Deutsche Telekom today announced that they launch a web-based Smart Metering user interface for the E-Metering field trial, which is running in the German city of Friedrichshafen.

In Friedrichshafen, local utility provider “Technische Werke Friedrichshafen” is piloting an innovative Smart Metering product, named “TWF:CleverZähler” (“clever meter”), based on an end-to-end metering service jointly developed by Alcatel-Lucent and Deutsche Telekom´s business customer segment, T-Systems. The service gives consumers and utilities a near-real-time view of energy consumption for each connected household. About 1,000 smart meters for electricity as well as gas are planned to be supplied to 700 households until mid 2009.

Smart Metering helps consumers to use electricity more efficiently and reduce energy costs and carbon emissions into the environment. Local utilities profit from the service with an exact overview of the actual energy consumption in all parts of their network. This enables better forecasting and offers a lever to give incentives to consumers to control demand to a certain extent.

Consumers get a view of their energy consumption over a web user interface – as launched today in Friedrichshafen -, which they access over a DSL connection. They can initiate ad-hoc measurements of their energy consumption anytime. Otherwise, the web user interface visualizes the energy consumption curve along defined timelines, for example - per hour, per day or per month.

Utility providers also have a remote view of the smart meters. Since the metering service updates data on energy consumption every 15 minutes, utilities can react very quickly and for example, propose incentives to consumers to consume energy at a certain time. This helps them to reduce their peak loads and better utilize their network assets, which potentially reduces network investments.

“By partnering with Deutsche Telekom, we have developed a Smart Metering solution that is likely to further develop this market segment. Alcatel-Lucent is providing network integration and other professional services for this end-to-end solution that is providing communications between consumers and their utility providers” says Michael Fabian, President of Alcatel-Lucent’s Industry and Public Sector business. “We have experience in managing complex projects and deploying multivendor solutions. This experience from consumers and the utility provider in this trial will advance our network design and application integration knowledge and enhance our solution.”

The T-City partners, Deutsche Telekom and Alcatel-Lucent, provide an end-to-end metering service -- based on the IP-based Open Service Platform of Alcatel-Lucent. Besides providing and operating the metering platform in a managed service center, Alcatel-Lucent designed the web user interfaces.

Deutsche Telekom not only rolled out the broadband network infrastructure that makes Friedrichshafen and its citizens future-ready. Within the E-Metering trial, Deutsche Telekom provides field service for the installation, is operating the smart meters’ communications network, and is handling the data processing, provisioning and visualization. The metering platform relies on a robust distributed network of meter boxes, interconnecting the various meters to the central data management. This happens via a secure network, which is independent from the consumer’s regular Internet access.

The local utility provider is responsible for the installation of the meters and takes care of customer relationship activities, including selling and marketing the smart metering service, and providing end-user service. Software integrator Bittner & Krull, an expert in software solutions for utilities, provides the business logic for the meter data from Friedrichshafen and processes these towards the utility´s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.

The end-to-end smart metering service of Deutsche Telekom and Alcatel-Lucent is based on Alcatel-Lucent´s Open Service Platform (OSP), which is used in mobile networks to process data in real-time. The OSP has been adapted to the energy market, now offering meter reading, meter management, infrastructure and data management. It is scalable up to 30 million subscribers; supports open standards and several ERP systems. In this way, it supports further liberalisation of the energy market. It also gives utility providers the option to introduce pre-paid services in the energy market, which could reduce debt collection issues.

Information Source:    Alcatel-Lucent