The fourth largest utility in Denmark, NRGi, has selected a smart grid control system throughout its services territory. The system includes Echelon software for sensing, monitoring and control applications for the low-voltage grid and smart meters for nearly 150,000 homes and businesses.
In 2008, NRGi acquired neighboring utility Energi Horsens and awarded a 50,000-customer deployment of the NES system within the Energi Horsens former service territory. Deployment of that initial system was largely completed in 2010. Echelon’s Networked Energy smart grid infrastructure consists of a web services-based network operating system that interacts with a family of highly integrated, advanced electronic electricity meters and other smart grid devices over an IP network infrastructure. Unlike metering systems with a dedicated radio per metering point, the NES system enables multiple devices to share a single IP connection through the use of the Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) and Echelon's standards-based power line networking technology. This decreases the per-point connection cost, enabling the system to easily and cost-effectively incorporate new wide area networking technologies over the life of the system. Echelon’s open system interfaces allow the system to be cost-effectively expanded, adapted, and customized to meet the needs of utilities today and in the future.
