Under a partnership agreement between the Swiss tech group and the Graal Group, more than 40 ABB fast and semi-fast chargers are being installed on Graal forecourts and service stations in five of Brazil’s major states: São Paulo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Santa Catarina and Rio Grande do Sul.

The ten fast and 31 semi-fast chargers will contribute to Brazil’s transition from a mobility network that is heavily dependent on fossil fuels to one that incorporates an EV charging network.

The collaboration will allow Rede Graal, a network of bus stations in Brazil, to offer EV drivers the convenience of ultra-fast charging, capable of replenishing a vehicle’s battery in less than 30 minutes, thanks to the same technology used in the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship.

Held at the Sambadrome in São Paulo, Brazil on Saturday, March 16, season 10 of the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship consists of an 11-turn, 2.93km circuit winding around the streets of the Anhembi district.

Luciano Nassif, country holding officer for ABB Brazil, said in a release: “Brazil, with its rich motorsport heritage, is a very fitting race location. It is also a country in which ABB has a strong history, having implemented technological solutions for more than 110 years and contributed to the development of diverse projects across industry and infrastructure throughout the country.

“The race here in São Paulo offers the ideal setting to showcase some of those projects across e-mobility, smart cities and energy solutions as we help drive progress in the race for the energy transition.”

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In Brazil, where renewables meet 45% of primary energy demand, ABB has also entered a power generation partnership with one of the largest wastewater companies in Latin America.

The company, which supplies approximately 30 million people in the region, has not yet been named. Smart Energy International has reached out for comment.

Under the partnership, Higra turbine and amphibious pump technology will provide solutions with high hydro-energy efficiency, ease of installation and low maintenance.

The project means the high water pressure created within the company’s pipes will be used to generate renewable energy, which can be distributed across the Brazilian network.

At the same time, ABB is providing fully integrated gas analysis systems for emissions monitoring to multiple customers in Brazil, including fertiliser and cement producers.

These systems provide a stable and precise analysis of the composition of gases emitted from production plants, helping users ensure environmental targets can be met.

The five-year project included the deployment of 50,000 smart meters and the connection of Itron’s distribution intelligence (DI) enabled platform with Coopesantos RL’s customer information system.

With this upgrade with grid edge intelligence Coopesantos RL now has visibility and control across its diverse rural service territory, which includes mountainous and hard-to-access areas.

“Being the first cooperative to deploy smart meters in Costa Rica and Central America marks a significant step toward the modernisation of the infrastructure and distribution of electrical energy in rural areas where we provide service to all homes, businesses and industries,” said Mario Patricio Solis Solis, General Manager of Coopesantos RL.

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“Our electrical distribution deployment has been strengthened with this investment in technology and devices from Itron, automating and optimising our operational processes. We’re thrilled to continue working together as we embark on creating a reliable smart grid to prepare for the future.”

The solution was delivered via local Itron channel partners Conelectricas RL and Itecna.

Benefits anticipated by Coopesantos RL include more rapid insight and response to power outages with Costa Rica prone to extreme weather events, a reduced carbon footprint with reduced need for meter reading and increased client satisfaction with detailed insight into energy use and early detection of technical irregularities such as theft.

Coopesantos RL, headquartered in the city of San Marcos de Tarrazú, is one of four electric cooperatives in Costa Rica.

The cooperative claims 100% clean energy generation from two hydro plants, the 13MW Los Santos wind farm and growing distributed solar PV, primarily from commercial users.

In addition to energy generation and supply the cooperative offers fibre Internet services.

The rollout, launched in 2015, has seen a J$14 billion (US$90 million) investment as part of the initiative to modernise the electricity network and improve the customer experience.

Since late 2023 the project primarily focussed on St Mary parish, to the north of the capital, Kingston.

Other parishes on this eastern side of the island, including Portland and southern sections of Kingston and St. Andrew, are due to be completed later this year.

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Smart meter customers can track their consumption with the company’s MyJPS mobile app and also benefit from other services including remote connection/disconnection and account transfers and switching between postpaid and prepaid options.

“Our ongoing future-oriented approach, underscores our dedication to providing faster, more efficient service,” said Pia Baker, Senior VP of Customer Experience and Commercial at JPS.

“We are proud of the progress we have made and the positive impact it is having on our customers’ experiences.”

Under a 2018 agreement, Itron was contracted to extend the existing Gen 5 network to support the full 670,000 smart meter deployment, while the smart meters were being provided by Aclara.

In other news, JPSCo has been awarded a US$100 million financing package from IDB Invest for its 2024-2025 investment programme for the ongoing modernisation of its grid, including the smart meter deployment and transmission and distribution upgrades, and the expansion of access to new customers.

Additionally, the funding should support JPS’s continuing digital transformation through cloud-based solutions as well as the island’s electric vehicle (EV) infrastructure development, including 17 new EV charging stations.

These are expected to support a rapid rollout of renewable energies and storage technology.

Currently, approximately 14% of Jamaica’s energy supply is renewable, primarily hydro, wind and solar.

This increasingly changing power grid paradigm poses great challenges for the growth of power grid infrastructure and brings forward the need for innovative solutions.

Traditional grid expansion approaches, such as infrastructure reinforcement, are no longer optimal due to the disparity between forecasts and reality.

This article explores the limitations of current strategies and proposes a solution based on grid digitalisation — Federated Distributed Energy Resources Management System (Federated-DERMS), which offers a decentralised approach to grid management, optimising operations and overcoming the hurdles posed by the evolving energy landscape.

Power grid infrastructure growth challenges

Traditional approaches, mainly focused on infrastructure reinforcement or equipment replacement, struggle to keep pace with the dynamic changes in the energy landscape.

The integration of distributed energy resources (DER), which doubled between 2004 and 2021 and will continue to grow in the upcoming years due to governmental policies and objectives, such as the European Union’s (EU) active net zero carbon emissions by 2050, coupled with the rapid adoption of electric vehicles and the shift from consumer to prosumer, has led to a significant disparity between the current estimation methods and the evolving reality.

To bridge this gap, a paradigm shift toward grid digitalisation may be a suitable path to follow.

Traditional grid reinforcement-based approach, driven by decisions based on load simultaneity factors and worst-case future scenarios, may no longer be efficient for grid reinforcement planning, as new uncertain variables such as knowing where and when DERs are going to be installed.

In addition, the evolution from consumers to prosumers, elastic to electricity prices and capable of injecting power into the grid, further complicates the equation.

Instead of trying to invest in grid reinforcements under this high uncertain scenario, the solution lies in non-wire alternatives (NWA) such as grid digitalisation, entailing investments in edge computing (IoT) and innovative software architectures.

This dual investment is the fittest for optimal exploitation of information generated by edge devices, providing a pathway to a more adaptive and efficient grid.

Operational challenges for DSOs

Following the current trends in the network paradigm shift, DSOs will need to be able to operate a greater number of devices.

On the one hand, this is positive, as they will have more tools to optimise network exploitation. On the other hand, it will mean there is a greater number of variables to optimise.

This implies that to solve optimisation problems in the same way as it is currently done (centralised control), the operator will require greater computational power.

Moreover, with the increase in uncertainties associated with both generation and demand, primarily due to renewable generation, electric vehicle charging schedule, and consumers’ behaviour with their variable loads, network operation has become more complex.

Following a grid digitalisation approach, the deployment of smart meters and IoT edge devices will cause a considerable increase in the volume of data for DSOs to manage.

This implies that centralised management architectures, where all data flows from devices to the central hub, will require greater robustness and computational power capable of handling both the data volume and the variables to be optimised in acceptable timeframes for operation while ensuring system’s quality of service.

Maintaining this type of network control architecture over time can become inefficient, as the investment in computational power may reach considerable figures. To address this challenge, one of the possible courses of action is proposed in the next section.

Federated-DERMS as a solution

In response to the pressing challenges faced by power grids, a transformative solution emerges — the Federated Distributed Energy Resources Management System.

This innovative software architecture is defined by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) as FAST-DERMS and offers a decentralised approach to grid management.

As Figure 1 portrays, a Federated-DERMS strategically divides the grid into areas controlled by individual DERMS systems (the Flexibility Resource Scheduler in Figure 1), each equipped with personalised microservices tailored for optimal grid operation of their control region.

Federated-DERMS operates with a central coordinator communicating seamlessly with all DERMS systems across the grid.

Each local DERMS, armed with personalised microservices, undertakes specific tasks to optimise its control area. These tasks may include precise load forecasting, economic dispatch of DERs in the local market and hosting capacity calculations in order to accomplish forecasting, planning and operation tasks efficiently and effectively.

Importantly, all local DERMS systems collaborate, sharing data and insights with each other and the central coordinator to achieve close-to-optimal grid operation.

