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.

With the major growth of new energy systems expected in the years ahead in the form of renewable generation, particularly solar and wind, along with the supporting transmission and distribution infrastructure, environmental and sustainability considerations are becoming increasingly important for today’s utilities.

With this in mind, Iberdrola has launched the new Carbon2Nature (C2N) company to harness the potential of carbon credit markets to drive the development of projects that will generate the credits and that then would be made available to customers to support their decarbonisation.

Iberdrola’s stated aim is to capture and store more than 61Mt of CO2 in natural sinks such as forests, coastal ecosystems and agricultural soils through the promotion of conservation and restoration projects in these.

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The focus is on regions where Iberdrola is present and where such solutions have significant potential, with over three-quarters of the projects likely in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile and the remainder in countries in the northern hemisphere, including Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal.

C2N is already working on the development of projects in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Spain, the company reports.

“To face the global challenge of climate change, the firm was created with the ambition to make a long-term impact at an international level,” says Miguel Ángel García Tamargo, director of Carbon2Nature, who previously held various roles with Iberdrola clean energy subsidiary Avangrid.

“In order to achieve this, it is committed to diversification in geographies and projects and promotes collaborative strategies for their development with local communities and other actors, guaranteeing the highest levels of quality.”

RGI, IUCN energy solutions partnership

Another new initiative in this area is a partnership between the Renewables Grid Initiative – an EU-funded TSO, NGO collaboration – and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with a five-year agreement on the development of sustainable renewable energy and electricity grids.

A key project currently being developed is the ‘Global Initiative for Nature, Renewables & Grids’, with the intent to support key stakeholders to incorporate nature-positive approaches in renewable energy generation and transmission.

If successful, the project should lead to a monitoring and reporting system, showcasing solutions and progress globally.

Antonella Battaglini, CEO of the Renewable Grid Initiative, comments: “It is possible to address climate, energy and biodiversity security in parallel when well planned, energy infrastructure can contribute to create nature protection and restoration opportunities.”

The project ‘STORM: Data-driven approaches for secure electric grids in communities disproportionately impacted by climate change’ is intended to engage underserved communities in local climate change solutions and increase their situational awareness of the grid as well as to study community engaged operation of local power grids.

The project, which is expected to advance the nation’s smart grid technologies to support these communities, has been awarded an initial $375,000 in funding – half the intended total – from the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR research stimulation programme.

Other participants include the universities of Maine, South Dakota State and Alaska Fairbanks.

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The project is designed to respond to current resilience challenges, in particular the more frequent and intense extreme weather events and physical and cyber attacks, with three interrelated themes.

Theme 1 is focussed on engagement with underserved communities in local climate change solutions and knowledge translation for microgrid design.

Theme 2 then seeks to increase the situational awareness of underserved communities in order to improve the local power grid resilience through accelerated big data modelling, estimation and secure control frameworks.

A new multi-microgrid system restoration strategy is planned to prioritise critical loads at the community and individual levels based on a new multi-timescale predictive control and estimation framework that utilises grid forming inverters to provide dynamic support during the process.

Novel hardware Trojan prevention, detection and mitigation techniques should advance cyber-attack resilience of the entire system during severe weather.

Theme 3 addresses the development of a regionally relevant cyber-physical research infrastructure for studying community-engaged, data driven operation of power grids.

The new synthetic power systems, climate and socioeconomic data are expected to be immensely valuable to the advancement of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence applied to the electric industry in these underserved jurisdictions.

The STORM project is expected to benefit from solid existing partnerships including a Department of Energy EPSCoR project on modelling converter-dominated power systems.

The project also builds on partnerships with the Sandia, National Renewable Energy and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.

In addition, the project will leverage relationships with industry and community partners, including the Kotzebue Electric Association, East River Electric Co-op, Missouri River Energy Services, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Siemens, Sioux Valley Energy, Sustainable Energy for Galena and Versant Power.

In addition the call includes the delivery of 2,500 meters for distribution transformer metering.

The smart meters are to be DLMS/COSEM compliant and to communicate via PLC or RF.

While the intended locations of the meters have not been specified, the delivery is expected to take place within 150 days from the award of the contract, which is expected in December.

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The full rollout must also be preceded by an approximately 100-smart meter pilot.

Bidders for the contract are required to have installed at least 40,000 smart meters of the same type and to have sold more than 500,000 units in other countries.

The national loss reduction programme (Programa Nacional para la Reducción de Pérdidas – PNRP) was launched in November 2022 to reduce technical and non-technical losses and ensure access for all as a human right.

The programme was launched targeting an almost halving of the losses to around 18% by 2026 to deliver savings to the state estimated at more than 3 billion lempiras ($122 million) annually in energy purchases.

“We will not tolerate theft of a public good such as electricity,” promised the programme coordinator Raul Soto at its launch.

Its results to date, however, have been questioned by the local thinktank Association for a More Just Society (ASJ), which claims in a report that rather than decreasing, except in one of the areas, the losses have instead increased by about 3% since the start of the programme and ENEE’s collections also are down by about 11% compared with 2022.

At the same time, ENEE has almost doubled its personnel from 2,163 in 2022 to 4,179 in 2023.

ASJ recommends focussing on the areas with the highest losses and population densities as well as reducing the number of personnel and developing a new strategy.

The PNRP loss target for the end of 2023 is 28%.

In October 2022 Honduras was awarded $250 million from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration for loss reduction and other actions to strengthen the sector to support the energy transition.

The smart meters are intended for Hidrandina itself as well as for the other members of the Distriluz group, Electronoroeste, Electronorte and Electrocentro, which together distribute electricity to more than 12 million people in the north and central regions of Peru.

The contract is expected to be awarded in mid-July and to extend over 2.5 years.

Smart metering in Peru has lagged some other countries in the Latin American region, notably Costa Rica and Uruguay, but has been gathering momentum as part of a broader digitalisation of the energy sector.

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In June 2022 Hidrandina announced the intention to pilot 10,650 smart meters in Trujillo, Huanchaco and Virú.

“A detail of the project is that smart metering is not only the meter – it is the communication, the platform and the management software, these three go hand in hand,” said Hidrandina Commercial Manager, Saúl Ayaypoma.

“The objective is to improve the management of energy losses, with these meters we will have information in real time.”

In the first part of the project, which has been completed, smart meters have been installed by Electrocentro in the transformation centres and distribution substations as well as in large customers.

Electrocentro, which also is pioneering the smart grid in Peru, in May reported completing the rollout of its distribution automation project.

Approximately 750,000 people are expected to benefit from a reduction in the time of outages due to more rapid detection of failures

Among other smart metering projects in Peru, Enel Distribución Perú has undertaken two pilots, the first of 8,500 meters and the second of 10,000 meters in its concession zone in the capital Lima and Callao.

Berg Insight has estimated a total of about 50,000 smart meters in Peru and the market to grow to around 650,000 by 2028. They expect an increase after 2024 when technical standards and a cost-benefit methodology for deployment are anticipated.

Most recently the regulator Osinerg has approved the implementation of a new time-of-use tariff plan for smart meter users with effect from September 1.

Three tariff blocks are envisaged, the base from 11pm to 8am, medium from 8am to 6pm and peak from 6pm to 11pm, with potential savings for users estimated between 5% and 19%.

While the drive for smarter grids, initially led in North America and Europe, has expanded across the world, it has lagged in many emerging markets and developing economies as other challenges such as meeting growing demand with limited resources and ageing infrastructure have taken priority.

