Siemens (www.siemens.com/energy) and Landis+Gyr have entered into a partnership to elaborate common standards. The standards will not only establish interoperability but will also give utilities the requisite security for their investments in smart grids.

Changing needs and growing demands characterize the situation of today's power utilities. Main drivers are fluctuating infeed, the need to integrate distributed energy resources, aging infrastructure, multidirectional power flow and a changing legal and regulatory framework, just to name a few. The solution to these challenges is the expansion of power supply networks to produce smart grids.

“We have a full-scope smart grid portfolio with all the products and systems necessary for such expansion,” said Ralf Christian, CEO of the Power Distribution Division of Siemens Energy. “In addition to that, we widen our solution portfolio by working with Landis+Gyr.”

“As the global market leader in smart metering products and solutions, we are pleased that we have won Siemens as our partner. Together, we will build an interoperable path, which will lead utilities — either directly or in stages — to the realization of their smart grid visions,” said Andreas Umbach, president and COO of Landis+Gyr.

Smart grids interlink power supply, information and communications technologies and establish optimized exchange between providers and customers, supply and demand. That relates to the complete energy conversion chain - from power generation via power distribution to the consumer. Smart metering is an important part of this overall concept. Smart metering gives consumers a transparent overview of their own energy consumption and informs them at short, regular intervals about the resultant costs, offers them customized tariffs, and thus helps them to save energy and to reduce CO₂ emissions.

Siemens is one of a few companies around the world that has the capability to deliver end-to-end smart grid solutions, including the critical smart meter to billing segment. The associated instrumentation infrastructure is based on the AMIS consumption data acquisition and distribution network automation system, supplemented by an advanced meter data management system.

Energy-efficient, eco-friendly solutions for setting up smart grids are part of the Siemens environmental portfolio with which the company earned revenues of nearly EUR19 billion in fiscal 2008, That is equivalent to about a quarter of Siemens total revenue and makes Siemens the world's leading provider of eco-friendly technology.