Therefore, applying this architecture brings improvements both at a general and local level.

On a general scale, it achieves a reduction in the number of signals directly exchanged with the central coordinator, as the managers of each zone will send condensed information received. This implies that the computational power required to manage the entire volume of data will be reduced due to the distribution of data handling among zone operators.

On the other hand, at the local level, the deployed microservices can be specifically configured to address operation, control, or planning issues in the controlled area with greater precision, thereby enhancing overall network management.

Conclusion: Embracing innovation for a resilient future.

About the authors

Daniel Palomo, Business Development Manager Grid Control, Minsait, is responsible for grid control products as well as the launch to the market of new control and real time products. In addition, he has worked for strategic projects deploying IoT edge technologies, SCADA in the cloud, DER flexibility and FLISR implementation.

Juan Menendez-Pidal, Real Time Control System Expert, Minsait, is an expert in implementation of management, operation and optimisation solutions for electrical distribution networks for DSOs and research centres. He also is actively working on R&D projects for the development of new products that promote the energy transition.

About Minsait

Minsait, an Indra company (www.minsait.com), is a leading firm in digital transformation and information technologies in Spain and Latin America. Minsait possesses a high degree of specialisation and knowledge of the sector to focus its offering on high-impact value propositions, based on end-to-end solutions. Its capabilities and leadership are demonstrated in its product range, under the brand Onesait, and its across-the-board range of services.

About Indra

Indra (www.indracompany.com) is one of the leading global technology and consulting companies and the technological partner for core business operations of its customers worldwide. Its business model is based on a comprehensive range of proprietary products, with a high-value, end-to-end focus and with a high innovation component. In the 2022 financial year, Indra achieved revenue totaling €3,851 billion with almost 57,000 employees with a local presence in 46 countries and business operations in over 140 countries.

A new ‘Lighthouse Project’ entitled ‘Electricity network planning and implementation under uncertainty for the clean energy transition: The roles of smart distribution grids in energy systems’ is aimed to initiate closer collaboration between the Networks’ six working groups to address smart distribution grids.

In particular the project should unite the working groups around the goal of planning smart distribution grids to support the clean energy transition.

With distribution crucial for changes such as electric vehicles and heat pumps, a holistic approach is needed to configure smart grids and leverage flexibility at the distribution level, an ISGAN statement comments.

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“The Lighthouse Project will identify specific activities and stakeholders to address these challenges. By pooling the expertise within ISGAN, we can make meaningful contributions to global smart grid development.”

Scoping for the project has begun and it is anticipated that bringing together the working groups and stakeholders will spark new ideas.

The six working groups are on Communications, Benefit and Cost Analyses, Smart Grid International Research Facility Network, Power T&D Systems, Smart Grid Transitions, and Flexibility Markets – Development and Implementation

Brazil joins ISGAN

In other news Brazil has become the latest member of ISGAN, with the country formalising its membership during the COP28 meeting in Dubai.

Brazil was represented by Luiz Carlos Ciocchi, CEO, and Christiano Vieira da Silva, Operations Director, of the country’s National Electric System Operator (ONS).

With Brazil’s membership – the first from Latin America – ISGAN’s reach is expanded across all the continents and the country has promised to broaden the Network’s perspective on integrating high shares of renewables and facilitating regional energy trade.

“We have now acquired a very valuable Brazilian partner that can assist ISGAN in comprehending and addressing grid challenges alongside innovation-specific needs, with a focus on South American countries,” said Luciano Martini, Chair of ISGAN.

New vice-chair of ISGAN

The other recent news is that Dr John K Ward, Research Director of the Energy Systems Research Programme at Australia’s CSIRO, has been elected as a vice chair of the ISGAN Executive Committee

In that role he joins the three other vice chairs, Russell Conklin from the US Department of Energy, Arun Kumar Mishra, Director of India’s National Smart Grid Mission, and Wickie Lassen Agdal, advisor and project coordinator at the Danish Energy Agency.

Ward’s work has focussed on facilitating increased uptake of renewable energy and improving the utilisation of infrastructure to allow this transition.

One example of this has been through incorporating the CSIRO Renewable Energy Integration Facility (REIF) as a member of the IEA’s Smart Grid International Research Facility Network (SIRFN), which is reported as having helped international laboratories adopt a more consistent unified framework for evaluating the relative merits of various inverter standards and helping lift global best practice.

Ward aims to help ISGAN improve international collaboration – avoiding duplication and accelerating progress through knowledge sharing, including with countries that have not traditionally been part of such collaborations.

100 million smart meters and counting …

Since the early 2000s and Enel’s leading role in the development and manufacture and large scale rollout of a first generation of smart meters, the technology and its subsequent evolutions has been incorporated in 100 million smart meters.

Those smart meters have been deployed in Italy, Spain, Romania, Republic of San Marino, Malta, Brazil, Peru and Chile.

Making the announcement, Robert Denda, CEO of Gridspertise, who coordinated Endesa’s rollout of the technology in Spain and has led its subsequent development from effectively a communicating digital counter to an intelligent grid sensor, described it as “a key milestone in our journey towards the new era of sustainable and reliable smart grids”.

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It also comes coincident with the second anniversary of Gridspertise, Enel’s grid technology subsidiary, jointly owned with CVC Capital Partners, which has established itself as a key supplier of a growing portfolio of technologies for DSOs for the digitalisation of the grid.

As a reflection of this Gridspertise is introducing what it describes as a new flexible and future-proof smart meter into its portfolio, with the facility to exchange or adapt the communication technology directly in the field.

Depending on customer needs and location, it allows choosing the most appropriate solution among several communication protocols, including hybrid PLC and RF, cellular LTE and cellular NB-IoT.

Look out for its introduction at Enlit Europe 2023 in Paris from 28-30 November.

New era for smart meter data in Japan

Restrictions on the use of metering data by third party corporates have been dropped in Japan, the publication Nikkei Asia has reported.

Until now only utilities have had access to the data from the smart meters, of which there are approximately 80 million in operation in Japan – but now other companies may use the data for a fee to enable them to develop solutions for example for decarbonisation or another that Nikkei Asia highlights, monitoring of the elderly.

The publication reports that around 20 corporate groups are poised to introduce services.

Among examples quoted is Daiwa House Asset Management with plans to calculate carbon dioxide emissions based on electricity use by residents of about 240 properties owned by the group.

Another is Toshiba Energy Systems & Solutions looking to help companies adjust their power usage with demand management.

A third is Tokyo-based startup Girasol Energy intending to monitor for broken solar panels remotely by comparing actual output with anticipated output based on sunlight and other data.

Among the quality of life services, Mitsubishi Corp. and the utility Chubu Electric Power are teaming up on a service that detects abnormalities in the routines of elderly relatives in real time, with potential to generate 1 billion yen ($6.7 million) in annual revenue in three years.

The first data provided will be from the service area of Tokyo Electric Power, with expansion nationwide by 2024. The data will be day old initially, but real-time data is expected to become available in 2025.

Kaifa goes OSGP and Sigfox

Kaifa, the electronics and metering solution provider, is expanding its offerings on two fronts with the choice of the OSGP architecture for its intelligent smart metering and the Sigfox 0G technology for advanced water metering solutions.

In selecting the OSGP, Kaifa believes that interoperability standards are needed to guarantee innovation in terms of adopting new technologies and open standards as they become available, a statement reads.

“The digital era brings new opportunities, and Kaifa is ready to take advantage of this with a key focus on the sustainable innovation in energy management.”

In joining the OSGP Alliance, Kaifa intends to work with other industry stakeholders to provide solutions and services to create more value for their customers and society.

The Sigfox 0G technology opportunity, which includes bringing to the market the Sigfox 0G and LoRa dual-mode hybrid solution, is through a partnership with Sigfox owner UnaBiz and is expected to see the development of solutions that are “not only accurate and reliable but also cost-competitive, scalable and environmentally friendly to the water metering sector”, the company states.

The two companies have collaborated previously and most recently on the rollout of 120,000 smart water meters powered by Sigfox 0G technology by Brazilian partner network WND Brazil for the water and sewerage services supplier Iguá Saneamento.

Alternating direct current energy validated

Energy is traditionally either in the form of alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC).

But now Los Angeles-based ADC Energy claims to have developed a hybrid form – alternating direct current – and it has been validated by NASA and is now available to deploy in a range of solutions.

ADC Energy doesn’t reveal much about the technology, apart from describing it as a plug-and-play AI-enabled ‘hybrid’ transmission system that transmits both AC power and DC power together on existing wires.

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Diagrams illustrate the unit interfacing to distributed resources such as solar PV and batteries, where it can also form part of building energy management solutions.

“There is one and only one ADC,” says Henry Lee, CEO of ADC USA.