But a new report from IEA’s Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks Initiative (3DEN) suggests that digital technologies need a higher priority in these countries, with delays in their implementation having considerable costs.

According to the study, digital technologies could save $1.8 trillion of grid investment globally through 2050 by extending the lifetime of grids, while also helping to integrate renewables and minimise supply interruptions.

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However, failing to upgrade and digitalise network infrastructure properly could cut the economic output in emerging and developing countries by almost $1.3 trillion as reduced productivity, lost sales and wasteful outlays on backup generation push up costs and put net-zero targets at risk.

“Power grids are among the unsung heroes of the energy transition, but they need massive investment,” says IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

“While much attention goes to solar panels and electric vehicles, it is grids that connect everything together. By digitalising our grids, our power systems become more reliable and secure and our utilities can better manage the balance of electricity supply and demand. The longer we wait to upgrade and digitalise our grids, the more expensive it will get.”

Digitalisation of the grids

The report highlights the need for digitalisation of the grids as crucial for efficiency and decarbonisation and as one of the keys to the success of the clean energy transition.

For example, the IEA estimates that digitally enabled demand response could reduce the curtailment of variable renewable energy systems by more than 25% by 2030, thereby increasing system efficiency and reducing costs for customers.

Decarbonisation can be further supported through enhanced supply and demand forecasting, enabling integrated energy planning and providing better visibility and greater electricity demand flexibility.

Other roles for digitally enabled technologies highlighted include managing the growing penetration of distributed PV systems – countries such as Brazil, India and South Africa are seeing rapid uptake, for example – expanding clean energy access in remote communities and enabling better management of the growing demand due to end-use electrification.

The report notes that overall current global investment in grids is far short of what is required for net zero emissions by mid-century. Annual investment will need to more than double to around $750 billion by 2030, from around US$320 billion today, the IEA estimates.

Policies to support smart grid implementation

The IEA suggests five policy areas beyond targeted actions to facilitate investments to support smart grid implementation and continuous improvement in emerging markets and developing economy countries.

These are:
● Create a coherent vision of how digital grid technologies can help meet country priorities and modernise planning with updated policy and regulatory frameworks.
● Co-ordinate implementation across government departments, regulators and the digital and electricity industries.
● Facilitate rules and regulations that adequately value digital solutions and incentivise and de-risk digitalisation investments.
● Integrate resiliency and security across all electricity policy domains, including through long-term planning and for example climate strategies.
● Track, evaluate and disseminate digitalisation progress to ensure policy implementation and knowledge sharing.

The installation was announced by Copel manager Sérgio Milani, who stated that the completion of the 500.000 meters is part of a wider rollout and estimated that more than 1.6 million smart meters will be available to Copel customers in the coming years.

The rollout is part of the utility’s smart grid project, announced in 2020 to deploy smart meters and other technologies to modernise and automate its networks.

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“This is the image of the state of Paraná, with the position of all the radios already installed for the SmartGrid project (Intelligent Electric Network),” stated Milani in a social media post.

“We already have approximately 10,000 radios that make up the backbone network and the AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) network, the challenge is to reach all of our customers’ meters with communication.

“We already have half a million consumers with meters installed in phases 01 and 02 of the project, in the coming years it is estimated that this communication will be available to more than 1.6 million consumers.”

Copel’s smart grid project aims to install the necessary infrastructure for connectivity across applications. This includes the implementation of network reconfiguration systems, which are self-healing, and the automation of reclosers or voltage regulators.

Copel (Companhia Paranaense de Energia) is one of the largest electricity companies in Brazil, serving over 5 million customers across Paraná state.

This is according to a new research report from IoT analyst firm Berg Insight – Smart metering in Latin America – which reveals that the penetration of smart electricity meters in Latin America – a region including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama – reached 6.2% in 2022.

According to the report, the installed base will grow at 21.7% CAGR from 2022 to 2028 to reach a total of 38.4 million, up by 26.7 million over the course of 6 years.

Brazil is the market leader

Over the course of Berg Insight’s forecast period, smart meter penetration in Brazil – the region’s largest market for tech – will increase from 5.7% last year to 21.5% in 2028. Brazil and Mexico will account for close to 80% of total smart meter shipments.

“The number of meter installations in Latin America will continue to grow in the coming years and will be driven by the expansion of ongoing smart metering projects and new major projects. Besides the major markets Brazil and Mexico, countries like Colombia and Peru will grow their share of annual shipment volumes from around 4% in 2022 to over 16% by 2028,” states Mattias Carlsson, IoT analyst at Berg Insight.

Carlsson adds how examples such as Colombia and Peru demonstrate the immense potential for a Latin smart meter market; the former will see annual shipments decuple, and the latter will increase sixteenfold.

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According to the research, annual shipment volumes in Colombia will grow at an impressive 48.5%, while the market in neighbouring Peru is more nascent; smart meter shipment volumes are anticipated to increase after 2024, when the country is set to propose technical standards and cost-benefit methodology for future Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) deployments. The installed base of smart meters in Peru is forecasted to grow from around 50,000 in 2022 to 650,000 by 2028.

According to the study, annual shipments across the region will grow from 1.9 million units in 2022 to over 6.1 million in 2028. This, they state, makes Latin America one of the fastest growing smart metering markets worldwide.

Smart metering in Latin America

The annual demand for electricity meters in Latin America, states the research report, ranges from 16 to 27 million units, out of which Brazil and Mexico together account for over 70%.

In Brazil specifically, several utilities such as Cemig, Copel and Enel have been increasing investments in AMI infrastructure, particularly Enel which has announced an aim of 100% smart meter coverage across all its subsidiaries worldwide by 2030.

Utilities in the country are increasingly investing in the technology and the country is forecast to account for close to 60% of the shipped smart electricity meters in Latin America during the forecast period.

Berg Insight adds how, except for Costa Rica and Uruguay, Latin America has not yet seen a wave of massive smart metering projects. However, a number of utilities in the region are scaling up their smart metering initiatives and in some cases also prepare for large-scale rollouts in the near future.

Overall, high energy losses due to the prevalence of energy theft throughout Latin America will continue to be a major driver for smart metering investments, states the report. The use cases in Latin America to date include remote meter reading, fault detection, distribution automation and measuring power quality.

Additionally, the report finds that Chinese meter vendors in recent years have achieved increasing success in the Latin American market. A key contributing factor is their ability to offer competitive pricing, a crucial aspect for price-sensitive utilities operating in the region.

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By country

According to the report, the smart electricity meter rollout in Costa Rica progresses steadily and the country reached a milestone last year when smart meter penetration rate surpassed 50%; the country’s largest DSO, Group ICE, has also stated an aim of 100% smart meter coverage by 2035.

In Uruguay, nationwide rollout by the state-owned utility UTE is largely completed and the country is expected to become the first Latin American country to reach full smart metering coverage in 2024.

Smart electricity meters in Mexico is forecasted to increase from 8% in 2022 to over 18% in 2028.

Argentina’s high inflation and “bleak economic outlook”, Berg Insight adds, make any large-scale smart meter deployment unlikely in the near future, unless the economic situation significantly improves.

Smart metering deployments in Chile peaked in 2018–2019 but have since decreased mainly due to regulatory ambiguity. However, the report states there is yet potential for a more positive market development should the regulatory environment improve.

Panama was the smallest market covered in the report and was found to have the lowest smart meter penetration rate. The country’s installed base is forecast to reach 113,000 by 2028, although there is potential for significantly higher growth if the government improves the regulatory framework and creates incentives for smart meter deployments.

