The European Network for Cyber Security (ENCS) and Elster will collaborate with Dutch energy network provider, Alliander, to provide a proof-of-concept pilot project to demonstrate advanced Privacy Enhancing Technologies for smart metering networks. Responsible for the regional distribution of electricity and gas to 3.3 million customers in the Netherlands, Alliander is currently developing and implementing smart metering and smart grid infrastructures. Elster will be supplying an end-to-end, market-ready solution for the PET pilot, which forms part of Alliander's small-scale smart meter rollout that commenced in the first half of 2012.
ENCS selected Elster for its implementation of the PET protocols on the Elster AS300 multi-utility smart electricity meter and the Elster EnergyICT EIServer, a meter management head-end solution, for Alliander's PET pilot. The PET protocols use cryptographic methods optimized specifically for aggregating data, which means any information collected from smart meters is unusable until aggregated with measurements from other meters. This will allow Alliander to meet, and even exceed, the strict privacy requirements mandated in the Netherlands, while simultaneously being able to perform advanced grid management and optimization based on the metering data.
Alliander is a founding member of ENCS, which is an independent European private-public collaboration formed to develop the most effective ways of increasing the cyber security and safety of critical digital infrastructures. The Alliander/ENCS PET pilot aims to validate the applicability of PETs for smart metering and smart grid, to determine to what extent this new technology is beneficial to Alliander and other grid companies and what needs to be adapted to maximize its benefit.
Alliander is also the first distribution grid operator to obtain a data privacy and security certification.