“ADC has solutions ready right now. And there are substantial opportunities in the near term for breakthroughs such as low voltage quick EV charging, expanded solar panel generation and off grid indoor agriculture.”

As an example of the scope, ADC Energy describes itself as having the potential and capacity to develop a global technology solution to safely battery power an entire building with the equivalent voltage of three 9V batteries.

The next step ADC Energy has indicated is to expand relationships with innovators, while the ultimate evolution is a ‘hybrid’ utility grid operating on the existing wires.

Blockchain data storage on the Moon

Staying with NASA, the organisation is involved in an initiative being spearheaded by the Isle of Man’s digital agency and the space storage startup Lonestar to explore how data can be stored on the Moon and retrieved in the event of a catastrophe on Earth.

As data centres become increasingly vulnerable to natural and other disasters, space is considered to have the potential to offer a secure ‘vacuum-gapped’ location to securely store and transfer data.

In December 2021, Lonestar demonstrated data storage and edge processing on the International Space Station and early in 2022 set in train plans to establish the first data centres on the Moon.

Service tests are planned with Intuitive Machines’ IM-1 mission, currently scheduled for a mid-November launch, while the first full data services payload is planned on Intuitive Machine’s IM-2 mission to the lunar south pole tentatively in early 2024.

Digital Isle of Man is drawing on the island’s blockchain expertise to digitise exclusive stamps, which will be posted to the Moon and back working via Lonestar’s lunar data centre.

Each digital stamp will be verified and tracked during its return trip to the Moon, with this trail becoming part of the digital footprint.

Responsibility for the delivery and tracking will be with Lonestar, which is headquartered in Florida with operations in the Isle of Man – its CEO, Chris Stott having grown up there.

For Digital Isle of Man, the placing of digital assets on the moon is aimed to further its understanding of how modern data and blockchain capabilities operate and how data security is handled.

“This digital dispatch to the Moon and back will be a very special delivery indeed,” said the chairman of the Isle of Man Post Office, in expressing delight at the opportunity to be involved in the mission and seeing the island’s stamps being ‘posted’ to the Moon for the very first time.

SunnyApp solar PV cleaning bot

As the number and area of solar PV panels increase, the new challenge is set to emerge of keeping them clean to operate at maximum efficiency.

The potential performance degradation from dust and guano can be as much as 25% per year but the task is both labour intensive and water heavy.

SunnyApp Robotics, a Colombian startup, has developed a battery powered cleaning robot to do the job automatically. Featuring two brushes with fine nylon bristles, to maximise the cleaning while ensuring the integrity of the solar panel surface, it consumes just 0.6l of water per panel.

With up to 4.5 hours use per charge, it promises greater than 99% dust and guano cleaning efficiencies with assisted driving.

The Spanish renewable energy major and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC secured approval from both the National Electrical Energy Agency (ANEEL) and the Administrative Council for Economic Defense (CADE) for the collaboration.

Under the agreement, the companies will collaborate by co-investing in operational transmission assets in Brazil, including Jalapão, Santa Luzia, Dourados, Atibaia, Biguaçu, Sobral, Narandiba and Río Formoso, totalling 1,865km of power lines, with an average concession period of 25 years.

The agreement, initially announced in April, involves an investment of €456 million ($482.2 million).

Iberdrola, through its Brazilian subsidiary, Neoenergia, will hold a 50% stake in this venture, valued at approximately €228 million ($241 million).

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Iberdrola and GIC have also entered a framework agreement to participate jointly in future tenders for new electricity transmission assets in the country. This arrangement will also relieve Neoenergia from the debt consolidation of the operational assets, as outlined in the terms of the transaction.

This latest transaction is part of Iberdrola’s non-essential asset rotation programme, which has already been fully executed, in support of the company’s extensive investment plan totalling €47 billion ($49.7 billion).

GIC, a global investment firm founded in 1981, has had prior strategic engagements in the country and with Iberdrola. Earlier this year in April, the firm purchased 50% of eight transmission assets from Neoenergia.

The memorandum of understanding between the three companies is aimed to “redefine water metering in Mexico and beyond”, they say in a statement.

Leveraging WND’s Sigfox 0G network, the collaboration should facilitate efficient monitoring and management of water resources.

Currently, the coverage of the 0G network extends to more than 60% of the national population with a commitment to expand its deployment. In the first stage, the focus was on condominiums, with the second now expanding the network to the rest of the population.

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“As Mexico’s 0G network operator, WND Mexico is fully dedicated to providing the robust coverage that is essential for the deployment of IoT solutions powered by Sigfox, including water metering,” says Daniel Philippe Guevara, CEO of WND Mexico, subsidiary of the WND Group, which also operates 0G networks in Brazil, Colombia and Peru.

“We share a long-term vision with WaterMeter Corp, recognising the importance of security, stability and continuity in the utility market. Together, we hope to transform the smart water metering landscape.”

Sigfox 0G is a low power wide area networking (LPWAN) protocol for the IoT now owned since April 2022 by Singapore headquartered IoT service provider and Sigfox operator UnaBiz, following the receivership of the original Sigfox organisation.

Marco Mendoza, CEO of the water solution provider WaterMeter Corp, says that customers expect solutions that meet their basic needs, accounting for 100% of water, gas or electricity cost-effectively and operationally practical and fitting their implementation budgets.

“This is precisely why we are committed to the Sigfox 0G technology, which allows us to read meters remotely cost-effectively, predictably and extremely energy efficiently.”

The Sigfox 0G smart meters will be targeted to municipalities in Mexico with key challenges in the sector including water scarcity, non-technical losses and leaks.

UnaBiz has committed to ensuring the continuity and durability of the 0G network and services in Mexico for the next 15 years

The first phase of the rollout was focussed on the southwest region of Paraná state in Brazil’s southeast, while the second started in the metropolitan region of the capital, Curitiba.

The smart meter and smart grid programme was launched in 2021, following a 5,000 smart meter pilot introduced in 2018 in the southern state municipality of Ipiranga.

The programme is expected to see the introduction of around 4.5 million smart meters in total.

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In the first three phases, the entire southern region of the state will be supplied with smart meters, approximately 1.5 million by 2025, with a budget of the order of R$820 million (US$169 million).

Daniel Pimentel Slaviero, President of Copel, says the goal is to apply the technology to improve the efficiency of service to customers.

“Paraná has once again come out ahead, and today we have the most advanced smart grid programme in Brazil,” he asserts.

“It is the best in solutions for the power distribution system.”

Benefits provided by the smart meters include a reduction in the time to locate and fix breakdowns, remote meter reading and connections, the availability of meter data to customers via a smartphone app and digital billing, in addition to a reduction in carbon emissions due to improved efficiencies of field workers.

For example, the company estimates the avoidance of 75t of CO2 emissions in the first half of the year due to the latter.

The latest municipality in which the rollout is being introduced is Ponta Grossa, which is among the largest in the state and considered among the more challenging due to the geography of the city and the characteristics of the local power grid, according to Copel.

Approximately 800 units per day are expected to be installed there.

With the major growth of new energy systems expected in the years ahead in the form of renewable generation, particularly solar and wind, along with the supporting transmission and distribution infrastructure, environmental and sustainability considerations are becoming increasingly important for today’s utilities.

With this in mind, Iberdrola has launched the new Carbon2Nature (C2N) company to harness the potential of carbon credit markets to drive the development of projects that will generate the credits and that then would be made available to customers to support their decarbonisation.

Iberdrola’s stated aim is to capture and store more than 61Mt of CO2 in natural sinks such as forests, coastal ecosystems and agricultural soils through the promotion of conservation and restoration projects in these.

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The focus is on regions where Iberdrola is present and where such solutions have significant potential, with over three-quarters of the projects likely in Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Peru and Chile and the remainder in countries in the northern hemisphere, including Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal.

C2N is already working on the development of projects in Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Chile and Spain, the company reports.

“To face the global challenge of climate change, the firm was created with the ambition to make a long-term impact at an international level,” says Miguel Ángel García Tamargo, director of Carbon2Nature, who previously held various roles with Iberdrola clean energy subsidiary Avangrid.

“In order to achieve this, it is committed to diversification in geographies and projects and promotes collaborative strategies for their development with local communities and other actors, guaranteeing the highest levels of quality.”

RGI, IUCN energy solutions partnership

Another new initiative in this area is a partnership between the Renewables Grid Initiative – an EU-funded TSO, NGO collaboration – and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) with a five-year agreement on the development of sustainable renewable energy and electricity grids.

A key project currently being developed is the ‘Global Initiative for Nature, Renewables & Grids’, with the intent to support key stakeholders to incorporate nature-positive approaches in renewable energy generation and transmission.

If successful, the project should lead to a monitoring and reporting system, showcasing solutions and progress globally.

