Networked Energy Services Provides Support for PREPA’s Rebuilding Efforts

The NES Patagonia Platform Smart Metering Application provides essential analytics to assist PREPA to more effectively manage load while restoring the Electric Grid

San Jose, CA, July 10^th, 2018: Networked Energy Services Corporation (NES), a global smart grid solution provider with the industry’s leading Patagonia Energy Applications Platform (EAP^TM), is proud to announce that it has been assisting PREPA in its rebuilding efforts following the massive hurricane that devastated Puerto Rico in September 2017. The NES Patagonia Energy Applications Platform, which is in place for a portion of PREPA customers, was the first smart metering system to return to full service following the devastating hurricane. NES, in collaboration with PREPA’s CIO Office, restored the NES System, enabling PREPA to understand where faults were present in order to restore customer services, manage load, and provide accurate usage data and invoices to customers using the NES solution. The NES Patagonia Platform was an instrumental tool used to achieve this efficient and effective recovery by providing key grid analytics and valuable customer information for those parts of its distribution network with NES smart meters.

Prior to the hurricane, PREPA was in the process of upgrading to a state-of-the-art and fully secure system using the unique capabilities of the NES Patagonia Platform. The legacy AMR (automatic meter reading) system in place over much of the island does not support PREPA’s roadmap and vision to create a smarter grid, enabling PREPA initiatives to modernize its metering platform with an innovative, progressive, and remotely managed solution capable of supporting renewable energy resources and engaging PREPA customers with tools to be active participants in energy conservation. Unfortunately, the upgrade project was interrupted by the hurricane, and since then, PREPA has had difficulties communicating with and reestablishing the IT infrastructure for their older systems. As a result, PREPA has had to manually read non-NES meters and, due to lack of resources after the hurricane, PREPA must use estimated billing reads for many of those customers with older electricity meters. The inaccurate estimated bills from the non-NES meters have led to customer complaints and understandable dissatisfaction for some customers.

In contrast, NES smart meters were the only meters that could be remotely read relatively shortly after the storm, providing those customers with accurate electricity bills and re-establishing a positive customer experience. In addition, NES was quickly on site to assist PREPA with its restoration efforts, which expedited the return of the NES System IT infrastructure to service and restored reliable communications with NES meters. The NES System has now been running accurately and reliably again for many months, saving metering data during intermittent power outages, providing data about both short and term power outages, offering unique analytics about the distribution power lines, and delivering detailed, accurate monthly usage information. PREPA is using this low-voltage grid insight to assist in day-to-day service recovery and repair activities.

PREPA originally selected NES with its Patagonia Energy Applications Platform because it provides industry leading and proven OSGP (Open Smart Grid Protocol) based power line communication technology that provides >99.8% daily availability of metering and other data. In addition, PREPA’s vision guided them to pick a technology with advanced functionality and capabilities that could reconnect quickly after storms, gather essential data on billing and load profiles, identify and report on outages and restorations in near real time, provide critical power quality data about the distribution network, and enable remote disconnection and reconnection of electricity service for PREPA customers.

“The damage caused by Hurricane Maria has been a horrendous and overwhelming experience for the people of Puerto Rico,” said Greg Warta, NES VP of Sales for the Americas. “PREPA has worked painstakingly to restore power to its customers. During that time, PREPA experienced first-hand the dependability of the NES System and gained an even greater appreciation for the reliability, security and advanced features of the NES System. We believe that the NES System and its Patagonia Platform can benefit PREPA and its customers for years to come and can be a crucial tool to help them manage the grid through similar events.”

“Our thoughts go out every day to those in Puerto Rico affected by Hurricane Maria. We are proud to say that NES employees have been standing side by side with our partner, CMS, and PREPA, providing food, water, and other supplies to the families in need in Puerto Rico,” said David Thomson, President and CEO of NES. “In addition, we are honored to know that PREPA has been using our Patagonia Platform with its unique smart grid analytics and information to securely assist them in restoring power to their customers with NES smart meters. We look forward to power being restored for 100% of their non-NES customers.”

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, intelligence 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.