Mannheim, 7 April 2025: The Nuremberg-based energy company N-ERGIE has come to a positive conclusion after months of the first joint pilot project with PPC and its service subsidiary, Coms4Grid. Thanks to PPCs Broadband Powerline (BPL) communication technology, the roll-out of smart meters in Nuremberg and Hüttenheim is taking place in both urban and rural areas.
N-ERGIE’s main goal is to achieve a high implementation rate, even in challenging environments with limited LTE coverage. With the joint pilot project, the energy company is demonstrating its consistent commitment to digitising its network and making its power grid fit for the Smart Grid future. As part of the project, PPC supplied 300 Smart Meter Gateways (SMGW), including the necessary BPL modems. The BPL products, powered by Nessum, were installed in a variety of objects, from street cabinets to substations. The roll-out project was divided into two pilot projects, one for urban areas and the other for rural areas. This not only enabled important network data to be collected from the low-voltage grid, but also improved rollout planning for future expansion targets. In both projects, PPC’s service subsidiary Coms4Grid operates the BPL network and supports N-ERGIE’s technical teams to ensure maximum efficiency and reliability.
PPCs Broadband Powerline technology, powered by Nessum, is an ideal solution for a wide Smart Meter rollout because it ensures nearly 100% availability by using the existing electrical grid to transmit data, even in areas with poor wireless coverage. It provides secure, real-time, high-bandwidth communications to support Smart Grid management. With PPC’s latest generation of BPL products, energy companies such as N-ERGIE can choose a cost-effective, scalable and easy-to-install solution that reduces deployment and operating costs and provides security and flexibility for the digitalisation of the electricity grid.
This BPL project demonstrates the effectiveness of Power Plus Communications’ products in enabling energy companies to meet the challenges of both urban and rural installation environments. Lessons learned from the pilot project, such as modem accessibility in basements, will be used to efficiently continue the rollout and drive the digitalisation of the grid. Three hundred smart meter gateways are just the beginning. Following the successful pilot, Coms4Grid and N-ERGIE are now working to implement the project on an even larger scale in 2025 and 2026.