“As Latin America is poised for significant growth in the coming years, the race has begun between the top meter vendors to gain market share in the region. To date, Chinese smart meter vendors have achieved significant success in Latin America,” added Carlsson.

“One key contributing factor is their ability to offer competitive pricing, a crucial aspect for the price-sensitive utilities operating in the region.”

Also on the radar is Enel’s consideration of a storage sale to alleviate its net debt, a smart metering tender in Uruguay and closure of a major smart metering deal by Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).

UK Infrastructure Bank’s storage fund investments

Energy services and solutions company Centrica and British state-owned UK Infrastructure Bank are investing £265 million ($329.8 million) in energy storage in the UK, marking the bank’s first investment into such technology.

The Bank will invest £75 million ($93 million) on a match funding basis into the Gresham House Secure Income Renewable Energy & Storage LP (SIRES) alongside a £65 million ($80.9 million) investment from Centrica.

These investments are alongside a stated commitment from UK infrastructure Bank to invest £125 million ($155.6 million) on a match-funding basis into Equitix UK Electricity Storage Fund.

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Project breakdown of the funding includes:

• Supporting launch of the SIRES fund, which will focus on developing the collocation of renewable generation and short duration electricity storage facilities to help maximise grid connections.
  
  Centrica will be a cornerstone investor, marking the first time the business has invested in such a fund.
  
  The £65 million investment will be used to fund the construction of the seed asset, a collocated solar and battery energy storage project in Hartlepool, County Durham, with 50 MWp solar capacity and 75MWh of battery energy storage.
  
  Centrica’s Energy Marketing & Trading business will seek to provide a route-to-market for the assets in the fund once they become operational.
  
• Supporting launch of the Equitix UK Electricity Storage Fund through the Bank’s committed £125 million investment.
  
  The fund will focus on a combination of innovative business models across both short and long duration storage.
  
  The Bank has cited its infrastructure specialist asset management experience and asset portfolio across the UK electricity value-chain as providing them with the necessary insights for these types of investments.

The deals, which represent the Bank’s first investments in the electricity storage sector, are hoped to unlock a further £200 million ($248.9 million) in match-funded private sector capital.

John Flint, CEO of UK Infrastructure Bank said: “The Bank’s investment into these new funds will help break down the barriers to greater, long-term investment across a range of storage sector and renewable energy opportunities.”

According to the International Trade Administration, more than 16.1GW of battery storage capacity is operating, under construction or in the pipeline across 729 projects in the UK.

The technology is considered high priority for the UK Government and a key component of their push towards a net zero carbon economy.  

Enel mulls storage sale

Enel SpA is evaluating the sale of a majority stake in its energy storage business, claims Bloomberg reportage, in a move aimed at further reducing the company’s debt burden.

Italy’s biggest utility has received non-binding bids for an 80% stake in the project, valued at around €2 billion ($2.17 billion), according to the publication’s sources. Under the plan, Enel would look to retain around 20% to secure governance at the unit.

Should a deal go through, it will mark the latest from the Rome-based energy major in an attempt to alleviate their consolidated debt.

Earlier this year, the Group sold their stakes in Romanian operations to Greece’s PCC. Late last year they sold 50% of their stakes in Gridspertise. Both transactions were hoped to mitigate their net debt which, as of March this year, values approximately €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).

This latest consideration, states Bloomberg, sees Enel working with advisers for the sale of the storage unit, which is attracting interest from infrastructure funds.

The project uses industrial-scale batteries used to store energy created from renewable sources that will eventually be inserted into the national electric grid.

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Uruguay smart meter tender

As Uruguay state-owned utility UTE (National Administration of Power Plants and Electrical Transmissions) continues a strategic drive to replace residential meters with smart meters, the country’s government has announced a smart meter tender.

According to bnamericas, the tender sees officials seeking 180,000 single phase and 20,000 three-phase smart meters alongside the necessary software and components, consulting-training and maintenance services.

The tender was announced in the same span as UTE announced landmark installation of one million residential smart meters, part of their plan to install smart meters in all homes across the country by 2024.

Commemorating the millionth installation, UTE president Silvia Emaldi stated: “These devices and the technical infrastructure to manage remotely allow us to provide a better service and a reduction in costs for UTE, which is shared with customers.”

Emaldi added how, as of July 5, the smart metering programme will be extended to SMEs. Bids for the tender are due May 5.

#ICYMI: Australia’s QIC closes Vector Metering ahead of schedule

Australian state-owned QIC (Queensland Investment Corporation) has reached contractual close for its joint venture deal with Vector Limited’s New Zealand and Australian smart metering business – Vector Metering – touted as the largest smart meter provider of its kind across Australia and New Zealand.

The acquisition, initially required to be closed by June of this year, remains subject to regulatory approvals and follows Vector’s announcement in December 2022 of QIC as its preferred joint venture partner.

The deal consists of a sale by Vector of a 50% interest in Vector Metering to a new fund and co-investors managed by QIC Infrastructure. The investment is the first asset for this new QIC Infrastructure fund.

Vector Metering owns and manages over 2.3 million meters across the electricity and gas markets in Australia and New Zealand.

Read the full story

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Cheers,
Yusuf Latief
Content Producer, Smart Energy International

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Leveraging customer energy resource flexibility at scale

Join this recorded discussion about a utility’s journey toward decarbonisation by tapping into old and new resources. Learn how a utility’s strategy leverages grid edge resources such as demand response, battery storage, DERs, and voltage optimisation. 

Speakers

Nicholas Tumilowicz, Director, Distributed Energy Management | Itron, Inc

Jay Oliver, Managing Director, Grid Systems Integration | Duke Energy

Electrobras intends with the initiative, which includes the migration of the group’s technology infrastructure to Google Cloud, to make intensive use of data and artificial intelligence solutions to meet key challenges in areas including transmission and generation asset management, energy trading and enterprise sustainability management.

“Google cloud technologies can be used in a variety of projects in the operational areas of companies, such as monitoring vegetation along transmission lines, in the search for better use of the incidence of light in solar energy projects, in the use of augmented reality in hydroelectric plants and transmission lines, among other functions,” comments Wilson Ferreira Junior, President of Eletrobras.

“The partnership will allow optimising the performance of the generation and transmission assets, besides being a key arm of the intensification of investments in clean sources, predicted by senior management in the post-capitalisation scenario.”

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As part of the agreement, Eletrobras will migrate much of its infrastructure and applications from its private cloud to the Google cloud, which should enable greater efficiency and scale.

In addition, the modernisation should enable a more holistic data analytics strategy with data from all of Eletrobras’s information sources, delivering better and more rapid insights for business decisionmaking.

Marco Bravo, head of Google Cloud Brazil, says that Google Cloud will work with Eletrobras to “bring greater efficiency to its operations and explore new use cases to solve its main challenges in the industry.”

For example, the initiative opens up opportunities for using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help the company achieve its efficiency and expansion goals. Among the possibilities are the development of indicators for risk reduction, maintenance optimisation, project innovations, management of current assets and planning for the implementation of new assets.

Eletrobras also intends to explore the use of these technologies to accelerate clean and sustainable energy projects, including delivering insights for the optimisation of the renewable energy generation, transmission and marketing chain.

Cat-M1, an IoT-based communications technology, will be used by the company in measurement projects for data communication with smart meters.

The tech is hoped to improve information collection with a higher level of detail regarding energy consumption and quality levels across their consumers.

