According to a decision by the AMS (Advanced Metering System) of the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate, all customers in Norway will have access to a smart electricity metre by latest 1 January, 2019. The electricity companies will be responsible for the implementation, and the first wide-scale rollout will be initiated at the end of the year when Lyse install smart electricity metres in their customers' homes in the Sør-Rogaland area of Norway. This rollout is estimated to include 140,000 households by the end of 2018.
Lyse Smart is on behalf of Lyse Elnett responsible for the communication to and from the metres. The company will also offer commercial services that are optional for the customer.
- Smart electricity metres are a milestone which will benefit customers as well as society. The communications unit at the metre can also be a hub for smart home services, and this roll-out eliminates parts of the high cost threshold that has characterised the smart home-market. This will enable customers to easily control lights, heating, alarms, doors and shading from smartphones or tablet devices, says Jan Holm, Managing Director of Lyse Smart, a subsidiary of Lyse, which develops and sells these kinds of solutions under the brand name Smartly.
The smart electricity metre registers the electricity consumption on an hourly basis and automatically sends this information to Lyse Elnett through a communications unit, which is coupled to the metre. This means that the customer can receive detailed information regarding their electricity usage and thereby know the exact account payment due. Combined with heat management, the customer can save money by only using the heating system when it is actually necessary, and when prices on the electricity market are low. In addition to this, Lyse Elnett will further enhance the delivery quality further through comprehensive usage of metre data.
Access to the system is important
- Establishing quality in our communications solutions is critical to us. We have chosen a system enabling redundant communications solutions and where Telenor Connexion is supplying a central component communications via the mobile network. We will provide welfare technology so that the elderly can live in the comfort of their homes for longer, and the most important functions of the home become digitalised. Availability and stability are critical, which is why we have chosen Telenor Connexion, as they have experience from this area, says Holm.
The solution from Telenor Connexion includes hardware and services. Telenor Connexion will also provide a VPN-solution and access to real-time data for secure communication between Lyse Elnett and the metre. Additionally, support services which will be available 24 hours per day for immediate troubleshooting, as well as access to the country's leading network through Telenor Norway.
- We are proud that Lyse has chosen us to be the supplier in the first large rollout of AMS, and that we will be part of reducing energy consumption, says Per Simonsen, CEO of Telenor Connexion. We have extensive experience within the field, as we were involved in the connection and operation of almost 1 million electric metres as part of regulating the electricity market in Sweden in 2009. Our communication solutions are also available in several other critical services such as house alarms, OnCall (car alarms) and other monitoring services.
Telenor Connexion is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Telenor Group. The company is completely dedicated to business solutions within machine-to-machine (M2M) and Internet of Things (IoT).
About Lyse
Lyse is an energy and telecommunications Group with over a hundred years' of experience within hydroelectric power generation. The Group is Norway's sixth biggest hydroelectric power producer, and has more than 140,000 fibre-optic internet customers in Sør-Rogaland. In addition to electricity, Lyse also sells natural gasses and biogas as well as district heating and cooling. Lyse also offers high-speed internet, IP-TV and IP-telephony over fibre-optic networks via Altibox, to over 330,000 customers throughout Norway.
The newest target market is smart homes, using the product Smartly for easy management of different functionalities in the home.
Lyse has approximately 1000 employees, and the head office is located in Stavanger in Norway.
For more information, please go to www.lysekonsern.no