Antonella Battaglini, CEO of the Renewable Grid Initiative, comments: “It is possible to address climate, energy and biodiversity security in parallel when well planned, energy infrastructure can contribute to create nature protection and restoration opportunities.”

The project ‘STORM: Data-driven approaches for secure electric grids in communities disproportionately impacted by climate change’ is intended to engage underserved communities in local climate change solutions and increase their situational awareness of the grid as well as to study community engaged operation of local power grids.

The project, which is expected to advance the nation’s smart grid technologies to support these communities, has been awarded an initial $375,000 in funding – half the intended total – from the National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR research stimulation programme.

Other participants include the universities of Maine, South Dakota State and Alaska Fairbanks.

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The project is designed to respond to current resilience challenges, in particular the more frequent and intense extreme weather events and physical and cyber attacks, with three interrelated themes.

Theme 1 is focussed on engagement with underserved communities in local climate change solutions and knowledge translation for microgrid design.

Theme 2 then seeks to increase the situational awareness of underserved communities in order to improve the local power grid resilience through accelerated big data modelling, estimation and secure control frameworks.

A new multi-microgrid system restoration strategy is planned to prioritise critical loads at the community and individual levels based on a new multi-timescale predictive control and estimation framework that utilises grid forming inverters to provide dynamic support during the process.

Novel hardware Trojan prevention, detection and mitigation techniques should advance cyber-attack resilience of the entire system during severe weather.

Theme 3 addresses the development of a regionally relevant cyber-physical research infrastructure for studying community-engaged, data driven operation of power grids.

The new synthetic power systems, climate and socioeconomic data are expected to be immensely valuable to the advancement of data science, machine learning and artificial intelligence applied to the electric industry in these underserved jurisdictions.

The STORM project is expected to benefit from solid existing partnerships including a Department of Energy EPSCoR project on modelling converter-dominated power systems.

The project also builds on partnerships with the Sandia, National Renewable Energy and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories.

In addition, the project will leverage relationships with industry and community partners, including the Kotzebue Electric Association, East River Electric Co-op, Missouri River Energy Services, National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Siemens, Sioux Valley Energy, Sustainable Energy for Galena and Versant Power.

In addition the call includes the delivery of 2,500 meters for distribution transformer metering.

The smart meters are to be DLMS/COSEM compliant and to communicate via PLC or RF.

While the intended locations of the meters have not been specified, the delivery is expected to take place within 150 days from the award of the contract, which is expected in December.

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The full rollout must also be preceded by an approximately 100-smart meter pilot.

Bidders for the contract are required to have installed at least 40,000 smart meters of the same type and to have sold more than 500,000 units in other countries.

The national loss reduction programme (Programa Nacional para la Reducción de Pérdidas – PNRP) was launched in November 2022 to reduce technical and non-technical losses and ensure access for all as a human right.

The programme was launched targeting an almost halving of the losses to around 18% by 2026 to deliver savings to the state estimated at more than 3 billion lempiras ($122 million) annually in energy purchases.

“We will not tolerate theft of a public good such as electricity,” promised the programme coordinator Raul Soto at its launch.

Its results to date, however, have been questioned by the local thinktank Association for a More Just Society (ASJ), which claims in a report that rather than decreasing, except in one of the areas, the losses have instead increased by about 3% since the start of the programme and ENEE’s collections also are down by about 11% compared with 2022.

At the same time, ENEE has almost doubled its personnel from 2,163 in 2022 to 4,179 in 2023.

ASJ recommends focussing on the areas with the highest losses and population densities as well as reducing the number of personnel and developing a new strategy.

The PNRP loss target for the end of 2023 is 28%.

In October 2022 Honduras was awarded $250 million from the Central American Bank for Economic Integration for loss reduction and other actions to strengthen the sector to support the energy transition.

The smart meters are intended for Hidrandina itself as well as for the other members of the Distriluz group, Electronoroeste, Electronorte and Electrocentro, which together distribute electricity to more than 12 million people in the north and central regions of Peru.

The contract is expected to be awarded in mid-July and to extend over 2.5 years.

Smart metering in Peru has lagged some other countries in the Latin American region, notably Costa Rica and Uruguay, but has been gathering momentum as part of a broader digitalisation of the energy sector.

Have you read?
Latin America smart meter penetration to triple by 2028
Smart grid drivers in Latin America

In June 2022 Hidrandina announced the intention to pilot 10,650 smart meters in Trujillo, Huanchaco and Virú.

“A detail of the project is that smart metering is not only the meter – it is the communication, the platform and the management software, these three go hand in hand,” said Hidrandina Commercial Manager, Saúl Ayaypoma.

“The objective is to improve the management of energy losses, with these meters we will have information in real time.”

In the first part of the project, which has been completed, smart meters have been installed by Electrocentro in the transformation centres and distribution substations as well as in large customers.

Electrocentro, which also is pioneering the smart grid in Peru, in May reported completing the rollout of its distribution automation project.

Approximately 750,000 people are expected to benefit from a reduction in the time of outages due to more rapid detection of failures

Among other smart metering projects in Peru, Enel Distribución Perú has undertaken two pilots, the first of 8,500 meters and the second of 10,000 meters in its concession zone in the capital Lima and Callao.

Berg Insight has estimated a total of about 50,000 smart meters in Peru and the market to grow to around 650,000 by 2028. They expect an increase after 2024 when technical standards and a cost-benefit methodology for deployment are anticipated.

Most recently the regulator Osinerg has approved the implementation of a new time-of-use tariff plan for smart meter users with effect from September 1.

Three tariff blocks are envisaged, the base from 11pm to 8am, medium from 8am to 6pm and peak from 6pm to 11pm, with potential savings for users estimated between 5% and 19%.

While the drive for smarter grids, initially led in North America and Europe, has expanded across the world, it has lagged in many emerging markets and developing economies as other challenges such as meeting growing demand with limited resources and ageing infrastructure have taken priority.

But a new report from IEA’s Digital Demand-Driven Electricity Networks Initiative (3DEN) suggests that digital technologies need a higher priority in these countries, with delays in their implementation having considerable costs.

According to the study, digital technologies could save $1.8 trillion of grid investment globally through 2050 by extending the lifetime of grids, while also helping to integrate renewables and minimise supply interruptions.

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‘Network planning needs to be ahead of the curve’ – IEA
Smart grid drivers in Latin America

However, failing to upgrade and digitalise network infrastructure properly could cut the economic output in emerging and developing countries by almost $1.3 trillion as reduced productivity, lost sales and wasteful outlays on backup generation push up costs and put net-zero targets at risk.

“Power grids are among the unsung heroes of the energy transition, but they need massive investment,” says IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol.

“While much attention goes to solar panels and electric vehicles, it is grids that connect everything together. By digitalising our grids, our power systems become more reliable and secure and our utilities can better manage the balance of electricity supply and demand. The longer we wait to upgrade and digitalise our grids, the more expensive it will get.”

Digitalisation of the grids

The report highlights the need for digitalisation of the grids as crucial for efficiency and decarbonisation and as one of the keys to the success of the clean energy transition.

For example, the IEA estimates that digitally enabled demand response could reduce the curtailment of variable renewable energy systems by more than 25% by 2030, thereby increasing system efficiency and reducing costs for customers.

Decarbonisation can be further supported through enhanced supply and demand forecasting, enabling integrated energy planning and providing better visibility and greater electricity demand flexibility.

Other roles for digitally enabled technologies highlighted include managing the growing penetration of distributed PV systems – countries such as Brazil, India and South Africa are seeing rapid uptake, for example – expanding clean energy access in remote communities and enabling better management of the growing demand due to end-use electrification.

The report notes that overall current global investment in grids is far short of what is required for net zero emissions by mid-century. Annual investment will need to more than double to around $750 billion by 2030, from around US$320 billion today, the IEA estimates.

Policies to support smart grid implementation

The IEA suggests five policy areas beyond targeted actions to facilitate investments to support smart grid implementation and continuous improvement in emerging markets and developing economy countries.

These are:
● Create a coherent vision of how digital grid technologies can help meet country priorities and modernise planning with updated policy and regulatory frameworks.
● Co-ordinate implementation across government departments, regulators and the digital and electricity industries.
● Facilitate rules and regulations that adequately value digital solutions and incentivise and de-risk digitalisation investments.
● Integrate resiliency and security across all electricity policy domains, including through long-term planning and for example climate strategies.
● Track, evaluate and disseminate digitalisation progress to ensure policy implementation and knowledge sharing.

The installation was announced by Copel manager Sérgio Milani, who stated that the completion of the 500.000 meters is part of a wider rollout and estimated that more than 1.6 million smart meters will be available to Copel customers in the coming years.

