Accenture and Endesa (Spain) are working together under a multi-year business process outsourcing agreement to facilitate the utility’s ongoing smart meter roll-out in Spain.
Accenture is providing back-office support to Endesa’s distribution unit as it expands its smart metering operations and is helping the utility integrate its smart meter infrastructure, which provides metering, billing and contract management information, with its existing billing systems and business processes. Endesa is to install more than 13 million smart meters based on Meters and More open technology.
In addition, Accenture is collaborating with Meters and More, an international non-profit association created by Endesa and its parent company, Italian utility Enel, and supported by a consortia of companies, to promote the deployment of smart meters and develop standards for pan-European and worldwide smart metering solutions.
Smarts meters are gradually replacing traditional meters to provide remote management capabilities for utilities. Smart meters can record consumption of electric energy and deliver that information to the utility for monitoring and billing purposes and opens the door to the deployment of smart grids. Smart meters enable two-way communication between the meter and a utility’s central system.
As required under Spanish regulations, Endesa will install more than 13 million smart meters in Spain by 2018 and is planning to extend the smart meter program to its customers in Brazil, Colombia and Chile. Since the launch of its smart meter infrastructure roll-out in June 2010, Endesa has installed more than 3.5 million smart meters based on Meters and More open technology in the regions where it operates in Spain (Andalusia, Extremadura, Aragón, the Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and Catalonia).
Endesa’s smart meter program will provide customers with detailed information regarding energy consumption, and will enhance the performance of its distribution network by improving billing accuracy, contract management, energy efficiency, outage detection and restoration of service when outages occur.
