Alcatel-Lucent and Deutsche Telekom Test "Smart Metering" for Utilities

Alcatel-Lucent and Deutsche Telekom have launched a web-based Smart Metering field trial in the city of Friedrichshafen, a town on the northern side of Lake Constance (Bodensee) in southern Germany.


The local utility provider, Technische Werke Friedrichshafen, is piloting a Smart Metering "CleverZähler" service that gives consumers and utilities a near-real-time view of energy consumption for each connected household. About 1,000 smart meters for electricity as well as gas are planned to be supplied to 700 households until mid 2009. The T-City partners, Deutsche Telekom and Alcatel-Lucent, provide the end-to-end metering service -- based on the IP-based Open Service Platform of Alcatel-Lucent. Besides providing and operating the metering platform in a managed service center, Alcatel-Lucent designed the web user interfaces.


Within the E-Metering trial, Deutsche Telekom provides field service for the installation, is operating the smart meters' communications network, and is handling the data processing, provisioning and visualization. The metering platform relies on a distributed network of meter boxes, interconnecting the various meters to the central data management.


The local utility provider is responsible for the installation of the meters and takes care of customer relationship activities, including selling and marketing the smart metering service, and providing end-user service. Software integrator Bittner & Krull provides the business logic for the meter data from Friedrichshafen and processes these towards the utility´s Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.http://www.alcatel-lucent.comhttp://www.twf-fn.de/