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The cellular technology will be used to connect millions of lower value-added devices with better coverage networks and lower connection costs.

And because it’s a licensed frequency range, states Neoenergia, the Cat-M1 will add an extra layer of security to the business.

Ricardo Leite, superintendent of smart grids at Neoenergia, explained: “We have managed to reach our last mile of communication to the final consumer and [have improved] the monitoring and management of our entire distribution network.

“For example, we can instantly identify a power outage, monitor the flow of charge consumed and generated by microgeneration systems, improve energy quality, identify possible thefts of electricity and even make more information available to our customers.”

The expansion covers all Neoenergia companies and has thus far seen 1,600 smart meters connected with 4,500 expected to be installed over the coming years.

Installations from 2021 to 2022 are estimated R$6 million ($1.2 million).

Who should join the World Energy Storage Day?

World Energy Storage Day (WESD) is a global movement. I encourage all to participants to join the event. We will have more than 100 CXOs from the leading companies as well as some of the top researchers and policymakers from 30 + countries who will be speaking at the event. So, it is a great opportunity to learn from the top minds in the industry on a single platform. Also, people have a choice where they can focus either on a particular conference that focuses on their region. We have divided the world in four regions. APAC, starting with China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as the first region; India, the Russian sub-continent as the second region; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa as the third region, and then North and South America as the fourth region.

People can either focus on just their region and participate in a full 6-hour conference in their [regional] track or if they are focused just on one segment such as stationary storage, e-mobility, green hydrogen or manufacturing they may want to participate in the sessions related to those technologies across different regions. So, there will be some overlap between the region, but, in terms of the planning, we have tried to make sure that people who are interested in any one functional area can navigate from different regions without having any significant overlap.

So that way people can hold up for a span of maybe 15-16 hours and learn similar topics happening from more than 30 different countries and keep track of their development. This is also a great opportunity for students to learn. So again, the basic conference registration is free so anyone can register and listen in live to any of the sessions.

Apart from the 16 conference sessions which will cover stationary, e-mobility, green hydrogen, and manufacturing in each of the regions, we will also have, 10 additional workshops, which will cover different topics such as giga factory supply chain, women in energy, skill development, solar-plus-storage, energy storage modelling, and optimisation and urban air mobility and a few others such as safety and fires which is a workshop led by Underwriters Laboratory. So, there are a lot of learning opportunities where people can pick and choose areas which they want to attend.

If people are interested in networking, then there is also a premium option available, where people will get behind-the-scenes access to the networking lounge, where they can interact with the speakers who will be joining throughout the day, as well as get access to the recordings from the various sessions and any presentation materials that have been shared throughout the day, through a nominal fee of $99. People can choose either of the options. And, last year we had participation from more than 5,000 delegates from 130 countries, and this year we are expecting to exceed that.

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So technically we are trying to create the platform for the sectors to come and deliberate and show their strength on that day.

Yes. So, this is again, a great platform where leading companies will showcase what they have achieved over the past year, as well as their roadmap for the coming 3-5 years. The same with policymakers, they will be talking about what are the key policy changes that have happened in each of the regions over the last 12-months and what the industry can expect in each of the regions in the upcoming 12-24 months. So, this is a great opportunity for both, those people who are speaking to showcase their capabilities and advances as well as for others looking to learn, take benefit, and leapfrogging by learning from these leaders.

We have observed that there is industry participation at WESD but in today’s time you see a lot of governments also supporting in-take as a whole. So, why is it important for government to join this day?

So again, from governments and policymakers’ point of view, they usually try to learn from other leaders. Some regions have emerged as global leaders like the US. More recently, China and Europe have taken the lead in pushing for advanced storage and e-mobility manufacturing, but other regions and governments can learn from the experience of these countries and make sure that they are able to lead.

For example, countries like India have demonstrated in areas of adoption of solar technology or earlier cellular mobile technology where although India was not a leader, with this technology adoption was started by tapping into, at the right point, India was able to become one of the top markets and benefited from these technology transitions.

There is a great opportunity for many countries to learn from the experience of the last 10-15 years. The regions that have promoted storage and are now getting on the adoption cycle, can help other countries leapfrog and jump through some of the linear learning curves, which otherwise countries go through. Through, World Energy Storage Day (WESD), we are all trying to accelerate this process, increase the adoption of these advanced technologies, and encourage global collaborations, because that is very important.

Often, people think that their country is something unique. Their region is unique. Some environmental conditions are unique, but when you are looking at the experiences from around the globe, there are every type of use-case for every type of environmental condition based on what individual countries may be facings. So, there are enough learnings, already from somewhere else in the world, and by learning from that we can accelerate the timeline for adoption of these technologies.

Moving onto the sessions specifically. Can you explain that each session, for example, the Manufacturing session, what do you plan to cover in the session and what can the audience expect from this session?

Over the last five years, the term giga factories have come to prominence. So, these manuacturing sessions are expected to focus on the giga factories, not necessarily only for Li-ion batteries but it would be for any technologies, batteries, or even electrolysers or, EV manufacturing. So, we will have some of the thought leaders and practitioners from around the world who will come in and share about how they have gone ahead and set up their giga factories and what others can learn from their experience.

One of the critical challenges which are going to come up in the next 4-5 years is related to the supply chain. This is because all these giga factories are now looking at scaling the global manufacturing operations for advanced lithium-ion manufacturing from 1000GWh to more than 5,000 GWh to 7,000 GWh within the next seven years. So, you need to tap into a much more diverse supply chain as well as start paying much closer attention to some of the environmental parameters. So, we will be focusing on various aspects of giga factories as well as their associated supply chain and manufacturing equipment during the manufacturing sessions in each region.

Similarly, the other three sessions for the main conference will cover stationary energy storage, where we will be talking about various storage applications for supporting grid for customer-cited energy storage deployment for renewable integration and the type of policy and market mechanisms that have created opportunities for deployment of storage in different parts of the region.

In the e-mobility session, we will be focusing both on mobility infrastructure in terms of the charging system development and learnings from around the globe as well as the various forms of mobility such as four-wheeler, two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and electric buses will be covered.

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In the green hydrogen session, we will be focusing on the rapid emergence of green hydrogen as a technology for decarbonising the industrial sector. We see a lot of differences where in certain regions green hydrogen is being seen for decarbonisation of the power sector by converting existing gas turbines into directly hydrogen as a fuel source, whereas in other regions like India, the focus is more on applications such as petroleum refining or the creation of ammonia or fertiliser and then using green hydrogen for replacing grey hydrogen and trying to reduce the carbon intensity of these sectors.

We will be covering all these different aspects in the sessions. Apart from this, there are 10 thematic workshops where the idea is that people from different regions may be interested in learning common themes, such as safety and fire related learnings. In the Safety and Learning session, UL will lead by sharing insights from the work being done around the globe. We will focus on other aspects such as skill development, where we will be talking about how different countries are taking initiatives for meeting the growing requirements for the sector in terms of scaling, and what we can do in terms of accelerating and scaling platforms that are already developed and deployed in different regions and try to encourage global collaborations in that.

Other sessions will include solar-plus-storage, where we will specifically focus on the emergence as the cheapest energy source, and how storage technologies can help in making solar much more dispatchable and round-the-clock asset. And then we will also talk about storage modelling, storage optimisation, which is very essential when you are looking at building and then operating projects in any of the market region.
We have a session on women in energy to talk about how we work together for involving women in the sector and benefits in terms of diversification of the workforce and other areas.

