transformation regardless of what stage they are at. Investing in and partnering with innovative startups like Pratexo advances our technological services capabilities to provide enhanced industry 4.0 business outcomes to our customers,” said Stuart Thompson, president of ABB’s Electrification Service Division.

Added Blaine Mathieu, CEO of Pratexo: “The last 20 years of IT have been mostly about centralising computing into the cloud. The next 10 will be about balancing that with a hybrid edge-to-cloud approach – doing the right compute at the right place and at the right level. Our close collaboration with ABB will further enable and accelerate that transition.”

The partnership is ABB’s sixth venture capital investment of 2023 and helps expand the company’s portfolio of solutions that support decarbonisation.

The smart metering system is under development by energy companies E.ON and Netze BW, technology suppliers Robotron Datenbank-Software and Power Plus Communications and manufacturer Landis+Gyr.

The companies have announced that the system is based on the integration of an RLM meter to a smart meter gateway with testing having proven its marketability and timely availability.

The large consumption points in Germany account for about three-quarters of the energy consumed in the country, although in number they amount to only around 1% of the total 53 million metering points, i.e. about 530,000.

Under the Digitisation Act, at least 20% of the load profile measurement points in Germany must be equipped with smart metering by 2028.

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“With this technical solution, we are taking a further step towards digitising the RLM measuring points with smart meter gateways,” commented Jürgen Kramny, Head of Metering Systems at Netze BW.

Malte Sunderkötter, Managing Director of E.ON Grid Solutions with responsibility for the smart meter rollout in the E.ON group, said the solution has the potential to become a new industry standard.

“To this end, we are building on broad acceptance among customers, users and manufacturers.”

Specifically, the solution is based on the connection of a Landis+Gyr RLM meter to Robotron’s back-end system via the controllable local systems (CLS) interface of Power Plus Communications’ smart meter gateway.

The solution fulfils all the specific RLM use cases and also makes the metered values available for subsequent billing with storage in the meter – key in the event of a temporary interruption of the communication link to the meter, given the high levels of energy involved.

In addition, the local interfaces of the meter can be used for specific industry use cases, thus taking into account the different requirements of customers in this market segment, the companies have reported.

The solution is available in a test environment and the intent is to further optimise it as it evolves.

US Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) chose DERMS provider Smarter Grid Solutions (SGS) to implement their Strata Grid DERMS at the facility.

ESIF is an energy systems integration laboratory facility focused on developing and deploying clean energy technologies and resilient distribution systems.

According to the ESIF’s research project manager, Sarah Williams, “DERMS-related research is core to the integrated, multi-disciplinary work happening at ESIF.

“We have confidence we are developing a powerful toolbox with SGS to address both existing and future use cases.”

DERMS are known for enabling enhanced control and visibility over assets for utilities and electric cooperatives, allowing operators to manage incoming renewable energy resources and grid-edge devices for improved performance of the electrical system.

According to SGS in a press release announcing their selection, example use cases of the Strata Grid DERMS include the autonomous operation and coordination of modern grid devices.

Within the system distributed energy resources (DERs) are leveraged for improved grid planning and operation, as well as demand-side management and customer engagement through bidirectional communication with utilities and energy market operations.

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According to SGS, the system is the “only DERMS software to combine the grid and market optimisation with real-time control”.

According to the ESIF, when it comes to their integrated energy capabilities, the lab includes tools and approaches to enable better integration with the electric grid and other energy infrastructure, diversification of integrated energy streams for resilience, cybersecurity risk management and customer participation in smart load management and energy generation.

The ESIF also states it has “hundreds of commercially available” DERs, including inverters, electric vehicles, batteries, home energy systems, solar panels, fuel cells and more, which can be integrated ‘in-the-loop’ with simulations for realistic experimentation.

According to SGS’ statement, NREL sought a DERMS capable of replicating utility control and the monitoring of distributed devices from small residential systems to the grid substation level.

“SGS is excited to partner with NREL on their research in the DERMS realm. With NREL’s research leadership and SGS’ industry-leading DERMS solutions, we expect to see very interesting and exciting learnings from this partnership,” said Jon Grooters, director of utility solutions at SGS.

The task force, which is planned to kick off its activities in early September, is aimed to drive the adoption and standardisation of wireless charging solutions for EVs globally.

Established in cooperation with association members Siemens AG, the wireless charging technology company WiTricity Corporation and German charging solution provider MAHLE chargeBIG, the taskforce is intended to seek to close existing gaps to ensure the successful integration and utilisation of wireless power transfer technology in the evolving electric mobility landscape.

The taskforce will actively work towards harmonising standards in wireless power transfer technology for charging EVs.

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Defining the respective applicability of wireless charging will play a crucial role in its integration into diverse EV platforms.

The taskforce also will seek to define rigorous test procedures and certification guidelines for interoperability, in order to ensure that wireless charging solutions are reliable, efficient and compatible across different platforms.

Additionally, the taskforce will focus on clearing the co-existence of relevant technologies for wireless power transfer to foster a cohesive ecosystem for the future of EV charging.

Members of the taskforce with expertise in wireless charging technology are now being sought from both CharIN members and non-members.

Wireless charging developments

Wireless charging is becoming increasingly popular for mobile and other devices, with EVs an obvious opportunity due to the convenience it offers.

Both static and dynamic options are available, enabling charging when parked in a garage or driving on highways respectively, with the former aimed primarily at homeowners and charging station operators and the latter initially at least for trucks and other high-use vehicles such as buses and taxis.

Its use so far is limited, however, but that is set to change with wireless charging now delivering efficiencies and charging times that match or even better those of traditional plug-in chargers, according to developers such as WiTricity.

As an example of recent development, WiTricity has entered into a partnership to deliver its technology in Europe with ABT e-Line, which initially will upgrade the VW ID.4 to support wireless charging and subsequently other VW, Audi and Porsche models thereafter.

In another example, another CharIN member, the Israeli company Electreon is to equip a section of the French A10 motorway southwest of Paris with dynamic wireless charging and a stationary wireless charging station initially for fleet use.

A third CharIN member InductEV recently opened a high power wireless charging R&D centre at its King of Prussia, Pennsylvania headquarters.

In the US there also is a move to introduce a grant programme for wireless EV charging with a proposal for $250 million to be made available for its introduction on roads and bus routes, in parking areas and at airports among other locations.