Networked Energy Services Corporation Announces New Grid Modernization Project for Poland’s Largest Utility

Amsterdam, Netherlands, November 6, 2014: Networked Energy Services Corporation (NES) announced it has been awarded a $25 million dollar contract to enable the Smart City Wroclaw project for Tauron Dystrybucja S.A., the largest utility in Poland with over 5 million residential customers.

 Tauron’s tender specified very high levels of functionality, demanding service-level agreements and a multivendor interoperable system based on proven open standards. After an extensive tender process, Tauron selected the offer from the consortium led by LG CNS with an end to end solution based on Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) provided by NES and Apator, one of the newest members of the OSGP alliance.

 The winning consortium proposed grid transaction and analytics software provided by NES and interoperable smart meters from OSGP alliance member companies NES and Apator SA. The NES 3 tier platform will be the underlying software engine for the smart grid infrastructure solution and AMI application, smart meters delivered by Apator and NES and systems integration and project management services from LG CNS and its consortium partners. When delivered, the turnkey system will serve approximately 330,000 end users in Wroclaw, the largest city in western Poland and fourth-largest in the nation. Tauron plans on using the project as a reference implementation for approximately 5 million additional smart meters and complimentary smart grid applications to help achieve its regulatory objectives.

 NES Corporation will provide the underlying software platform for the project, its newly released Element Manager 5.1 Grid transaction and analytics platform, and approximately 60% of the 330,000 smart meters, which will be deployed in the project. In addition, NES will provide the communication infrastructure, including distributed control nodes (DCN), as well as the head-end system software for the project. NES DCNs support interoperability of the OSGP certified compliant smart meters from both NES and Apator.
“This project in Wroclaw is the first in Poland, in which smart meters will be delivered by two manufacturers: Networked Energy Services Corporation and Apator. It is also the largest single deployment of this project scope in such a big city like Wroclaw.” says Piotr Kolodziej, President of TAURON Distribution. “The aim of the project is to provide customers with the tools for effective monitoring of electricity consumption, and assist the company with the next step in improving its electricity distribution process.”

 “We are thrilled about working with Tauron in its groundbreaking Smart City Wroclaw Project.” said Michael Anderson, CEO of NES. “Utilities in Poland require a rich set of high-level smart grid functionality, a trend we see growing throughout the world. NES is able to deliver a proven solution that can fulfill a utility’s objectives not only for smart metering but also for their grid modernization programs. We are confident our platform can enable LG CNS and the other project partners help Tauron achieve its goals.”
Tauron, like all Polish utilities, has a mandate to replace 80% of its existing meters with smart meters by 2020 that meet the stringent Polish and EU regulations. The Smart City Wroclaw project is the first step toward meeting that mandate. When completed, almost 5 million Tauron customers and approximately 16 million smart meters in total could be deployed across Poland as a result of the EU 2020 mandate.

 About Networked Energy Services Corporation (NES)

Networked Energy Services Corporation (www.networkedenergy.com) is a global smart energy leader in the worldwide transformation of the electricity grid into an energy control network, enabling utilities to connect to their customers, offer new services and help them compete more effectively, through solutions which can help reduce operating costs, provide expanded services and help energy end users to become active participants in energy conservation. The company was formed as a result of the spinoff of Echelon Corporation’s Grid Modernization Division in October 2014. NES has its headquarters in the US, with design and R&D Centers located in Silicon Valley, CA, and Fargo, ND, and sales offices throughout the world. Networked Energy Services' solution, based on Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP), is used in more than 4 million smart end points by utilities around the world. You can find out more information about NES and its products, including smart meters, data concentrator nodes, and head-end software, at http://www.networkedenergy.com.

About The Open Smart Grid Protocol

The Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) is a family of specifications published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) used in conjunction with the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard for smart grid applications. OSGP is optimized to provide reliable and efficient delivery of command and control information for smart meters, direct load control modules, solar panels, gateways, and other smart grid devices. With over 4 million OSGP based smart meters and devices deployed worldwide it is one of the most widely used smart meter and smart grid device networking standards.