One important session where I want your input is the Global Startup Showcase.

Yes. The way I think about it is as a competition. So, for the global startup showcase 2.0, the competition is on and start-ups from around the world are applying right now.

The application window is open 22nd of September and we have a panel of 15+ experts who will be shortlisting. These start-ups and the top 10 start-ups will get an opportunity to present to 50+ global investors who are very actively looking at investing in energy storage and mobility-related start-ups.

You can visit startup.energystorageday.org where you can learn about the competition and the experience of various investors and participants from last year. And, if you are a start-up working on some innovative technology or innovative application of technology then feel free to apply. We look forward to connecting you with potential investors, as well as strategic partners through this platform.

ABOUT DR RAHUL WALAWALKAR

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is President & MD of customised energy solutions India Pvt. Ltd. and chair of World Energy Storage Day.

Walawalkar founded the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2012 and continues to serve as its President. He served as board member for Energy Storage Association, USA during 2009-15 and as the Chair for Global Energy Storage Alliance during 2018-20.

He holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and Master’s degree in Energy Management from NYIT, United States and B.E. from Walchand College of Engineering, India.

The trains are run on the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude, operated by Elbe-Weser Transport Company (EVB) on behalf of LNVG, replacing 15 prior diesel trains. Five of the new trains are currently rolling and the rest will be added by the end of 2022.

The units come in as LNVG has been exploring diesel alternatives for trains since 2012 and are the result of a partnership with rail vehicle manufacturer Alstom, transport company Elbe-Weser (evb) and gases and engineering company Linde.

According to LNVG, each of the models are quiet, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that generates electrical energy for propulsion. The Coradia iLint features clean energy conversion, flexible energy storage in batteries and intelligent management of automotive power and energy.

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Developed specifically for use on non-electrified routes, the train travels on the evb network at speeds of 80 to 120km/h, with a top speed of 140km/h.

LNVG has stated that the models are entirely emission-free. One kilogram of hydrogen replaces around 4.5 litres of diesel fuel, translating to 1.6 million annual litres of diesel no longer consumed and 4,400 tons of CO2 no longer generated. Each is supplied at a hydrogen filling station around the clock, with one tank providing a range of 1,000km.

Hydrogen refilling station

Refilling the trains is taking place at a Linde facility in Bremervörde, which includes sixty-four 500-bar high-pressure storage tanks with a total capacity of 1,800kg, six hydrogen compressors and two fuel pumps.  

Subsequent plans for the site include hydrogen production using electrolysis and renewable electricity alongside corresponding expansion of the area itself.

The project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport as part of Germany‘s National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology. It cost a total of €93 million ($93.4 million).

The federal government contributed €8.4 million ($8.5 million) to cover vehicle costs and €4.3 million ($4.3 million) for the filling station. The funding guideline is coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by the project management agency Jülich (PtJ).

The transformer was developed in a joint venture between the electricity distribution network manager and Hitachi Energy, which develops technologies and solutions for those in the utility, industry and infrastructure sectors.

The first Eco-design high voltage/medium voltage (HV/MV) low loss transformer is insulated with natural ester, a fully biodegradable vegetable oil, and generates reduced CO2 emissions.

The transformer is being developed as joint work between Enel Grids and Hitachi Energy and has led a nominal power rating of 40MVA.
It will gradually reduce energy infrastructure’s indirect emissions to zero Scope 3. The use of natural ester as an insulator instead of traditional mineral oil results in, according to Enel, a significantly reduced carbon footprint, from production to disposal. The natural dielectric liquid also has much better fire resistance qualities than mineral oil and offers advantages for fire prevention.

Development and implementation of the project took place at the Hitachi Energy plant in Monselice, in the province of Padua, Italy. The commissioning of the transformer will take place at the Primary Substation in Caltagirone, in the province of Catania.

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The transformer is reportedly designed to be fully interchangeable with conventional transformers, and therefore will not require any on-site adaptation.

The transformer set up at the Monselice plant is also the first in a series of similar initiatives by Enel Grids. Another 20 natural ester insulated transformers have been commissioned, with the aim of installing them in Europe and South America.

Antonio Cammisecra, head of Enel Grids, commented on how the transformer is in-line with the Group’s decarbonisation goals, citing its “aim of progressively reducing the carbon footprint of our business to zero by working with like-minded partners such as Hitachi.

“It is, therefore, a source of great satisfaction to announce the approval of the first HV/MV Eco-design transformer, a significant step towards more sustainable and resilient networks.”

The transition of large power transformers takes longer and is therefore taking place more gradually, but for distribution network transformers, Enel Grids has adopted a global strategy to supply 50% of them in natural gas.

Neoenergia won two of the 13 lots offered: one, 1,707km, the longest project offered in the auction, between the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo, Brazil. The company also won the 291km contract in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

According to the regulator, the investment in these projects will amount to around €1 billion ($1 billion) and will create more than 11,000 jobs during construction.

The project aims to expand the transmission capacity of the northern region of Minas Gerais, to accommodate the renewable energy generated in the region.

The larger project consists of three 500kV lines, plus a 440kV line. A new 500kV New Bridge 3 substation will also be built.

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The second foresees the construction of 291km of lines in nine municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, with two 230kV lines and sections and a 230/138kV Paraíso 2 – 2×150 MVA substation.

The objective is the integration of the small hydroelectric power plants Fundãozinho, Areado and Bandeirante and the connection of the distribution in the Paraíso region. The timeframe estimated by the regulator for completion is 48 months and around 1,250 new jobs are expected during construction.

Brazil is one of Iberdrola’s prime growth markets. The company has more than 2,300km of transmission lines in operation in the country, following the completion of the April 2017 auction deliveries.

“The acquisition of the assets reinforces Neoenergia’s expansion in the transmission segment and consolidates the company’s commitment to the development of the country’s electricity sector,” stated Eduardo Capelastegui, CEO of Neoenergia.

The deadline granted by the regulator for its construction is 60 months from the signing of the concession contract on 30 September 2022.

Empresa Eléctrica Quito (EEQ), the power company for Ecuador’s capital and surrounding areas, has launched a tendering process for the procurement and implementation of an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) platform.

The AMI is intended to cover the service areas of EEQ as well as the distributors Empresa Eléctrica Ambato Regional Centro Norte (EEASA) in Ambato, Empresa Eléctrica Provincial Cotopaxi (Elepcosa) in Cotopaxi province, Empresa Eléctrica Regional Norte (Emelnorte) in several northern provinces and Empresa Eléctrica Regional Centro Sur (Centrosur) in southern provinces.

The budget amount is US$16.43 million for a total of 44,457 smart meters, including 36,565 meters for residential customers, 7,381 smart meters for large industrial and other business customers and 511 smart meters for distribution transformers.

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EEQ and Centrosur will instal the lion’s share of 22,306 and 19,432 smart meters respectively, followed by Emelnorte with 1,433 meters, EEASA with 864 meters and Elepcosa with 422 meters. These numbers are selected according to the requirements and resources of each company.

The aim of the distribution transformer metering is to improve the monitoring and management of these units in order to improve the quality of service.

Key objectives of smart metering for residential and business customers include reducing outage response times as well as improving the meter reading and billing and offering other AMI services such as remote disconnection and reconnection and demand management.

The smart metering rollout, which has been in planning for more than three years, forms part of a ministry of energy and mines initiative to modernise the electricity sector with improved billing and collection and reduced losses.