The rollout is part of the utility’s smart grid project, announced in 2020 to deploy smart meters and other technologies to modernise and automate its networks.

Have you read:
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“This is the image of the state of Paraná, with the position of all the radios already installed for the SmartGrid project (Intelligent Electric Network),” stated Milani in a social media post.

“We already have approximately 10,000 radios that make up the backbone network and the AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) network, the challenge is to reach all of our customers’ meters with communication.

“We already have half a million consumers with meters installed in phases 01 and 02 of the project, in the coming years it is estimated that this communication will be available to more than 1.6 million consumers.”

Copel’s smart grid project aims to install the necessary infrastructure for connectivity across applications. This includes the implementation of network reconfiguration systems, which are self-healing, and the automation of reclosers or voltage regulators.

Copel (Companhia Paranaense de Energia) is one of the largest electricity companies in Brazil, serving over 5 million customers across Paraná state.

This is according to a new research report from IoT analyst firm Berg Insight – Smart metering in Latin America – which reveals that the penetration of smart electricity meters in Latin America – a region including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Mexico and Panama – reached 6.2% in 2022.

According to the report, the installed base will grow at 21.7% CAGR from 2022 to 2028 to reach a total of 38.4 million, up by 26.7 million over the course of 6 years.

Brazil is the market leader

Over the course of Berg Insight’s forecast period, smart meter penetration in Brazil – the region’s largest market for tech – will increase from 5.7% last year to 21.5% in 2028. Brazil and Mexico will account for close to 80% of total smart meter shipments.

“The number of meter installations in Latin America will continue to grow in the coming years and will be driven by the expansion of ongoing smart metering projects and new major projects. Besides the major markets Brazil and Mexico, countries like Colombia and Peru will grow their share of annual shipment volumes from around 4% in 2022 to over 16% by 2028,” states Mattias Carlsson, IoT analyst at Berg Insight.

Carlsson adds how examples such as Colombia and Peru demonstrate the immense potential for a Latin smart meter market; the former will see annual shipments decuple, and the latter will increase sixteenfold.

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According to the research, annual shipment volumes in Colombia will grow at an impressive 48.5%, while the market in neighbouring Peru is more nascent; smart meter shipment volumes are anticipated to increase after 2024, when the country is set to propose technical standards and cost-benefit methodology for future Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) deployments. The installed base of smart meters in Peru is forecasted to grow from around 50,000 in 2022 to 650,000 by 2028.

According to the study, annual shipments across the region will grow from 1.9 million units in 2022 to over 6.1 million in 2028. This, they state, makes Latin America one of the fastest growing smart metering markets worldwide.

Smart metering in Latin America

The annual demand for electricity meters in Latin America, states the research report, ranges from 16 to 27 million units, out of which Brazil and Mexico together account for over 70%.

In Brazil specifically, several utilities such as Cemig, Copel and Enel have been increasing investments in AMI infrastructure, particularly Enel which has announced an aim of 100% smart meter coverage across all its subsidiaries worldwide by 2030.

Utilities in the country are increasingly investing in the technology and the country is forecast to account for close to 60% of the shipped smart electricity meters in Latin America during the forecast period.

Berg Insight adds how, except for Costa Rica and Uruguay, Latin America has not yet seen a wave of massive smart metering projects. However, a number of utilities in the region are scaling up their smart metering initiatives and in some cases also prepare for large-scale rollouts in the near future.

Overall, high energy losses due to the prevalence of energy theft throughout Latin America will continue to be a major driver for smart metering investments, states the report. The use cases in Latin America to date include remote meter reading, fault detection, distribution automation and measuring power quality.

Additionally, the report finds that Chinese meter vendors in recent years have achieved increasing success in the Latin American market. A key contributing factor is their ability to offer competitive pricing, a crucial aspect for price-sensitive utilities operating in the region.

Also of interest:
How does IoT work for smart metering?
Smart meters and data enablers of the energy transition – Landis+Gyr CEO

By country

According to the report, the smart electricity meter rollout in Costa Rica progresses steadily and the country reached a milestone last year when smart meter penetration rate surpassed 50%; the country’s largest DSO, Group ICE, has also stated an aim of 100% smart meter coverage by 2035.

In Uruguay, nationwide rollout by the state-owned utility UTE is largely completed and the country is expected to become the first Latin American country to reach full smart metering coverage in 2024.

Smart electricity meters in Mexico is forecasted to increase from 8% in 2022 to over 18% in 2028.

Argentina’s high inflation and “bleak economic outlook”, Berg Insight adds, make any large-scale smart meter deployment unlikely in the near future, unless the economic situation significantly improves.

Smart metering deployments in Chile peaked in 2018–2019 but have since decreased mainly due to regulatory ambiguity. However, the report states there is yet potential for a more positive market development should the regulatory environment improve.

Panama was the smallest market covered in the report and was found to have the lowest smart meter penetration rate. The country’s installed base is forecast to reach 113,000 by 2028, although there is potential for significantly higher growth if the government improves the regulatory framework and creates incentives for smart meter deployments.

“As Latin America is poised for significant growth in the coming years, the race has begun between the top meter vendors to gain market share in the region. To date, Chinese smart meter vendors have achieved significant success in Latin America,” added Carlsson.

“One key contributing factor is their ability to offer competitive pricing, a crucial aspect for the price-sensitive utilities operating in the region.”

Also on the radar is Enel’s consideration of a storage sale to alleviate its net debt, a smart metering tender in Uruguay and closure of a major smart metering deal by Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC).

UK Infrastructure Bank’s storage fund investments

Energy services and solutions company Centrica and British state-owned UK Infrastructure Bank are investing £265 million ($329.8 million) in energy storage in the UK, marking the bank’s first investment into such technology.

The Bank will invest £75 million ($93 million) on a match funding basis into the Gresham House Secure Income Renewable Energy & Storage LP (SIRES) alongside a £65 million ($80.9 million) investment from Centrica.

These investments are alongside a stated commitment from UK infrastructure Bank to invest £125 million ($155.6 million) on a match-funding basis into Equitix UK Electricity Storage Fund.

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Project breakdown of the funding includes:

• Supporting launch of the SIRES fund, which will focus on developing the collocation of renewable generation and short duration electricity storage facilities to help maximise grid connections.
  
  Centrica will be a cornerstone investor, marking the first time the business has invested in such a fund.
  
  The £65 million investment will be used to fund the construction of the seed asset, a collocated solar and battery energy storage project in Hartlepool, County Durham, with 50 MWp solar capacity and 75MWh of battery energy storage.
  
  Centrica’s Energy Marketing & Trading business will seek to provide a route-to-market for the assets in the fund once they become operational.
  
• Supporting launch of the Equitix UK Electricity Storage Fund through the Bank’s committed £125 million investment.
  
  The fund will focus on a combination of innovative business models across both short and long duration storage.
  
  The Bank has cited its infrastructure specialist asset management experience and asset portfolio across the UK electricity value-chain as providing them with the necessary insights for these types of investments.

The deals, which represent the Bank’s first investments in the electricity storage sector, are hoped to unlock a further £200 million ($248.9 million) in match-funded private sector capital.

John Flint, CEO of UK Infrastructure Bank said: “The Bank’s investment into these new funds will help break down the barriers to greater, long-term investment across a range of storage sector and renewable energy opportunities.”

According to the International Trade Administration, more than 16.1GW of battery storage capacity is operating, under construction or in the pipeline across 729 projects in the UK.

The technology is considered high priority for the UK Government and a key component of their push towards a net zero carbon economy.  

Enel mulls storage sale

Enel SpA is evaluating the sale of a majority stake in its energy storage business, claims Bloomberg reportage, in a move aimed at further reducing the company’s debt burden.

Italy’s biggest utility has received non-binding bids for an 80% stake in the project, valued at around €2 billion ($2.17 billion), according to the publication’s sources. Under the plan, Enel would look to retain around 20% to secure governance at the unit.

Should a deal go through, it will mark the latest from the Rome-based energy major in an attempt to alleviate their consolidated debt.

Earlier this year, the Group sold their stakes in Romanian operations to Greece’s PCC. Late last year they sold 50% of their stakes in Gridspertise. Both transactions were hoped to mitigate their net debt which, as of March this year, values approximately €1.7 billion ($1.8 billion).

This latest consideration, states Bloomberg, sees Enel working with advisers for the sale of the storage unit, which is attracting interest from infrastructure funds.

The project uses industrial-scale batteries used to store energy created from renewable sources that will eventually be inserted into the national electric grid.

Also of interest:
Gridspertise CEO highlights digital leapfrog opportunities for European DSOs
Energy Transitions Podcast: Europe’s urgent need for flexible balancing power

Uruguay smart meter tender

As Uruguay state-owned utility UTE (National Administration of Power Plants and Electrical Transmissions) continues a strategic drive to replace residential meters with smart meters, the country’s government has announced a smart meter tender.

