Landis+Gyr has been chosen by the Northwest Lineman College (NLC) to help develop a smart grid training center at the college’s Oroville, California, campus. The training center will be used to support courses in smart meter certification, advanced metering infrastructure and home area networking. The system will also demonstrate the ability to use smart grid infrastructure for advanced applications such as sectionalizing outages and managing distribution voltage.

The Northwest Lineman College is constructing a virtual city in a lab environment that is suited for both training and demonstrations in demand response, meter installation and data management. Landis+Gyr provided the college with a Gridstream advanced meter network and Command Center system operating software. Landis+Gyr’s FOCUS AX-SD advanced residential meters are being used to demonstrate the integrated remote service switch. The ZigBee-equipped meters also act as a gateway to enable home area networking devices and load control switches used in the demonstration.

“NLC is committed to staying on the cutting edge of training requirements for utility personnel. This new training center gives us a new capability for hands-on instruction in smart grid and advanced metering deployment, management and troubleshooting that will greatly benefit the power delivery industry.” said Mike Hennesey, president of Campus Operations.

Training objectives for the smart grid curriculum are comprehensive, including work on installation of equipment, troubleshooting, network and meter data management. Individuals completing the course will receive a complete overview of how smart grid technology impacts grid operations.