Feb 11 2014
Landis+Gyr, the global leader in smart metering and grid management solutions, has led the roll out of smart metering systems to ninety eight percent of Finland’s households. This development places the country as one of the most advanced in Europe in terms of ability to meter electricity consumption at the residential level.
To date, Landis+Gyr has delivered over one million smart meters to a number of Finnish energy companies – the equivalent of delivering a smart meter to every third Finnish household in a country with approximately 3.2 million metering points. Smart metering projects have been large-scale initiatives – at the height of project activity, a smart meter was installed every minute in Landis+Gyr projects. The projects in which Landis+Gyr has been involved in Finland also included logistics for the management of old and new meters, system installation and integrations as well as comprehensive field testing prior to project acceptance.
According to Finnish legislation on billing and smart metering, which was introduced in 2009, 80 percent of Finnish households were to have smart meters installed by the beginning of 2014. Project completion shows that total smart metering coverage has clearly exceeded that national target and is now close to 100 percent. According to the Berg Insight Report on Smart Metering in Europe in 2013, the average smart meter penetration rate in Europe was 22 percent at the end of last year.
Landis+Gyr Executive Vice President EMEA Jon Stretch says, “We have created the base for the smart grid and we plan to make best use of the technology far into the future. A variety of Smart Grid initiatives are underway, for example in the cities of Oulu and Helsinki. Looking to the future, I can confirm that the smart wave in Finland will expand. ”
This latest development sees Landis+Gyr’s Gridstream® solution continue to expand its footprint as deployment of smart metering in Europe, which forms the foundation of the smart grid, begins to take shape. Gridstream® is Landis+Gyr’s future ready, end-to-end smart grid solution. It combines metering, communications, network management, software, grid and consumer applications, as well as professional services in one single, secure and integrated platform.
Antti Latsa, Customer Service Manager at Finnish energy company Järvi-Suomen Energia comments “During the procurement phase it was already clear that we wanted to take a comprehensive approach to making the best out of smart metering technology. The benefits were clear for our operational efficiency, from network and metering data management through to customer service. So far, we have benefited from the technology: After a recent heavy storm we were able to locate the affected areas in the low voltage network more precisely and in many cases we received information regarding the metering points without electricity supply before the customer contacted us. This is just one example out of many that shows that there are a number of possibilities to make best use from metering data now and well into the future”.
According to Landis+Gyr energy utility customers in Finland, the feedback from end-consumers using smart metering has been positive and they welcome the new technology. There has been high demand for personal energy management tools in the market and most utilities offer their customers web-based tools and portals as a result.
Metering Service Manager Jari Rusanen from energy company Loiste Sähköverkot Oy says, “Our energy portal has received excellent feedback from our customers. In the portal, the end-user can see their energy consumption as well as savings. Customers are also happy with the billing which is now based on their actual rather than estimated consumption. We are now planning on expanding smart metering to water metering.”