According to bnamericas, the tender sees officials seeking 180,000 single phase and 20,000 three-phase smart meters alongside the necessary software and components, consulting-training and maintenance services.

The tender was announced in the same span as UTE announced landmark installation of one million residential smart meters, part of their plan to install smart meters in all homes across the country by 2024.

Commemorating the millionth installation, UTE president Silvia Emaldi stated: “These devices and the technical infrastructure to manage remotely allow us to provide a better service and a reduction in costs for UTE, which is shared with customers.”

Emaldi added how, as of July 5, the smart metering programme will be extended to SMEs. Bids for the tender are due May 5.

#ICYMI: Australia’s QIC closes Vector Metering ahead of schedule

Australian state-owned QIC (Queensland Investment Corporation) has reached contractual close for its joint venture deal with Vector Limited’s New Zealand and Australian smart metering business – Vector Metering – touted as the largest smart meter provider of its kind across Australia and New Zealand.

The acquisition, initially required to be closed by June of this year, remains subject to regulatory approvals and follows Vector’s announcement in December 2022 of QIC as its preferred joint venture partner.

The deal consists of a sale by Vector of a 50% interest in Vector Metering to a new fund and co-investors managed by QIC Infrastructure. The investment is the first asset for this new QIC Infrastructure fund.

Vector Metering owns and manages over 2.3 million meters across the electricity and gas markets in Australia and New Zealand.

Read the full story

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Cheers,
Yusuf Latief
Content Producer, Smart Energy International

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Leveraging customer energy resource flexibility at scale

Join this recorded discussion about a utility’s journey toward decarbonisation by tapping into old and new resources. Learn how a utility’s strategy leverages grid edge resources such as demand response, battery storage, DERs, and voltage optimisation. 

Speakers

Nicholas Tumilowicz, Director, Distributed Energy Management | Itron, Inc

Jay Oliver, Managing Director, Grid Systems Integration | Duke Energy

Electrobras intends with the initiative, which includes the migration of the group’s technology infrastructure to Google Cloud, to make intensive use of data and artificial intelligence solutions to meet key challenges in areas including transmission and generation asset management, energy trading and enterprise sustainability management.

“Google cloud technologies can be used in a variety of projects in the operational areas of companies, such as monitoring vegetation along transmission lines, in the search for better use of the incidence of light in solar energy projects, in the use of augmented reality in hydroelectric plants and transmission lines, among other functions,” comments Wilson Ferreira Junior, President of Eletrobras.

“The partnership will allow optimising the performance of the generation and transmission assets, besides being a key arm of the intensification of investments in clean sources, predicted by senior management in the post-capitalisation scenario.”

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As part of the agreement, Eletrobras will migrate much of its infrastructure and applications from its private cloud to the Google cloud, which should enable greater efficiency and scale.

In addition, the modernisation should enable a more holistic data analytics strategy with data from all of Eletrobras’s information sources, delivering better and more rapid insights for business decisionmaking.

Marco Bravo, head of Google Cloud Brazil, says that Google Cloud will work with Eletrobras to “bring greater efficiency to its operations and explore new use cases to solve its main challenges in the industry.”

For example, the initiative opens up opportunities for using artificial intelligence and machine learning to help the company achieve its efficiency and expansion goals. Among the possibilities are the development of indicators for risk reduction, maintenance optimisation, project innovations, management of current assets and planning for the implementation of new assets.

Eletrobras also intends to explore the use of these technologies to accelerate clean and sustainable energy projects, including delivering insights for the optimisation of the renewable energy generation, transmission and marketing chain.

Cat-M1, an IoT-based communications technology, will be used by the company in measurement projects for data communication with smart meters.

The tech is hoped to improve information collection with a higher level of detail regarding energy consumption and quality levels across their consumers.

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The cellular technology will be used to connect millions of lower value-added devices with better coverage networks and lower connection costs.

And because it’s a licensed frequency range, states Neoenergia, the Cat-M1 will add an extra layer of security to the business.

Ricardo Leite, superintendent of smart grids at Neoenergia, explained: “We have managed to reach our last mile of communication to the final consumer and [have improved] the monitoring and management of our entire distribution network.

“For example, we can instantly identify a power outage, monitor the flow of charge consumed and generated by microgeneration systems, improve energy quality, identify possible thefts of electricity and even make more information available to our customers.”

The expansion covers all Neoenergia companies and has thus far seen 1,600 smart meters connected with 4,500 expected to be installed over the coming years.

Installations from 2021 to 2022 are estimated R$6 million ($1.2 million).

Who should join the World Energy Storage Day?

World Energy Storage Day (WESD) is a global movement. I encourage all to participants to join the event. We will have more than 100 CXOs from the leading companies as well as some of the top researchers and policymakers from 30 + countries who will be speaking at the event. So, it is a great opportunity to learn from the top minds in the industry on a single platform. Also, people have a choice where they can focus either on a particular conference that focuses on their region. We have divided the world in four regions. APAC, starting with China, Japan, Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as the first region; India, the Russian sub-continent as the second region; Europe, the Middle East, and Africa as the third region, and then North and South America as the fourth region.

People can either focus on just their region and participate in a full 6-hour conference in their [regional] track or if they are focused just on one segment such as stationary storage, e-mobility, green hydrogen or manufacturing they may want to participate in the sessions related to those technologies across different regions. So, there will be some overlap between the region, but, in terms of the planning, we have tried to make sure that people who are interested in any one functional area can navigate from different regions without having any significant overlap.

So that way people can hold up for a span of maybe 15-16 hours and learn similar topics happening from more than 30 different countries and keep track of their development. This is also a great opportunity for students to learn. So again, the basic conference registration is free so anyone can register and listen in live to any of the sessions.

Apart from the 16 conference sessions which will cover stationary, e-mobility, green hydrogen, and manufacturing in each of the regions, we will also have, 10 additional workshops, which will cover different topics such as giga factory supply chain, women in energy, skill development, solar-plus-storage, energy storage modelling, and optimisation and urban air mobility and a few others such as safety and fires which is a workshop led by Underwriters Laboratory. So, there are a lot of learning opportunities where people can pick and choose areas which they want to attend.

If people are interested in networking, then there is also a premium option available, where people will get behind-the-scenes access to the networking lounge, where they can interact with the speakers who will be joining throughout the day, as well as get access to the recordings from the various sessions and any presentation materials that have been shared throughout the day, through a nominal fee of $99. People can choose either of the options. And, last year we had participation from more than 5,000 delegates from 130 countries, and this year we are expecting to exceed that.

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So technically we are trying to create the platform for the sectors to come and deliberate and show their strength on that day.

Yes. So, this is again, a great platform where leading companies will showcase what they have achieved over the past year, as well as their roadmap for the coming 3-5 years. The same with policymakers, they will be talking about what are the key policy changes that have happened in each of the regions over the last 12-months and what the industry can expect in each of the regions in the upcoming 12-24 months. So, this is a great opportunity for both, those people who are speaking to showcase their capabilities and advances as well as for others looking to learn, take benefit, and leapfrogging by learning from these leaders.

We have observed that there is industry participation at WESD but in today’s time you see a lot of governments also supporting in-take as a whole. So, why is it important for government to join this day?

So again, from governments and policymakers’ point of view, they usually try to learn from other leaders. Some regions have emerged as global leaders like the US. More recently, China and Europe have taken the lead in pushing for advanced storage and e-mobility manufacturing, but other regions and governments can learn from the experience of these countries and make sure that they are able to lead.

For example, countries like India have demonstrated in areas of adoption of solar technology or earlier cellular mobile technology where although India was not a leader, with this technology adoption was started by tapping into, at the right point, India was able to become one of the top markets and benefited from these technology transitions.

There is a great opportunity for many countries to learn from the experience of the last 10-15 years. The regions that have promoted storage and are now getting on the adoption cycle, can help other countries leapfrog and jump through some of the linear learning curves, which otherwise countries go through. Through, World Energy Storage Day (WESD), we are all trying to accelerate this process, increase the adoption of these advanced technologies, and encourage global collaborations, because that is very important.

Often, people think that their country is something unique. Their region is unique. Some environmental conditions are unique, but when you are looking at the experiences from around the globe, there are every type of use-case for every type of environmental condition based on what individual countries may be facings. So, there are enough learnings, already from somewhere else in the world, and by learning from that we can accelerate the timeline for adoption of these technologies.

Moving onto the sessions specifically. Can you explain that each session, for example, the Manufacturing session, what do you plan to cover in the session and what can the audience expect from this session?