The contract award is expected to be made in July.

Ecuador has almost 5.5 million regulated electricity customers. About 150,000 smart meters are in place, most under the state power company CNEL.

The partnership aims to decarbonise the built environment through the design and construction of resource efficient buildings using excellence in design for greater efficiencies (EDGE).

IFC and CBIC will work together to disseminate knowledge, create capacities to design eco-efficient buildings and promote access to EDGE certification among the private real estate sector. This would extend to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), developers, professionals and industry associations.

Under the partnership, the two institutions will promote the EDGE certification among CBIC members via virtual training for management and staff.

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EDGE certification

Developed by the IFC, EDGE certification offers a free software to identify cost-efficient measures to design a green building with a lower environmental impact and cheaper operational costs.

“EDGE certification is growing rapidly in large part because of the bridge it offers between developers and financial institutions keen to invest in green assets. Working together, CBIC and IFC hope to accelerate the decarbonisation of the building sector in Brazil,” stated Hania Dawood, IFC’s manager for climate strategy and business development.

To obtain an EDGE certificate, a construction project should achieve at least 20% of savings in energy, water and embodied energy in building materials when compared to a conventional building.

IFC will also work with selected CBIC members to help them plan a pathway to zero carbon emissions and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of the green building market penetration in Brazil.

Carlos Leiria Pinto, IFC’s country manager in Brazil, commented on the partnership in a statement, “Encouraging green building projects in the construction industry is key to lay the foundation for a green economic recovery. Together with CBIC, we are demonstrating that it is possible to reduce the socio-environmental impacts of the sector, help mitigate the climate pressure of urbanisation and open up new green economic opportunities in the country.”

This news comes in as the IFC has identified the market potential for green buildings to be an estimated $24.7 trillion by 2030 across emerging market cities.

In June 2021, IFC announced its first partnership in Brazil to stimulate the green building market, with Itaú BBA. The initiative involves technical training for the bank’s property developer clients and advisory services to identify opportunities in the green building market with the EDGE certification.

The project by Brazilian energy distributor Energisa and its distributed generation subsidiary Alsol Energias Renováveis and the international technology company Ingeteam included the installation of 600 solar PV panels and a bank of batteries along with the respective inverters, as well as two biodiesel generators and a control system.

Previously the 750-inhabitant village relied on a diesel generator providing three to four hours of power per day.

During the day the PV system provides electricity to the village as well as charges the batteries, which are then available for supply during the nighttime hours. When it is cloudy and there is insufficient charge in the batteries, the system automatically switches to the biodiesel generators, to ensure an uninterrupted supply and that the batteries are recharged.

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Vila Restauração is located in the northwestern Brazilian state of Acre, close to the border with Peru. It is considered one of the most remote locations in the country, with the only access by boat taking up to 10 hours.

As such, the delivery of the solar and other equipment required careful logistical planning.

The electrification is expected to transform life in the village, opening up new business opportunities and for example improving the storage of items such as foodstuffs and medicines.

The project was undertaken as part of Energisa’s R&D activities, as required by the regulator Aneel. Its distribution subsidiary Energisa Acre is the local distributor.

The company is monitoring the system remotely to track its operation and also to receive early alerts of problems or possible maintenance requirements.

In addition to the electricity supply, Energisa entered a partnership with the mobile operator TIM to provide internet to the residents of Vila Restauração and the village was fitted with the first 4G antenna in the region.

The analysis comes courtesy of The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) latest report, Renewable Energy Roadmap for Central Amercia: Towards a Regional Energy Transition.

Benefits from decarbonisation

The report finds that a decarbonisation strategy can bring benefits to the Central America region at the same or lower energy system costs than the current planning strategy.

A decarbonised pathway would cost the region $20 billion less than the planned scenario in the 2018-2050 period.

The analysis shows improved power system integration can help the region exploit abundant renewable energy potential, estimated at around 180GW. This constitutes a tenfold increase from the region’s installed capacity today.

Achieving this target would require increasing the total installed capacity share of renewables in the regional power sector to 90% and electrifying 75% of the region’s total fleet by 2050. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on the energy transition in the region, and related initiatives.

IRENA’s roadmap outlines a Decarbonising Energy Scenario (DES) that reduces CO2 emissions in Central America by 70% by 2050 compared to the 2050 ‘Planned Energy Scenario’ (PES). The PES reflects the plans, objectives and policies of each country and region, mainly approved as of the base year of analysis.

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“Central America is entering a crucial decade for shaping its future energy system,” said IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera.

“The region has a unique opportunity to ensure sustainable development with renewable energy resources that can bolster its energy security by mitigating fossil fuel dependence, while reducing costs, stimulating the region’s post-COVID-19 recovery and addressing climate change.”

Scaling up renewables

IRENA’s analysis shows that scaling up the annual deployment of renewables in the region three-fold by 1.4GW per year compared to planned deployment would put the region on track to achieving its renewable energy target.

To further reduce emissions from the transport sector, green hydrogen is recommended as an alternative fuel for heavy cargo road transport and international shipping.

The report also points to key challenges in the region in achieving universal access to electricity and clean cooking technologies.

37% of households in Central America do not have access to clean cooking technologies and fuels. In the DES, this share would fall to just 1% thanks to the introduction of improved cookstoves and electric stoves. This would require cumulative technology costs of around $12.5 billion during the period 2018-2050.

Additional health and socio-economic benefits would include reducing the pollution from cooking activities, mainly benefiting women and children.

The full report is available online.

The project at the Termocandelaria substation in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena uses the SmartValve technology to alleviate inter-regional congestion, unlocking 252MW of new capacity for generation on the existing network.

SmartValve is a modular intelligent control for power flows across transmission lines, effectively pushing power off overloaded lines or pulling power on to underutilised lines and thus enabling more efficient use of the network and the release of the additional interconnection capacity, which in turn improves the reliability of supply to the region.

“Due to the increase in generation at the Termocandelaria power plant there is a need for an innovative technology to regulate the energy supply,” comments Fredy Zuleta, General Manager of Transmission of Grupo Energía Bogotá.

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“In addition, among their functional advantages SmartValves offer wide environmental and economic benefits, as they provide solutions to different needs in the short, medium and long term for the country, since they reduce the obligation to carry out new transmission projects, such as lines and substations, to adequately dispatch the energy generated.”

The initiative, Smart Wires’ second in Colombia following an earlier project with Empresas Públicas de Medellín, is one of several that are emerging following the use of flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) devices being incentivised in Colombia’s transmission expansion plan.

Joaquin Peirano, Smart Wires’ Commercial Manager – Latin America, says that Colombia has become a global leader in leveraging technology to enable a cleaner, greener future.

“This pivotal project is unlocking significant capacity and strengthening supply of reliable, affordable electricity to consumers across the Caribbean region.”

Grupo Energía Bogotá is a leading business group in the transmission and distribution of electricity and the transportation and distribution of natural gas in Colombia as well as in Peru, Brazil and Guatemala.

The majority of improvements made in recloser manufacturing are to help utilities better manage and mitigate the disruption of electrical services.

From simplifying the mechanism and incorporating smart technology, reclosers have evolved into a critical must-have component for a utility’s grid reliability. The improved technology also supports eliminating the need for routine maintenance.

Globally, grid reliability issues are related to various external factors. For the purpose of this whitepaper, the scope of this problem will address challenges in APAC, LATAM, Middle East, and European regions. It highlights how the right reclosers and partners can reduce widespread power outages.

