Austrian Utility Building Overall Energy Management Infrastructure

Oct. 6, 2010
Austrian electric utility LINZ STROM has been recognized as a smart grid innovator for its advanced metering infrastructure rollout.

Austrial electric utility LINZ STROM has been recognized as a smart grid innovator for its advanced metering infrastructure rollout. The utility has commissioned help to build the overall energy management infrastructure to control electricity meters and other meter types.

LINZ STROM announced the last month that it has exercised an option to purchase an additional 100,000 Echelon Networked Energy Services (NES) smart meters over a three-year period as a result of the success it has had with an initial deployment of the system.

Ubitronix, an NES value-added reseller, is helping with the energy management infrastructure to control meters via the M-Bus extension port on the NES meters, as well as to command load control devices, in-home devices and city streetlights based on its Unified Intelligent Energy Management (UIEM) software suite.

LINZ STROM's NES-based smart grid system includes residential demand response, electricity, gas and water meter reading, streetlight monitoring and control, and direct command and control of specific in-home devices with permission of the consumer. All data collection and command and control are done over the single NES infrastructure, eliminating the redundant infrastructure and inherent cost and complexity of competing solutions that solely use RF mesh communications.

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