Over the last five years, the term giga factories have come to prominence. So, these manuacturing sessions are expected to focus on the giga factories, not necessarily only for Li-ion batteries but it would be for any technologies, batteries, or even electrolysers or, EV manufacturing. So, we will have some of the thought leaders and practitioners from around the world who will come in and share about how they have gone ahead and set up their giga factories and what others can learn from their experience.

One of the critical challenges which are going to come up in the next 4-5 years is related to the supply chain. This is because all these giga factories are now looking at scaling the global manufacturing operations for advanced lithium-ion manufacturing from 1000GWh to more than 5,000 GWh to 7,000 GWh within the next seven years. So, you need to tap into a much more diverse supply chain as well as start paying much closer attention to some of the environmental parameters. So, we will be focusing on various aspects of giga factories as well as their associated supply chain and manufacturing equipment during the manufacturing sessions in each region.

Similarly, the other three sessions for the main conference will cover stationary energy storage, where we will be talking about various storage applications for supporting grid for customer-cited energy storage deployment for renewable integration and the type of policy and market mechanisms that have created opportunities for deployment of storage in different parts of the region.

In the e-mobility session, we will be focusing both on mobility infrastructure in terms of the charging system development and learnings from around the globe as well as the various forms of mobility such as four-wheeler, two-wheeler, three-wheeler, and electric buses will be covered.

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In the green hydrogen session, we will be focusing on the rapid emergence of green hydrogen as a technology for decarbonising the industrial sector. We see a lot of differences where in certain regions green hydrogen is being seen for decarbonisation of the power sector by converting existing gas turbines into directly hydrogen as a fuel source, whereas in other regions like India, the focus is more on applications such as petroleum refining or the creation of ammonia or fertiliser and then using green hydrogen for replacing grey hydrogen and trying to reduce the carbon intensity of these sectors.

We will be covering all these different aspects in the sessions. Apart from this, there are 10 thematic workshops where the idea is that people from different regions may be interested in learning common themes, such as safety and fire related learnings. In the Safety and Learning session, UL will lead by sharing insights from the work being done around the globe. We will focus on other aspects such as skill development, where we will be talking about how different countries are taking initiatives for meeting the growing requirements for the sector in terms of scaling, and what we can do in terms of accelerating and scaling platforms that are already developed and deployed in different regions and try to encourage global collaborations in that.

Other sessions will include solar-plus-storage, where we will specifically focus on the emergence as the cheapest energy source, and how storage technologies can help in making solar much more dispatchable and round-the-clock asset. And then we will also talk about storage modelling, storage optimisation, which is very essential when you are looking at building and then operating projects in any of the market region.
We have a session on women in energy to talk about how we work together for involving women in the sector and benefits in terms of diversification of the workforce and other areas.

One important session where I want your input is the Global Startup Showcase.

Yes. The way I think about it is as a competition. So, for the global startup showcase 2.0, the competition is on and start-ups from around the world are applying right now.

The application window is open 22nd of September and we have a panel of 15+ experts who will be shortlisting. These start-ups and the top 10 start-ups will get an opportunity to present to 50+ global investors who are very actively looking at investing in energy storage and mobility-related start-ups.

You can visit startup.energystorageday.org where you can learn about the competition and the experience of various investors and participants from last year. And, if you are a start-up working on some innovative technology or innovative application of technology then feel free to apply. We look forward to connecting you with potential investors, as well as strategic partners through this platform.

ABOUT DR RAHUL WALAWALKAR

Dr Rahul Walawalkar is President & MD of customised energy solutions India Pvt. Ltd. and chair of World Energy Storage Day.

Walawalkar founded the India Energy Storage Alliance in 2012 and continues to serve as its President. He served as board member for Energy Storage Association, USA during 2009-15 and as the Chair for Global Energy Storage Alliance during 2018-20.

He holds a PhD in Engineering and Public Policy from Carnegie Mellon University and Master’s degree in Energy Management from NYIT, United States and B.E. from Walchand College of Engineering, India.

The trains are run on the route between Cuxhaven, Bremerhaven, Bremervörde and Buxtehude, operated by Elbe-Weser Transport Company (EVB) on behalf of LNVG, replacing 15 prior diesel trains. Five of the new trains are currently rolling and the rest will be added by the end of 2022.

The units come in as LNVG has been exploring diesel alternatives for trains since 2012 and are the result of a partnership with rail vehicle manufacturer Alstom, transport company Elbe-Weser (evb) and gases and engineering company Linde.

According to LNVG, each of the models are quiet, powered by a hydrogen fuel cell that generates electrical energy for propulsion. The Coradia iLint features clean energy conversion, flexible energy storage in batteries and intelligent management of automotive power and energy.

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Developed specifically for use on non-electrified routes, the train travels on the evb network at speeds of 80 to 120km/h, with a top speed of 140km/h.

LNVG has stated that the models are entirely emission-free. One kilogram of hydrogen replaces around 4.5 litres of diesel fuel, translating to 1.6 million annual litres of diesel no longer consumed and 4,400 tons of CO2 no longer generated. Each is supplied at a hydrogen filling station around the clock, with one tank providing a range of 1,000km.

Hydrogen refilling station

Refilling the trains is taking place at a Linde facility in Bremervörde, which includes sixty-four 500-bar high-pressure storage tanks with a total capacity of 1,800kg, six hydrogen compressors and two fuel pumps.  

Subsequent plans for the site include hydrogen production using electrolysis and renewable electricity alongside corresponding expansion of the area itself.

The project was funded by the Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and Transport as part of Germany‘s National Innovation Program for Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technology. It cost a total of €93 million ($93.4 million).

The federal government contributed €8.4 million ($8.5 million) to cover vehicle costs and €4.3 million ($4.3 million) for the filling station. The funding guideline is coordinated by NOW GmbH and implemented by the project management agency Jülich (PtJ).

The transformer was developed in a joint venture between the electricity distribution network manager and Hitachi Energy, which develops technologies and solutions for those in the utility, industry and infrastructure sectors.

The first Eco-design high voltage/medium voltage (HV/MV) low loss transformer is insulated with natural ester, a fully biodegradable vegetable oil, and generates reduced CO2 emissions.

The transformer is being developed as joint work between Enel Grids and Hitachi Energy and has led a nominal power rating of 40MVA.
It will gradually reduce energy infrastructure’s indirect emissions to zero Scope 3. The use of natural ester as an insulator instead of traditional mineral oil results in, according to Enel, a significantly reduced carbon footprint, from production to disposal. The natural dielectric liquid also has much better fire resistance qualities than mineral oil and offers advantages for fire prevention.

Development and implementation of the project took place at the Hitachi Energy plant in Monselice, in the province of Padua, Italy. The commissioning of the transformer will take place at the Primary Substation in Caltagirone, in the province of Catania.

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The transformer is reportedly designed to be fully interchangeable with conventional transformers, and therefore will not require any on-site adaptation.

The transformer set up at the Monselice plant is also the first in a series of similar initiatives by Enel Grids. Another 20 natural ester insulated transformers have been commissioned, with the aim of installing them in Europe and South America.

Antonio Cammisecra, head of Enel Grids, commented on how the transformer is in-line with the Group’s decarbonisation goals, citing its “aim of progressively reducing the carbon footprint of our business to zero by working with like-minded partners such as Hitachi.

“It is, therefore, a source of great satisfaction to announce the approval of the first HV/MV Eco-design transformer, a significant step towards more sustainable and resilient networks.”

The transition of large power transformers takes longer and is therefore taking place more gradually, but for distribution network transformers, Enel Grids has adopted a global strategy to supply 50% of them in natural gas.

Neoenergia won two of the 13 lots offered: one, 1,707km, the longest project offered in the auction, between the states of Minas Gerais and São Paulo, Brazil. The company also won the 291km contract in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul.

According to the regulator, the investment in these projects will amount to around €1 billion ($1 billion) and will create more than 11,000 jobs during construction.

The project aims to expand the transmission capacity of the northern region of Minas Gerais, to accommodate the renewable energy generated in the region.

The larger project consists of three 500kV lines, plus a 440kV line. A new 500kV New Bridge 3 substation will also be built.

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Smart metering and power line communications

The second foresees the construction of 291km of lines in nine municipalities in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, with two 230kV lines and sections and a 230/138kV Paraíso 2 – 2×150 MVA substation.

The objective is the integration of the small hydroelectric power plants Fundãozinho, Areado and Bandeirante and the connection of the distribution in the Paraíso region. The timeframe estimated by the regulator for completion is 48 months and around 1,250 new jobs are expected during construction.

Brazil is one of Iberdrola’s prime growth markets. The company has more than 2,300km of transmission lines in operation in the country, following the completion of the April 2017 auction deliveries.

