Trilliant Inc. has completed agreements with Central Maine Power to provide a complete smart grid communications network and advanced meter infrastructure solution. The company will install smart meters for all of its 620,000 residential, commercial, and industrial customer accounts beginning later this summer.
The smart grid deployment will use Trilliant’s SecureMesh communications network to provide a comprehensive high-bandwidth private wide-area network and neighborhood-area network that interconnects meters and other smart grid-enabled devices to enable consumer energy management. Trilliant’s UnitySuite head-end software will be used to manage the smart grid network. Other services include prime supply of electric meters, network design and installation services, software integration, and project management.
Trilliant partnered with General Electric and Landis+Gyr to provide electric meters. IBM is providing Tivoli Netcool software integrated with UnitySuite applications for robust and scalable service management of Iberdrola’s smart grid communications infrastructure.
CMP is part of Iberdrola USA, a group of companies serving nearly 3 million gas and electric customers in five northeastern states. CMP was awarded $96M under the Smart Grid Investment Grant program of the U.S. Department of Energy authorized under the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act. CMP's service area encompasses roughly the southern third of the state, but accounts for nearly 80% of consumer sales of electricity in Maine. Matching funding from the corporation will bring the total investment to nearly $200M.
The Maine project is Iberdrola's first smart grid project in the United States. CMP expects to complete the installations by early 2012. The system will improve the company's operations and customer service. It will also enable electricity supply companies and Maine regulators to work toward creating new benefits for consumers such as flexible rate schedules, lower energy costs, and peak demand load-shifting and load-shedding programs
