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

Smart Grid in Asia Pacific: Potential,Opportunities, and Growth

Asia-Pacific is consider one of the most dynamic and the fastest growing region in the world. With over quarter of the world population located in this part, and most of the countries still in development stages, there is huge growth potential in almost all segments. The hyper- growth is fueling the demand for more energy, which in turn is creating significant market opportunities for clean-tech market. According recent report, published by the leading clean tech market intelligence firm PikeResearch, Smart Grid investment in Asia Pacific is set to reach $171.3 billion by 2017. The report notes that for every country the drivers for Smart Grid implementation are significantly different.

According to senior analyst, Andy Bai, "Chinese market players believe that the construction of a smart grid is a key part of economic growth and enhancing the ability to optimize energy allocation, including the integration of new generation capacity from both renewable and fossil fuel sources.  Japan’s electric utilities have been investing huge amounts of capital in power infrastructure, resulting in advanced capabilities in transmission infrastructure and power delivery services; however, the tragic March 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and resulting Fukushima nuclear accident are likely to redefine not only Japan’s smart grid planning, but perhaps the direction of the nation’s utility industry.  Korea seeks to leverage its technology leadership in the IT and communications space to form an advanced smart grid infrastructure within the country, as well as an opportunity to export smart grid technologies around the world.  Significant and influential smart grid projects are also underway in Australia, India, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) region.” The analyst further adds, the transmission upgrades, Distribution Automation, and Advanced Metering Infrastructure will capture majority of the market with each segment having share of 54%, 18%, and 15% respectively". 

The report provides in-depth analysis for market drivers, business models and applications, technology issues,  and government policy within Asia-Pacific Region. The study covers detailed forecast by application for China, India, Korea, Australia, Japan, and the ASEAN region. Overall, the study addresses following key questions. 

Key Questions Addressed

• What are the key market drivers for smart grid development in each Asia Pacific market?
• Which business models are being employed for APAC smart grid deployments? How are these similar to other models found around the world, and how do they differ?
• Who are the key industry players influencing the development of APAC smart grid initiatives? Are there opportunities for additional participants to enter the market?
• For each country, what is the size of the market opportunity within each smart grid application segment?
• What are the key technology issues facing smart grid industry players in each market?

$200 Billion investment in Smart Grid by 2015 : Pike Research

According Pike research (A clean-tech market research firm) Smart Grid represent $200 Billion worth of global investment by 2015. Almost 84 % will be captured by Grid automation, whereas Advanced metering infrastructure will have 14 % share. The remaining 2% will be occupied by Vehicle management systems( possibly Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicle like Nissan Lehr). At present government across the globe are pushing  for Smart Meter, which is a tip of the ice-berg according to pike. Even though the electric grid is the important and critical  infrastructure of any country and it has spread thousands of miles, the network provide little intelligence. Hence, it is huge opportunity to embed intelligence in the system.

The report mentioned that " key drivers for such a huge opportunities are 1) Improve reliability and Security, 2) Improving operating efficiency and cost, 3) Balancing power generation supply and demand and 4) Reducing the overall impact on global warming"

There are huge challenges including lack of common visions and standards, outdated regulatory framework and business models and lack of awareness among the consumers. Nonetheless these challenges equally represent the opportunities. Government and Industries across the globe has recognized these and are working together to find a sustainable solutions.

The report analyzes Global Smart Grid market for AMI, transmission upgrades, substation automation, distribution automation, energy management systems, and electric vehicle management.It profiles 70 key players of the Smart Grid market and detail global market forecast segmented by region and technology.It indicates that the investment will reached to its peak by 2013.

For India it represent huge business opportunity domestically as well as globally, Indian IT Companies with their low-cost, high quality model are best suited to provide Infrastructure development and support to Foreign Utility and Smart Grid companies. Indian Entrepreneurs should focus their attention on this critical infrastructure opportunity.

Pike Research