“The acquisition of the assets reinforces Neoenergia’s expansion in the transmission segment and consolidates the company’s commitment to the development of the country’s electricity sector,” stated Eduardo Capelastegui, CEO of Neoenergia.

The deadline granted by the regulator for its construction is 60 months from the signing of the concession contract on 30 September 2022.

Empresa Eléctrica Quito (EEQ), the power company for Ecuador’s capital and surrounding areas, has launched a tendering process for the procurement and implementation of an advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) platform.

The AMI is intended to cover the service areas of EEQ as well as the distributors Empresa Eléctrica Ambato Regional Centro Norte (EEASA) in Ambato, Empresa Eléctrica Provincial Cotopaxi (Elepcosa) in Cotopaxi province, Empresa Eléctrica Regional Norte (Emelnorte) in several northern provinces and Empresa Eléctrica Regional Centro Sur (Centrosur) in southern provinces.

The budget amount is US$16.43 million for a total of 44,457 smart meters, including 36,565 meters for residential customers, 7,381 smart meters for large industrial and other business customers and 511 smart meters for distribution transformers.

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EEQ and Centrosur will instal the lion’s share of 22,306 and 19,432 smart meters respectively, followed by Emelnorte with 1,433 meters, EEASA with 864 meters and Elepcosa with 422 meters. These numbers are selected according to the requirements and resources of each company.

The aim of the distribution transformer metering is to improve the monitoring and management of these units in order to improve the quality of service.

Key objectives of smart metering for residential and business customers include reducing outage response times as well as improving the meter reading and billing and offering other AMI services such as remote disconnection and reconnection and demand management.

The smart metering rollout, which has been in planning for more than three years, forms part of a ministry of energy and mines initiative to modernise the electricity sector with improved billing and collection and reduced losses.

The contract award is expected to be made in July.

Ecuador has almost 5.5 million regulated electricity customers. About 150,000 smart meters are in place, most under the state power company CNEL.

The partnership aims to decarbonise the built environment through the design and construction of resource efficient buildings using excellence in design for greater efficiencies (EDGE).

IFC and CBIC will work together to disseminate knowledge, create capacities to design eco-efficient buildings and promote access to EDGE certification among the private real estate sector. This would extend to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), developers, professionals and industry associations.

Under the partnership, the two institutions will promote the EDGE certification among CBIC members via virtual training for management and staff.

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EDGE certification

Developed by the IFC, EDGE certification offers a free software to identify cost-efficient measures to design a green building with a lower environmental impact and cheaper operational costs.

“EDGE certification is growing rapidly in large part because of the bridge it offers between developers and financial institutions keen to invest in green assets. Working together, CBIC and IFC hope to accelerate the decarbonisation of the building sector in Brazil,” stated Hania Dawood, IFC’s manager for climate strategy and business development.

To obtain an EDGE certificate, a construction project should achieve at least 20% of savings in energy, water and embodied energy in building materials when compared to a conventional building.

IFC will also work with selected CBIC members to help them plan a pathway to zero carbon emissions and evaluate the opportunities and challenges of the green building market penetration in Brazil.

Carlos Leiria Pinto, IFC’s country manager in Brazil, commented on the partnership in a statement, “Encouraging green building projects in the construction industry is key to lay the foundation for a green economic recovery. Together with CBIC, we are demonstrating that it is possible to reduce the socio-environmental impacts of the sector, help mitigate the climate pressure of urbanisation and open up new green economic opportunities in the country.”

This news comes in as the IFC has identified the market potential for green buildings to be an estimated $24.7 trillion by 2030 across emerging market cities.

In June 2021, IFC announced its first partnership in Brazil to stimulate the green building market, with Itaú BBA. The initiative involves technical training for the bank’s property developer clients and advisory services to identify opportunities in the green building market with the EDGE certification.

The project by Brazilian energy distributor Energisa and its distributed generation subsidiary Alsol Energias Renováveis and the international technology company Ingeteam included the installation of 600 solar PV panels and a bank of batteries along with the respective inverters, as well as two biodiesel generators and a control system.

Previously the 750-inhabitant village relied on a diesel generator providing three to four hours of power per day.

During the day the PV system provides electricity to the village as well as charges the batteries, which are then available for supply during the nighttime hours. When it is cloudy and there is insufficient charge in the batteries, the system automatically switches to the biodiesel generators, to ensure an uninterrupted supply and that the batteries are recharged.

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Vila Restauração is located in the northwestern Brazilian state of Acre, close to the border with Peru. It is considered one of the most remote locations in the country, with the only access by boat taking up to 10 hours.

As such, the delivery of the solar and other equipment required careful logistical planning.

The electrification is expected to transform life in the village, opening up new business opportunities and for example improving the storage of items such as foodstuffs and medicines.

The project was undertaken as part of Energisa’s R&D activities, as required by the regulator Aneel. Its distribution subsidiary Energisa Acre is the local distributor.

The company is monitoring the system remotely to track its operation and also to receive early alerts of problems or possible maintenance requirements.

In addition to the electricity supply, Energisa entered a partnership with the mobile operator TIM to provide internet to the residents of Vila Restauração and the village was fitted with the first 4G antenna in the region.

The analysis comes courtesy of The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) latest report, Renewable Energy Roadmap for Central Amercia: Towards a Regional Energy Transition.

Benefits from decarbonisation

The report finds that a decarbonisation strategy can bring benefits to the Central America region at the same or lower energy system costs than the current planning strategy.

A decarbonised pathway would cost the region $20 billion less than the planned scenario in the 2018-2050 period.

The analysis shows improved power system integration can help the region exploit abundant renewable energy potential, estimated at around 180GW. This constitutes a tenfold increase from the region’s installed capacity today.

Achieving this target would require increasing the total installed capacity share of renewables in the regional power sector to 90% and electrifying 75% of the region’s total fleet by 2050. The study contributes to ongoing discussions on the energy transition in the region, and related initiatives.

IRENA’s roadmap outlines a Decarbonising Energy Scenario (DES) that reduces CO2 emissions in Central America by 70% by 2050 compared to the 2050 ‘Planned Energy Scenario’ (PES). The PES reflects the plans, objectives and policies of each country and region, mainly approved as of the base year of analysis.

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“Central America is entering a crucial decade for shaping its future energy system,” said IRENA Director-General Francesco La Camera.

“The region has a unique opportunity to ensure sustainable development with renewable energy resources that can bolster its energy security by mitigating fossil fuel dependence, while reducing costs, stimulating the region’s post-COVID-19 recovery and addressing climate change.”

Scaling up renewables

IRENA’s analysis shows that scaling up the annual deployment of renewables in the region three-fold by 1.4GW per year compared to planned deployment would put the region on track to achieving its renewable energy target.

To further reduce emissions from the transport sector, green hydrogen is recommended as an alternative fuel for heavy cargo road transport and international shipping.

The report also points to key challenges in the region in achieving universal access to electricity and clean cooking technologies.

37% of households in Central America do not have access to clean cooking technologies and fuels. In the DES, this share would fall to just 1% thanks to the introduction of improved cookstoves and electric stoves. This would require cumulative technology costs of around $12.5 billion during the period 2018-2050.

Additional health and socio-economic benefits would include reducing the pollution from cooking activities, mainly benefiting women and children.

The full report is available online.

The project at the Termocandelaria substation in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena uses the SmartValve technology to alleviate inter-regional congestion, unlocking 252MW of new capacity for generation on the existing network.

SmartValve is a modular intelligent control for power flows across transmission lines, effectively pushing power off overloaded lines or pulling power on to underutilised lines and thus enabling more efficient use of the network and the release of the additional interconnection capacity, which in turn improves the reliability of supply to the region.

“Due to the increase in generation at the Termocandelaria power plant there is a need for an innovative technology to regulate the energy supply,” comments Fredy Zuleta, General Manager of Transmission of Grupo Energía Bogotá.

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“In addition, among their functional advantages SmartValves offer wide environmental and economic benefits, as they provide solutions to different needs in the short, medium and long term for the country, since they reduce the obligation to carry out new transmission projects, such as lines and substations, to adequately dispatch the energy generated.”

The initiative, Smart Wires’ second in Colombia following an earlier project with Empresas Públicas de Medellín, is one of several that are emerging following the use of flexible alternating current transmission system (FACTS) devices being incentivised in Colombia’s transmission expansion plan.

Joaquin Peirano, Smart Wires’ Commercial Manager – Latin America, says that Colombia has become a global leader in leveraging technology to enable a cleaner, greener future.

“This pivotal project is unlocking significant capacity and strengthening supply of reliable, affordable electricity to consumers across the Caribbean region.”

Grupo Energía Bogotá is a leading business group in the transmission and distribution of electricity and the transportation and distribution of natural gas in Colombia as well as in Peru, Brazil and Guatemala.