Upcoming OSGP
Sponsored Events

Grid Analytics Europe 2018

London, UK

Sep 25 – 27

International to China Trade Mission 2018

Beijing, China

Oct 14 – 20

IEC 61850 Global 2018

Berlin, Germany

Oct 16 – 18

Japan Solar + Energy Storage Congress & Expo 2018

Osaka, Japan

Oct 29 – 30

EUW

Vienna, Austria

Nov 6 – 8

Power & Energy Africa 2018

Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania

Nov 13 – 15

SmartCity Expo World Congress

Barcelona, Spain

Nov 13 – 15

ASEAN Solar + Energy Storage Congress & Expo

Manilla, Philippines

Nov 14 – 15

Electricx

Cairo, Egypt

Dec 3 – 5

European Power Strategy & Systems Summit (including EDP and EPG)

Amsterdam, The Nethelrands

Nov 20 – 30

Australia Solar + Energy Storage Congress & Expo 2018

Sydney, Australia

Dec 5 – 6

Oman Sustainable Energy and Technology Summit

Muscat, Oman

Dec 11 – 12

EXPERT CORNER

Sven Hartmeier

NES Technical
Training Manager

AMI installations are a significant investment for Utilities, and the installed system is expected to be running smoothly for years or even decades. During this time, technologies will evolve, legal and operational requirements will change and new usage ideas for the installed infrastructure will be developed.

This means that the chosen AMI system must be able to deal with these new challenges as they appear, and effectively provide ways to stay relevant; thus requiring all parts of the solution (Meters, Sensors, Gateways and Head-End System) to be designed from the start to be flexible and remotely upgradable, as well as all new development to be fully backwards compatible with the existing installed base to prevent costly exchanges of field devices or modifications to the Utility’s software system just to get a new desired or even mandatory functionality.

It is crucial for Smart Grid Solution Providers to follow a rigid regime of backwards compatibility for all components to ensure that a Utility’s investment into its AMI infrastructure will stay relevant for a long time, keep its value and enable the transition to a truly Smart Grid with new use cases and within evolving legal frameworks with the least amount of friction possible.

Due to the designed flexibility of the NES system and devices, we were able to remotely upgrade the security features and algorithms of installations with Meters as old as 13 years (built in 2005!) running with Gateways (concentrators) as much as 14 years old, with no problems in roll-out or functionality, and with no field work required. (For comparison: the first iPhone was released in 2007 and had its end-of-life final update after only 3 years.)