For deeper insight into the challenges, use cases, and possible solutions, a bespoke whitepaper has been researched and designed to provide you with the necessary information you are looking for.

The pilot included the use of mTHM to monitor the health status of 112 transmission and distribution transformers.

The utility is now expanding the use of the technology across an additional 88 transformers.

The project enables Energisa Group to analyse the risk of failure and identify areas of degradation where maintenance or repair can be applied to avoid service disruption or asset failure.

Monitoring the transformers and other grid assets in real-time will enable Energisa Group to optimise the performance of its assets and grid for improved efficiency, reliability and customer services to 8 million consumers that are served through the group’s nine distribution system operators.

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The project is expected to help reduce operational costs and enable the utility to achieve time savings.

The contract is part of the utility’s digital transformation journey which includes the deployment of advanced solutions that can help amplify the transition to renewables and enable Energisa to offer new, innovative and digital services, in addition to aligning operations with changing regulation and consumer demands for smart services.

Energisa Group says it will be investing $7.5 billion in grid modernisation across Brazil through 2024 in a bid to upgrade its infrastructure and improve access to affordable and reliable electricity to consumers living in energy poverty.

According to research firm Frost & Sullivan, global utilities will spend $33.42 billion by 2030 to digitise energy distribution and retail segments, spending that will see the deployment of advanced solutions in areas including customer services, optimal grid operations and connected and integrated businesses.

The application is built on Energy Web’s decentralised operating system and is intended to enable companies to obtain certificates detailing the origin and source of renewable energies that they are purchasing.

With this development UTE and the ministry are among the leaders in developing blockchain application in the energy sector in Latin America and the first of which we are aware to advance this use case.

Moreover, it is one of the first large scale blockchain applications to be developed in Uruguay.

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The scheme is available to large and medium-size energy users immediately, with the first certificates expected to be issued in March.xx

For others on non-residential rates as well as for self-generators of renewables, including the certification of renewable energy generated but not injected into the network, it will enabled from June 2022.

Longer term, the plan is to extend the scheme to all residential customers.

The development of the scheme follows the major growth of renewables in Uruguay over the past decade and the desire to implement an internationally recognised standard to its production.

It is expected to support the decarbonisation of the various sectors of the economy such as transport and industry and could be key to advancing the development of green hydrogen in Uruguay.

The ministry was responsible for establishing the conditions for the issuance of the certificates, while UTE was charged with the development of the technology platform.

The system cross-references generation supply and demand on an hourly basis and the certificates are issued monthly. Once emitted, they are automatically transferred to the acquirer of the renewable energy, whether a distributor or large customer.

“We understand that it is very valuable for a consumer to be able to certify that their energy or a certain fraction it is renewable,” said industry, energy and mining minister Omar Paganini at a September 2021 presentation on the scheme.

“Being able to certify that a certain product comes from energy uses that do not generate carbon emissions or greenhouse gases is one more value that the market is demanding more and more.”

Renewable energy certification is considered a key use case for blockchain with the same principle also now being introduced for green hydrogen as well as for other tracking use cases, for example in supply chains.

Having some of the largest distribution system operators in the world partnering with technology providers to co-develop an entirely new solution is intended to revolutionise the energy transition and help achieve a climate-neutral economy.

The E4S Alliance is helping digitalise the grid and make it data-driven in order to meet carbon neutrality.

Utility companies will benefit from an open standard-based secure and highly scalable platform to monitor and control the electrical grid, especially in low voltage.

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About Enedis

As a public service provider, Enedis manages the French electricity distribution network. The company’s 38,000 employees serve 37 million customers, developing, operating and upgrading 1.4 million kilometers of low- and medium-voltage (230 and 20,000 volts) electricity networks while managing associated data. Enedis carries out customer connections, 24/7 troubleshooting, meter reading and all technical interventions. It is independent of the energy suppliers responsible for marketing and managing electricity supply contracts.

About Capgemini

Capgemini is a global leader in partnering with companies to transform and manage their business by harnessing the power of technology. The Group is guided everyday by its purpose of unleashing human energy through technology for an inclusive and sustainable future. It is a responsible and diverse organization of over 300,000 team members in nearly 50 countries. With its strong 50-year heritage and deep industry expertise, Capgemini is trusted by its clients to address the entire breadth of their business needs, from strategy and design to operations, fueled by the fast evolving and innovative world of cloud, data, AI, connectivity, software, digital engineering and platforms. The Group reported in 2020 global revenues of €16 billion.

Get The Future You Want | www.capgemini.com

About Minsait

Minsait (www.minsait.com) is Indra’s leading company in digital transformation and Information Technologies. Minsait possesses a high degree of specialization and knowledge of the sector, which it backs up with its high capability to integrate the core world with the digital world, its leadership in innovation and digital transformation, and its flexibility. Thus, it focuses its offering on high-impact value propositions, based on end-to-end solutions, with a remarkable degree of segmentation, which enables it to achieve tangible impacts for its customers in each industry with a transformational focus. Its capabilities and leadership are demonstrated in its product range, under the brand Onesait, and its across-the-board range of services.

About E4S

The Edge for Smart Secondary Substations (E4S) Alliance is a technical working group formed by Ariadna Grid, Capgemini, Circutor, Enedis, Iberdrola, Intel, Landis+Gyr, Merytronic, Minsait, TTTech Industrial and ZIV Automation. E4S is working to accelerate the creation of a standards-based, open, interoperable, and secure architecture that addresses both the technical and business challenges faced by utilities around the globe.

Technology firm Wärtsilä will provide batteries for the system and energy management platform for real-time control and optimisation of the plant.

The project is Colbun’s first energy storage system and Wärtsilä’s first storage order in Latin America, a development that shows a change in the net-zero direction of the region’s energy sector.

The project falls under efforts by Colbun to increase its capacity of renewables in the energy mix and to ensure that renewable energy use can be shifted to when it is most needed.

In addition to helping Colbun to address renewables curtailment, the storage system is expected to help the utility to improve its revenues.

The energy storage plant is expected to be operational in the fourth quarter of 2022, and once operational will provide frequency response and firm capacity services for energy reliability for some 80,000 consumers.

Both the storage and the solar PV are expected to help Colbun to achieve its 2050 carbon neutrality target after the company invested $850 million in developing the 778MW Horizonte project, the largest wind energy project in Latin America, according to Colbun.

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Colbun plans to add 7GW of renewable energy capacity by 2030 and in support of the target has issued a $600 million green bond for renewable energy and other infrastructure projects.

Christoph Perathoner, Construction Manager, Colbun, said: “One of the current challenges of wind and solar generation is intermittency. But by incorporating electrical storage alternatives, such as the energy storage project associated with our Diego de Almagro solar plant, we can solve for fluctuations in generation and capture the full value of renewable sources. By adding energy storage, Colbun seeks to provide robustness to the Chilean national electrical system.”

Andrew Tang, vice president of energy storage and optimisation at Wärtsilä, added: “Chile has become a leader in renewable energy and the country has one of the most ambitious and economical decarbonisation plans in the world.”

According to a 2021 report by Wärtsilä, Front-Loading Net Zero, achieving a 100 percent carbon-neutral power system in Chile before 2050 is possible with the buildout of renewable energy and short- and long-term energy storage.

As coal-fired power plants in Chile are phased out by 2040, and more renewable energy capacity is integrated, battery storage systems will play an instrumental role in daily shifting of solar energy and providing ancillary services that maintain grid reliability.

