Silver Spring Networks has been selected for the Comisión Federal de Electricidad’s ‘Reducción de Pérdidas de Energía en Distribución’ (Loss Reduction Projects on Distribution) smart grid project in Mexico City’s Central District. In partnership with Tecnologías EOS, under the Megacable and Hola Innovacion consortium, Silver Spring will deploy a canopy network across various residential and commercial areas of Mexico City’s Central District and provide connectivity solutions to cabinets which house a group of centralized meters. The Silver Spring solution will reduce electricity theft for residents and businesses, while Tecnologías EOS will provide remote indoor displays to help these customers monitor their power usage. Silver Spring will also provide its multi-application IPv6 network and UtilityIQ software suite to connect and manage the individual cabinet meters.
Silver Spring will deploy this solution for approximately 140,000 residential and commercial customers within CFE’s Central District in Mexico City that serves approximately 2 million customers in total. CFE is the largest utility in the Americas, with more than 38 million customers over 16 divisions throughout Mexico.
“Mexico City is the largest metropolitan area in the Americas. We’re honored to partner with Tecnologías EOS for the Megacable and Hola Innovacion consortium, and to help CFE modernize their infrastructure to help reduce energy loss, ensure revenue protection, and improve service and reliability to millions of their customers,” said Eric Dresselhuys, executive vice president of Global Sales & Development, Silver Spring Networks. “CFE is developing a model that energy providers across Latin America can look to for guidance as they begin to roll out infrastructure modernization programs in their regions.”
“Silver Spring brings a proven multi-application network with the security, scalability, and performance that meets the unique needs of this market,” said Javier Santana, Project Director, Hola Innovacion.
Reducing Energy Theft With Silver Spring’s Communications Solution for Cabinet Meters
Non-technical loss is a challenge across many growth markets, with experts estimating it costs utilities billions of dollars per year worldwide. According to CFE, nearly 15% of its total electricity production in 2013 was lost due to theft or defaults, and in some areas of Mexico City that increases to more than 35%. To help overcome these challenges, Silver Spring is introducing a cabinet-level networking and software solution that enables CFE to reduce non-technical loss, increase billing accuracy, deploy remote connect and disconnect operations, and help ensure the safe delivery of its energy supply to its customers. Silver Spring has partnered with Tecnologías EOS to integrate the Silver Spring Communications Module and UtilityIQ software suite with the EOS Cabinet Controller (CCG), enabling remote reading, command, control of the meters in the cabinet and remote displays. The solution allows for a secure physical connection from the transformer to the meter to prevent illegal connections and protects the meter from tampering via a secure enclosure. The utility maintains secure access and control of the meters via Silver Spring’s IPv6 mesh network, to ensure that consumption is accurately captured and provided to CIS for billing.
