Energy users in Finland to get ‘smarter’ still
Published Tuesday, 3rd May 2011
Building owners and residents in Finland will soon be able to try out an energy efficiency technology that could outsmart — in terms of potential energy savings — their already-smart electricity meters.
The utility company Fortum has begun one pilot program using new smart-meter communications modules from Echelon, and plans to launch another soon. The open-standard modules for power line and ZigBee-enabled communications are designed to help utilities more easily connect to a range of building information and control devices: in-home displays, thermostats, load controllers, motion detectors, temperature probes and more.
Fortum is the largest utility in Finland and also operates in other Nordic countries, Russia and the Baltic region.
Echelon’s CNX 3000 module for power line and CNX 2000 module for ZigBee allows electric utilities to run Echelon’s Control Operating System (COS) software to provide new energy efficiency opportunities. The technology is also designed to give building owners and consumers insight into energy usage patterns and control over their energy consumption.
According to Echelon, the COS software, first introduced as ECoS in September 2010 and running on Echelon’s Edge Control Node, is the smart grid’s first open-standard control platform that can run third-party control applications at the edge of the grid. The software provides an open and secure application framework for monitoring and controlling devices at the edge of the grid, the critical point where the distribution network connects to customers. The COS software enables developers to easily build applications, or “COS apps,” to make local, autonomous control decisions in near real-time for maximum reliability, survivability and responsiveness.
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