Successful Landis+Gyr smart metering test largest in Europe

In a first test of its kind, Landis+Gyr demonstrates end-to-end, standards-based integration and continuous data consumption and processing in the Czech Republic

Prague, Czech Republic and Zug, Switzerland – 5th March, 2013 – Landis+Gyr, the leading global provider of integrated energy management products and a Toshiba Group company, has successfully completed a milestone performance test of its Meter Data Management System and Head End Solution in the Czech Republic for the CEZ Group – one of the largest utility groups in Europe.

The test, which was carried out using virtual infrastructure at the country’s Technical University in Brno and the CERIT Scientific Cloud, also located in the Czech Republic, involved the installation of a meter data management system (MDMS) and head end solution (HES). The hardware was scaled for 3.5 million power line carrier, advanced metering management (AMM) meters. A real flow of data, including master data, was created using a data simulator.

"A scale test of this size has no analogy in Europe," said Jaroslav Hendrych, CEO of Landis+Gyr in the Czech Republic. "Our HES and Ecologic MDMS performed exceptionally well giving representatives of the CEZ Group first-hand exposure to these proven solutions. The test itself was also a good example of co-operation with the customer."

“Successful accomplishment of the performance tests is really important to us”, said František Müller, Technology Project Leader at ČEZ Měření, “it proves functionality of the existing software for an immensely large volume of data.”

Ultimately, the MDMS benchmark furthers the process of enabling the CEZ Group to identify MDMS capable of supporting a large-scale residential AMM rollout. This will in future offer an expanded demand response program and distributed generation support.

The performance test objectives included loading and processing data according to established validation, estimation and editing (VEE) rules. The scale of 3.5 million metering points was chosen as this is the number of metering points that ČEZ holds in the Czech Republic. Further, 15-minute intervals for data read-outs were used. The Landis+Gyr  software solutions demonstrated the ability to continuously consume and process data; full VEE processing of daily registered reads and 15-minute interval reads, including four time-of-use reads, as well as nightly VEE processing to accommodate the late arrival of interval data.
The milestone comes after the CEZ Group and Landis+Gyr in the Czech Republic discussed the utility’s smart grid plans. This included a 33,000 smart meter pilot project with different communication media and meter vendors.

There is a long history of collaboration between Landis+Gyr and the Czech-based utility. In 2009, Landis+Gyr and ČEZ signed an agreement for a maintenance contract to support the further rollout of its automatic meter reading system, SuperConverge. Landis+Gyr has also helped ČEZ build the largest Industrial, Commercial and Grid (ICG) metering data center in Europe, which is based in the country’s capital, Prague.