The initiative, which was launched by Enel Brazil in August, is piloting the use of 5G as a backhaul for real-time messaging and data access in a substation in the Vila Olimpia neighbourhood near the centre of the city.

Currently, Enel uses the 3G network to connect to its control centres, which is slower with a latency of a few seconds.

With 5G, the latency is in the range of one to five milliseconds.

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The Brazilian telco TIM is implementing the mobile network utilising spectrum in the 3.5GHz band granted provisionally by the telecommunications agency Anatel. Other partners are Qualcomm, which is providing 5G customer premises equipment, Ericsson with antennas and other equipment and Motorola with mobile edge devices.

“5G opens the way for more intense use of the concept of ‘self-healing’,” Fernando Andrade, who is responsible for engineering and construction at Enel Brazil, told the publication tele.sintese.

“We have started with the substation because it is a relatively controlled environment, but it is possible to spread the technology to the equipment throughout the network.”

A key use case of the technology in the substation is for rapid identification of failures or maintenance requirements. Another is to provide video conferencing, augmented reality or other data to field workers.

Enel Brazil has 120 substations in and around São Paulo to which the technology could be expanded, while another area is drone image collection and analysis.

The pilot is part of Enel’s Urban Futurability project, which is aimed to transform Vila Olímpia into a digital and sustainable neighbourhood with an investment of R$125 million (US$22 million) from the energy regulator Aneel’s R&D programme.

The small central American country is fast becoming a Bitcoin ‘hub’ in the western world.

In June this year, the country became the first to adopt Bitcoin as a legal tender, with millions reported to be using the state electronic wallet, named Chivo, for purchases and financial remittances since its introduction in September.

At the same time the forty-year old president who also was a noted businessman, and envisioning the economic stimulus of Bitcoin, put in place a plan to harness the significant geothermal energy potential from volcanos for cryptomining.

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The latest plan, announced at the closing of the “Feel the Bit 2021’ Bitcoin event, is to build a new city – Bitcoin City – in the vicinity of the Conchagua volcano close to the ocean on the country’s southeastern tip.

“Bitcoin City is not only an idea, but will also be a reality in El Salvador. It will have residential areas, shopping centres, restaurants, a port, everything around Bitcoin,” said President Bukele.

“In Bitcoin City we will have mining, agriculture, culture and sports. When we are no longer there, this will last and everyone will be able to see the city.”

To achieve this vision, the government is to provide the land and public infrastructure, while also attracting external investors.

The president also committed to zero income and property taxes, with the only tax a VAT of which one half will go towards the municipality’s bonds and the other half towards the public infrastructure and city maintenance.

Construction is expected to start in 2022 with all funding for the development in the form of cryptocurrencies.

With the drive towards more sustainable cryptocurrency mining, more miners are turning to renewable rich countries, particularly those with abundant resources offering the promise of a low-cost energy resource.

With China clamping down on mining and calls for a ban in Europe, miners are looking further afield and President Bukele’s expanding Bitcoin vision places El Salvador firmly on the international map.

Currently, almost three-quarters of El Salvador’s generation is renewables-based, primarily from hydro and geothermal.

Bitcoin bond

Separately El Salvador plans to raise $1 billion via Bitcoin bond in partnership with the digital assets infrastructure company Blockstream. Half of the funds will be allocated to Bitcoin with the other half going towards building out energy and Bitcoin mining infrastructure.

President Bukele described the bond as a powerful first step for El Salvador in becoming a global hub for digital capital markets.

“Our long-term commitment is to explore and develop a domestic platform to help facilitate the growth of our digital asset industry.”

The Smart Luz consortium comprises Brazil‑based street lighting firms Salberg and Proteres Participações, IoT firm HTI, consulting company Arc and Green Luce. The consortium has won a BRL 1.4 billion ($256.5 million) tender to implement the Public Lighting public-private partnership project. 

The project will include the installation of 450,000 smart street lights, 5,000 Wi‑Fi hotspots, 4,000 waste sensors, 6,000 traffic lights, and 10,000 cameras to prepare the city for smart city services.

ST Engineering will provide the consortium with platforms that will enable some 300,000 smart street lights to be connected and some 25,000 devices and sensors to be managed via WI-FI hotspots.

The technologies will also enable waste management and traffic junction sensing for future smart city applications. ST Engineering will provide operation and maintenance services for the infrastructure for a period of ten years.

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The contract is one of the world’s largest single deployments of a city-wide, public, smart street light control project, according to ST Engineering.

The United States International Development Finance Corporation is funding the programme aimed at improving energy efficiency, services and security for Rio de Janeiro residents.

Ensuring the 18.5 million street lights in Brazil are smart and energy-efficient will help the country to align with goals set under the Paris Agreement of achieving a 10% energy efficiency gain in the electricity sector by 2030, according to the statement.

Yan Herreras Yambanis, the vice-president of finance at Smart Luz, said: “The Rio de Janeiro Public Lighting PPP project will be the largest integrated Smart City deployment in Latin America, and will have a transformational impact, as well as long-lasting and continuous benefits for the sustainable development of the city of Rio de Janeiro and its population.”

Whilst energy efficiency is critical to help Brazil address current energy shortages due to the drought, a lack of appetite by the government and energy stakeholders to maximise its use has crippled the market over the past years, according to the Climate Policy Initiative (CPI).

CPI states that the majority of energy efficiency rollouts in Brazil were implemented in response to specific episodes of difficulty in meeting the demand for energy and targeted residential consumers, yet sectors such as street lights and industrial consumers have the probability to reduce usage and enable the expansion of renewables portfolios.

CPI reiterates that there is a need for increased funding within the sector and the enactment of supporting policies if Brazil is to achieve its greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals.

Added to the current storage under development totalling 175MW, the capacity should double to over 360MW by 2023.

This will allow the storage and delivery of up to 1,563MWh per day of energy to the system, with the avoidance of more than 200,000t of CO2 emissions per year.

Making the announcement at COP26, Minister of Energy Juan Carlos Jobet pointed to the need for flexibility as the key to the massive integration of solar and wind generation.

Under the country’s energy plan at least 2,000MW of storage is required to be in place by 2030.

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“It is a great step, since it is in complete harmony with what we have proposed in our National Energy Policy,” said Jobet.

“At this COP26 we have urgently addressed making the goals we have as a planet a reality, and with this specific announcement we are moving in that direction.”

AES Andes – formerly AES Gener and a subsidiary of multinational AES Corporation – is currently constructing Chile’s first solar + storage project comprised of a 112MW/560MWh lithium-ion storage system alongside the 180MW Andes Solar II-B installation in the Antofagasta region in the country’s north.

The storage system utilises the sixth-generation technology solution from Fluence, the AES and Siemens jv formed in 2018.

Ricardo Falú, CEO of AES Andes, indicated that the new storage announcement represents an investment for Chile of more than US$400 million in battery systems integrated to renewable initiatives.

Green hydrogen advances

In addition to the agreement with AES Andes, at COP26 Minister Jobet also inked agreements with the ports of Antwerp and Zeebrugge to promote green hydrogen production and the establishment of a ‘corridor’ for the delivery of green hydrogen and its derivatives between Chile and Belgium and into Europe.

The parties intend to exchange knowledge, experiences and other information to continue exploring the possibilities of cooperation.

These agreements follow similar agreements earlier in the year with the Port of Rotterdam and Singapore and reflect Chile’s ambition to become a major exporter and leader globally in the supply of green hydrogen and derivatives such as ammonia and other synfuels.