USMARTCONSUMER Newsletter
USmartConsumer signals major breakthrough of smart meters and consumer services in EU
This is the main conclusion of the newly published USmartConsumer Smart Metering Landscape Report presented at the final conference, held on the back of the European Utility Week 2016 last November in Barcelona. Attended by over 300 sector professionals from around the world and under the patronage of the EUW’16 conference organisation, the latest edition of the European Smart Metering Landscape Report was presented and a line-up of high level experts elaborated on the latest developments of engaging smart metering services and the need for well-designed guidelines to boost consumer interest in smart metering and increase benefits to EU citizens and businesses. In this third and last project newsletter, the latest edition of the European Landscape report and the main outcomes of the final project conference on smart metering and consumer engagement will be highlighted.
The European Smart Metering Landscape report 2016 is out now!
To support the European market dissemination of successful innovations in the field of smart metering services for electricity, gas and district heating consumers, USmartConsumer regularly publishes the European Landscape Report. This comprehensive research report provides European sector professionals with important market information regarding the rollouts and stateof- art of smart metering services through indepth country profiles on the current smart metering services market in all 28 EU-member states and Norway.
“In 2016, the massive deployment of smart metering in Europe, with an accumulated number of 80 million smart meters installed (of a total of 300 million residential customers), has been ratified, constituting a major breakthrough in innovation for our society.” This is the main conclusions of the Smart Metering Landscape Report 2016, according to the USmartConsumer project coordinator Mr. Francisco Puente. “And if you also observe the regulations published in the different Member States, together with the number of meters installed and services to consumers (residential customers), it can be concluded that the EU countries definitely evolve at different speeds”, Mr Puente concluded at the EUW2016.
The European Smart Metering Landscape report is now available for free download. Please visit our project
website www.usmartconsumer.eu.
Utility Perspectives on national Rollouts
Following on the presentation of the European Smart metering landscape report, high-level speakers from four of the largest
utilities in the EU - Enel-Endesa, Iberdrola, Gas Natural Fenosa and EDP - elaborated on the latest innovations and developments with
respect to consumer engagement based on smart meter data in their respective countries.
Progress of Endesa Distribución
Marco Cotti, Manager of Commercial Operations of the Iberia Network of Endesa Distribución, elaborated on the progress in smart metering, smart city and announced the expected deployment of more than 9 million smart meters by the end of 2016.
Iberdrola Distribución presents STAR project Jose Maria Prieta, Technical Measurement Officer at Iberdrola Distribución, introduced a project called STAR that will allow the company to the remote management of its 10.5 million smart meters by 2018, based on the open protocol PRIME. He also stressed the improvements in billing that allows smart metering and the different information offered to consumers on the IBD platform,
such as the hourly curve, monthly curve, comparatives between consumers or contracted power versus the demanded.
Progress in the deployment of smart meters of Gas Natural Fenosa Mariano Gaudó, Head of Infrastructure for the Digital Network of Gas Natural Fenosa (Unión Fenosa Distribución), presented the progress in the deployment of smart meters of the company, with a total of 3.7 million by 2018.
Also, a web service/ mobile app service called Tuluz was presented. This service allows consumers to be informed of incidents in the
distribution network or their electricity consumption, facilitating the transparency of information to this segment of customers.
EDP Distribución presents InvoGrid Paulo Libano, Innovation Technology Director at EDP Distribución, described the development of the InvoGrid project. This project which dates back to 2010 as a small pilot in the city of Évora, represents the largescale deployment of the 2016-2017 period, where they hope to achieve a 20% share of smart metering, finalizing the installation of smart meters in 2023. Paulo presented the different technologies used under a holistic approach (M2M, AMI, GPRS, HAN, Internet), along with improvements in technical and commercial operations.
Innovative smart metering services in EU
The second part of the conference was focussed on the progress made in EU Member States with respect to the successful introduction of smart metering services for consumers.
Consumer engagement in Finland
Segmentation is a precondition Jan Maciejanski, from the Cluster for Renewable Energy Hamburg, showed the results of USmartConsumer project
segmentation research in eight EU member States. This research indicates the importance of good consumer analysis in order to fulfil the consumer’s needs, expectations and interests.
Role of the regulator for consumer engagement
Miriam Salguero, electric smart metering expert in the national regulator CNMC, National Markets and Competition Commission, Electric Energy Sub-Direction, explained the role of the regulator in facilitating new services for consumers. In 2014, new regulation in Spain introduced a new model for billing on hourly consumption. The mandated model also included the introduction of digital information infrastructure for consumers to daily check
next day electricity prices and analysis of own historic energy consumption.
Digitalization of Energie Wende in Germany Finally, Martin Walther, product and project manager in WEMAG Utility, presented the
smart meter roll-out strategy in Germany starting in January 2017. This was done on the basis of the “Digitalization of Energiewende
Act” which was passed in Germany in 2016. Focal points of the presentation were its regulatory, technical and financial implications, the aspect of consumer protection and data security and added customer benefit.
Smart metering services in Italy Marina Varvesi, Smart Meters Project Manager in AISFOR, explained how smart metering services fit to Italian Consumers, the situation related to smart meters in Italy, smart meters and monitoring tools, 2G smart meters and rollout plan for these new meters,
pilot actions carried out in Italy on consumer awareness on energy domestic consumption in the USmartConsumer project. She pointed out that in Italy the roll out of smart meters is complete however the smart meters service market is lagging behind as Italian consumers consider their energy bill as a tax independent from their behaviour.
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