With a 115 Hectare retired rail freight facility at its disposal, the city of Heidelberg decided to build an entirely new suburb from the ground up, to be called the Bahnstadt. The city set out to design a near zero emission infrastructure based on Passive House priciples, where buildings are designed to consume as little energy as possible. Well ahead of Germany’s smart meter roll out, the city’s utility operation Stadwerke Heidelberg (SWH) installed smart meters as standard in all the properties, regardless of the customers’ choice of energy provider, and at no extra cost.

Region
Heidelberg (Germany)

Challenge
New city district with passive house standard, costs must be kept low, mobile radio communication does not work.

Solution
Smart metering with BPL in the low-voltage network with BPL headends in the transformer stations, BPL gateways in the houses and the use of our Network Management System