Eltel Networks A/S, a value-added reseller of Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) advanced metering infrastructure, has been awarded a contract by the Danish utility EnergiMidt to deploy the NES system to all of its 170,000 residential customers. One of the five largest electricity distribution companies in Denmark, EnergiMidt, a cooperative owned by its customers, is focused on providing innovative and high-quality service.
NES value-added reseller Görlitz AG is also participating in the project, providing their EDW3000 software, a full-featured meter data management system (MDMS) and integration platform that runs on top of the NES system software to provide a rich set of utility applications. Revenue to Echelon for the project, including meters, data concentrators, and software, is expected to total approximately $18 million. Volume shipments are targeted to begin in the fourth quarter of 2008 and to continue into 2010.
“Utilities like EnergiMidt and partners like Eltel and Görlitz are at the forefront of moving to the next generation of utility infrastructure,” said Mark Ossel, Echelon’s vice-president of utility sales, Northwest Europe. “Their focus on building a ‘smart grid’ that connects the utility and its customers rather than just an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) lays the foundation for future services across their customer base that can help customers lower their energy costs, reduce their carbon footprint, and increase the reliability of the electricity grid.”
The NES advanced metering infrastructure from Echelon consists of a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters accessed via a web services based network operating system over an IP networking infrastructure. Unlike systems with a dedicated radio per metering point, multiple NES meters can share a single IP connection through the use of Echelon's standards-based power line networking technology. This drives down the per-point connection cost and enables the system to incorporate new wide-area networking technologies over the life of the system.
