Smart grid|
Enel takes the initiative on smart meters...
Enel has been a pioneer in the development and adoption of smart meters, with around 45 million electricity users using its technology. Significant further roll outs and pilot projects are currently underway worldwide
The roll out of the first-generation of smart meters (known as “Telegestore”), developed by Enel in the early 2000s, was one of the largest infrastructure innovations in Italy, as it became the first country in the world to take steps towards having a fully digital power grid. Between 2001 and 2006, the “Telegestore” smart meter was installed by e-distribuzione for more than 32 million customers connected to its distribution network.
In 2009, Enel started designing and developing a new generation of smart meters tailored to international markets. The new smart meter family was called “Cervantes” and it was installed in-field for the first time in Spain by Endesa (an Enel Group company). The Cervantes smart meter introduced several evolutions compared to Telegestore thanks to more advanced PLC (power line communications).
It leveraged the new open communication protocol “Meters and More” (managed by a non- profit association).
The Cervantes smart meter technology enabled, for the first time, collection on a massive scale of hourly load profiles for all
the low-voltage customers connected via the smart meter, thus opening up new market opportunities and generating significant benefits for the final customers in terms of tariffs, efficiency and flexibility.
Between 2010 and 2018, the Cervantes meter was installed by Endesa for more than 12 million customers.
Starting from 2015, the Cervantes smart meter was installed in many other countries by DSOs belonging to Enel Group. In Romania, Chile, Colombia, Peru and Argentina there were first phase deployments of smart meters to demonstrate the benefits related to the adoption of such innovative technology to each country’s national regulatory authority. Despite this highly innovative technology, the evolution towards increasingly intelligent networks (“smart grids”) and the new needs thus arising in the market have required Enel to go even further and introduce additional features to benefit all market players: customers, prosumers, energy distributors, market operators, EV charging network operators and aggregators, as well as the environment. Based on its previous 20 years of experience
and taking account of market and technology developments, Enel developed its latest generation of smart meters, Open Meter technology, a few years ago, introducing a conept (see illustration opposite) that represented a true jump into the future. Open Meter technology, designed by Enel and implemented with leading edge technologies, enables future-proof abilities and functionalities that go beyond the simple concept of metering. In 2018, Enel started the design and development of an additional smart meter family, JOBI, tailored to the Brazilian market. In terms of functionalities, the JOBI smart meter is equivalent to Cervantes but equipped with new hardware enabling it to accommodate future evolutions.
The JOBI smart meter is being installed in Sao Paulo for the first pilot project of 300 000 units. A massive roll-out will follow in the next few years, of more than 7 millions units. The current status of Enel smart meter installations is summarised in the chart opposite.
Since 2001, the Enel Group has manufactured more than 85 million smart meters.
…and flexibility labs
Another significant recent intiative taken by Enel in the smart grid field has been the launch of what it calls the Flexibility Lab, with four test facilities located in Italy (Milan and Bari) and Spain (Bareclona and Malaga). It is a concrete initiative following a call for action in the European Clean Energy Package for DSOs to foster flexibility services in a transparent and fair market structure. The Milan facility is specialised in high and medium voltage and the Bari facility focuses on low voltage and microgrids. Both of them offer real-time digital simulation and emulation possibilities, stress- testing and system integration of the various flexibility resources, such as distributed generation monitoring, observability and regulation systems, electric mobility, storage systems and reactive power compensation systems. The Milan and Bari test facilities have evolved over ten years,
starting with Enel’s Smart Grid Labs. These locations already have cutting edge technologies in place, aimed at carrying out single-device bench-tests, as well as complete integration tests. They implement what Enel calls a “grid in a building” concept:
starting from a replica of a control room, with all its systems like SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition), ADMS (advanced distribution management system), OMS (outage management system), EMS (energy management system), and so on. The Barcelona hub, where the Flexibility Control Center is located,
monitors the different flexibility activities around the Spanish regions and is equipped for electric mobility testing and vehicle to grid integration. The Barcelona facility hosts the network control center, with a dedicated work station that enables the monitoring and control of processes and tests taking place in Spain. It is supported by more than 100 EVs that are normally parked in the Barcelona headquarters, near to a high voltage/medium voltage primary substation. Additionally, the facility can leverage the HV grid, where various technologies are already being tested, providing, for example, the monitoring and communication needed to make the implementation of flexibility services possible. The Malaga facility, located in a unique living lab provided by the
city’s smart grid environment, offers a perfect testing ground for demand modulation services. The Malaga site – a member of the European Network of Living Labs – is a real living laboratory for e-distribución, currently equipped with advanced monitoring in 60 MV/LV secondary substations, to be augmented with 100 additional such substations to enhance lab activities. This city-wide network observability enables the implementation and testing of flexibility services under real conditions, involving end-users of all kinds. The Flexibility Lab initiative was inaugurated in May 2021. It has attracted the interest of a range of stakeholders, such as:
30 | October 2021 |
www.modernpowersystems.com
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