Networked Energy Services Expands Smart Grid Market Share in Switzerland

San Jose, CA, October 23, 2019: Networked Energy Services Corporation (NES), a global smart grid solution provider with the industry’s leading Energy Applications Platform (EAP^TM), announced today the successful operation and expansion of its grid modernization solution in Switzerland including a new customer order from TB Weinfelden and the award of an AMI system expansion order, along with an option for orders, as part of an ongoing project with Industrielle Werke Basel (IWB) in Basel, Switzerland. These new meters are in addition to the more than 200K NES smart meters already deployed in Switzerland for 11 different DSOs.

Basel is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 250,000 electricity customers. The ongoing project was won based upon the positive results from the existing NES smart meter deployment. In addition to remote reading of metering and power quality data by the utility, consumers gain access to current consumption and rate information; remote control of electrical loads; the ability to integrate renewables; and control of rate structure, which will provide them more accurate data to reduce errors and minimize the cost of metering. NES is supported by an ecosystem of partners for this project and other projects in Switzerland including NES’s VAR partners GÖRLITZ, Kapsch and S&T Smart Energy. 

In addition, NES now offers additional automation and control functionality for the global market. This is highly relevant for the Swiss market, since these applications are ideal for any DSO wishing to improve their load control and readiness for the Smart Energy Transition. This includes a dual relay feature that supports utility load management program initiatives without the need of installing any external remote controllers. The functionality offers complete configurable schedules to shut off/turn on loads according to specific utility load programs. By deploying meters with these features, DSOs can launch more sophisticated tariffs, better balance supply and demand, and quickly shed load if required for short-term operational reasons. As with all NES solutions, security is central and satisfies the Swiss security requirements, which are amongst the most stringent in Europe. The control of the relays is protected from malicious tampering by the native and “always on” AES128 encryption, key management, intrusion detection and other security features of the OSGP protocol, protecting the DSO from both fraudulent energy use and denial of service attacks. 

“We were honored by their decision to expand the NES System, which is an indication that they are pleased with the performance of the NES System and its smart meters,” said Mark Ossel, VP of Global Alliances & Strategic Partnership at NES. “The NES PLC system has been operating brilliantly for IWB and the system easily scales for supporting additional smart meters. Also, important is the ability to remotely upgrade existing smart meters to include the latest security enhancements is a value added benefit of the NES System.”

"This project expansion further validates the performance and value of the NES System,” said David Thomson, President and CEO of NES. "In addition to the validation, we are pleased to provide IWB and TB Weinfelden with a solution that not only meets their existing needs but also supports the Smart Energy Transition and its future market requirements, various use cases, and of course critical and always growing security requirements."

About Networked Energy Services Corporation (NES)
Networked Energy Services Corporation is a global smart energy leader in the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into an energy control network, enabling utilities to provide their customers with a more efficient and reliable service, to protect their systems from current and emerging cybersecurity threats, and to offer innovative new services that enable active, intelligent use of energy. NES was formed as a result of the spinoff of Echelon Corporation’s Grid Modernization Division in October 2014. NES is headquartered in the US with R&D centers located in Silicon Valley, North Dakota and Poland, and sales offices throughout the world. NES’ smart grid technology is used in nearly 40 million smart meters and other smart end devices around the world. NES is a member of the OSGP Alliance, a global association of utilities and smart grid companies, which promotes the Open Smart Grid Protocol and cooperates to provide utilities greater value by enabling true, independently-certified, multi-vendor interoperability based upon open international specifications and standards.  You can find out more information about NES, its Patagonia Energy Applications Platform^TM (including grid management software, distributed control nodes, and smart meters) and services at: www.networkedenergy.com.