Infosys,Wipro among the Big Fish of global Smart Grid IT: GTM Research

The leading clean technology research firm GTM Research in its latest report "The Network Grid 150 : The End-to-End  Smart Grid Vendor Ecosystem Report and Rankings" has identified Wipro and Infosys as one the top 7 global software companies in the Smart Grid space. It is well know fact that software is one of key component of Smart Grid technology. From managing power demand to monitoring the grid health, software is going to be the essential piece of all smart grid segments. The other 5 big fish are IBM, Oracle, Siemens, Accenture, and Schneider Electric. The report selected the top 7 "Big Fish" based on two basic criteria, 1) market cap of more than $20 billion and 2) being active and influential in smart grid market.

Though, the smart grid solutions are unique to the local conditions, having global smart grid exposure and experience will be an added advantage, as the right set of tools and techniques mastered can be used for the smart grid implementation in India. Wipro and Infosys have implemented various smart grid IT project in the global market and with their local knowledge of the Indian utility and energy industry, are well placed to take advantage of the emerging smart grid market in India. According to ZPRYME, Indian government is set to spend close to $11 billion in next 5 years to reduce the line losses to less than 15% in urban and high-density area. Approximately one-fifth of the $11 billion will be spent on IT for the state-run distribution companies. 

While, the western and developed economies have to re-work the grid to successfully implement smart grid, developing countries like India , which still are building the electric infrastructure, are uniquely positioned to take advantage of smart grid by completely bypassing many of the technologies that emerged in the last decade and are at the verge of extinction.

L&T partners with UK-based Cyan for Advanced Metering Solutions

Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has entered into a partnership with a UK-based Cyan Holdings for its Metering and Protection Systems business. Metering and protection Systems of L&T is a part of its Electrical & Home Automation services. Cyan Holdings is an integrated systems design company delivering mesh based flexible solutions lighting control, utility metering and industrial metering.

L&T presently is one of the leading producer of electronic/electrical meters in India with a vast portfolio of metering products that includes electronic tri vector meters, single-and three-phase energy meters, availability based tariff (ABT) meters, intelligent panel meters, demand controllers, card-based prepaid meters and GSM modems, all of which are designed and developed by in-house R&D. They are also involved in the design and manufacture of automatic meter reading solutions that involve meter networking, collecting meter data and transporting such data to a central station for display, analysis and report generation.

Cyan Holdings recently participated in Smart Energy India Conference in India where it demonstrated a live communication link to a pilot installation of networked smart meters located in an industrial cluster in NOIDA, a suburb of Delhi. Its CyLec wireless communication solution for electricity meters comprising RF modules, gateways configured as Data Concentrator Units (DCUs) and communication software was able to perform at the most robust of conditions. Mr Mohandes during the conference also added "Our CyLec pilot further confirms that smart metering in India requires good range and penetration. For this, wireless communications at 865/867MHz frequency is best suited allowing multiple overlapping meter networks operating over a 500m stretch of several city blocks. We use banking level security throughout our system, and it is scalable to multiple millions of meters in field deployed on multiple redundant servers".

According to the press release, both L&T and Cyan Holdings have identified a number of projects in India where there is a need for 865MHz based interoperable Wireless AMI with a requirement for end to end communications enabling remote tamper detection and reporting. The parties have entered into this strategic alliance as they believe that this technology is likely to become a major factor in the fast growing Indian electricity metering market.

L&T has been taking great steps towards enhancing it product portfolio for metering and automation services-an integral part of the smart grid. The latest activities have been its partnerships with Cyan Holdings, Telvent (now Schneider Electric) apart from the acquisitions in switch gear. It is expected to be one of the rapidly growing companies in India in Smart Grid in the coming years.

Courtesy: Pratik Sonthalia, IIT-Roorkee