Crompton Greaves (CG), an Avantha Group Company, will supply ZIV single phase smart meters to Energias de Portugal (EDP), a European energy company. ZIV is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CG.
EDP had started deployment of PoweRline Intelligent Metering Evolution (PRIME) Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in Portugal a year ago. It roped in CG as the major provider of the 150,000 single phase meters (known as EDP boxes in Portugal) as part of the program.
ZIV single phase smart meters are claimed to be at the cutting edge of smart meter technology in the PRIME poweline communications market. Currently, about 3 million of these units have been deployed worldwide.
EDP had placed an order for CG’s Data Concentrator Units (DCUs) earlier this year under InovGrid, a project EDP took up to introduce AMI improvements in its network. The contract constituted the second batch — the largest lot — of DCUs.
Inovgrid aims to address the needs of operational efficiency, cost control, integration of large share of dispersed generation and electric vehicles.
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The the ZIV 4CTT DCUs of CG, the company claims, were the first PRIME alliance certified devices. These received the certification in 2014.
According to CG, the ZIV DCUs had proven performance onsite. Besides other management functions, they are able to retrieve and store data from meters and forward it to the management system at regular intervals.
EDP had initiated the deployment of PRIME Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) in Portugal a year ago. And it selected CG as a key supplier of data concentrators.
The ZIV Single Phase Meters provided by CG offer advanced functionalities such as real time readings on demand, load profiles, voltage monitoring and remote services. And ZIV DCUs (called Distribution Transformer Controllers in Portugal) which are installed at secondary substations, act as data concentrators and local metering, monitoring and automation devices.
ZIV devices have already been deployed by key European utilities including Iberdrola and Gas Natural Fenosa in Spain, EDP in Portugal and ERDF in France. A Saudi Arabian agency has also reportedly placed an order with the company.
Ajith Kumar S