Fortum Norway has awarded a smart grid project to Echelon partner Telvent to deploy Echelon’s smart metering system to Fortum Norway’s 100,000 electricity customers. Fortum is making the first significant deployment decision that directly addresses Norway’s new push to spread smart metering to the country’s 2.6 million electricity customers by the end of 2016.
Volume deployments of Echelon’s Networked Energy Services (NES) smart grid infrastructure system are targeted to begin in August 2013 and go through 2015.
The smart grid market in Norway is poised to greatly expand. The nation’s regulator recently mandated that all 130 Norwegian utilities deploy smart metering systems with highly specific features and attributes, such as daily data collection of 15-minute interval readings, integration of gas and water meters, remote connect/disconnect, secure/encrypted communication, measurement of micro grid generation and interfaces for reliable communication with in-home displays.
Fortum, with 1.6 million customers, is a leading energy company in the Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic region. Fortum Norway is the seventh largest utility in Norway and holds a minority interest in Hafslund, the largest utility in the nation.
Telvent will deploy its meter data management and supervisory applications combined with Echelon’s NES system. Fortum has the option to include Echelon’s recently announced open-standard CNX 3000 power line interface, powered by Echelon’s Control Operating System, that allows utilities to easily and reliably connect to smart grid devices, such as in-home displays and load controllers.
Telvent is currently deploying the Echelon solution to 550,000 of Fortum’s customers in Finland. Fortum is the largest utility in that nation. The project in Finland demonstrated reliability, scalability and advanced functionality of the solution. It figured into Fortum’s buying decision for the project in Norway.
