Smart Grid
Smart Energy Future a Reality
“Smart grid” is the buzzword of the moment, but in the picture-postcard region of Upper Austria, it’s becoming a reality. Energie AG
Oberösterreich has been rolling out a comprehensive intelligent network infrastructure, with 28,000 smart meters already in place.
They enable the utility to manage power demand and supply intelligently, for example by switching power on or off in a home in a matter
of seconds. The near future, according to the people involved, is becoming even more exciting.
Photo: Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency
By Stefan Nicola
Energie AG’s futuristic SolarCampus
marks the site of Austria’s largest solar
power station.
Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
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Smart Grid
Smart Grid
Photos: Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency
New wine in an old skin: The traditional facade of
Father Leopold Fürst’s home in Gmunden conceals
a state-of-the-art smart meter.
44 Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
A winter morning in Gmunden, a
small village of 13,000 residents in
Upper Austria, can be mesmerizing.
When the sun climbs above the snowcapped Alps and the rays touch the
surface of the Traunsee Lake, it looks
like someone has sprinkled gold dust
over it. At the shore, in the cobblestoned market square, locals have set
up their booths to sell produce from
the farms that dot the region’s surrounding hills. Although they are
lush green in summer, the hills now
sport a heaving dusting of white.
You’d almost believe that things remain here as they have always been.
In a way, a stay in Gmunden, with its
narrow alleys and traditional house
fronts, feels like a trip back in time.
Little would you expect that the future
is about to start here any day – in
homes like that of Father Leopold
Fürst.
Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
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Smart Grid
Smart Grid
Photos: Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency
Both the old farmhouse and the new low-energy
house of Regina Huemer-Schögl (with son
Simon, above) and her family are equipped with
AMIS meters.
46 Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
A tall pastor with thin-rimmed glasses, disheveled hair, and a warm smile,
Fürst opens a cabinet door in the corridor of his house in St. Konrad, a
short drive from Gmunden’s city center, to show off his latest technical
gadget. It’s a Siemens Automated Metering and Information System (AMIS)
“smart meter,” one of the most advanced models available. These meters are truly intelligent – they not
only measure consumption in homes,
but also cover the entire supply chain,
from power plant to consumer, by
communicating through the power
grid. Some 28,000 AMIS meters are
already installed in the region, and
this is just the beginning.
For a total investment of some
€150 million, Linz-based Energie AG
Oberösterreich plans to roll out
500,000 AMIS meters over the next
decade. They’re intended to benefit
Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
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Smart Grid
Smart Grid
smart grid growth markets such as
China and the USA, Siemens will push
its internal development and also
look to buy small and medium-sized
companies.
But back to Upper Austria – to Father
Leopold Fürst and his new smart meter. What has changed for him? “The
whole feeling of things,” he says,
laughing, before adding, with a smile
and a shrug, that things have been
more or less the same. “I hope this
doesn’t disappoint you – but it’s still
just a meter for me.”
Automated Metering and Information System (AMIS)
AMIS is an integrated smart
grid application consisting of
meters and load-switching
devices linked through data
nodes to a back-end control
center. Siemens offers this
solution for optimization of
network-operating processes
by combining metering with
management of distributed
systems.
More Than a Meter
Some of the benefits for grid
operators include:
■ Data transmission from end
user to operator
■ Automated billing and tariff
administration
■ Monitoring capacity use of
infrastructure
■ Minimizing system downtime
■ Integration of small decentralized plants into distribution channels
AMIS equips both customers
and operators for the challenges of dynamic energy
markets.
utilities as well as customers, and help
blaze the trail into a new energy age.
Siemens intends to back up that transition.
The global smart grid sector, which
includes intelligent power lines, sensors, and transformer technology, is a
€100 billion market, of which Siemens
can address €30 billion, according to
a spokesperson for Siemens’ smart
48 Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
grid business. The aim is to secure
a 20 percent share of this important
market, which can be expected to
grow in the future.
The technology giant seems to be on
track. Its smart grid sales rose by
10 percent in 2010 compared to the
previous year, to €1.1 billion, and its
meters are among the most soughtafter in the world. To succeed in
Photo: Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency
In the test room of Energie AG: The AMIS smart meter creates a win-win situation
for consumers and utilities alike.
It won’t be for long – Father Leopold
might soon become much more attached to his new gray meter. Some
features are already available to him.
If he moves into a new apartment, for
example, he can simply phone in to
Energie AG’s call center to have his
power switched on remotely via the
smart grid infrastructure in a matter
of seconds – there’s no need for the
technician to drive all the way to his
home.
And there is much more to come. The
experts of Energie AG, who are rolling
out the smart grid infrastructure, are
as excited as actors before a big premiere. “What’s happening here in
Upper Austria with the Siemens AMIS
smart meter and the smart grid really
is a revolution,” says Werner Steinecker, a member of the board of Energie AG and the company’s chief technical officer.
The utility built its first power station
in Gmunden back in 1902, but to
show how it sees the future, it invited
a small group of journalists to its SolarCampus, a futuristic, box-shaped
building made of steel and glass that
overlooks fields decked with shiny
blue solar cells. The rapid rise of renewables – Energie AG expects that
some 10,000 solar power plants will
be installed in Upper Austria over the
next several years – is a challenge for
the grid. Experts agree that the current power infrastructure can’t accommodate the fluctuating renewable
energy sources such as solar, wind,
and biomass. It would be like running
the Internet through a switchboard.
New networks are needed, and at the
heart of this so-called “smart grid” is
the smart meter, which could inject
unparalleled flexibility and transparency into everyday electricity consumption.
Energie AG began thinking about
smart meters and a smart grid in the
early 2000s, “at a time when there
was no market and no regulation,”
Steinecker says. This summer, Energie
AG will launch a new power tariff that
enables customers with an AMIS
smart meter to pay variable rates at
different times of the day. Electricity
“There’s a huge leverage with which
we can play without the customer
even noticing. People will still have
warm homes and hot water at all
times, but they’ll save energy costs.”
Johann Kaltenleithner, Head of the Metering Services Department, Energie AG
will be cheaper, for example, at night
or in the morning, and more expensive during times of peak demand.
For example, customers who program
their heat pump accordingly end up
with a smaller bill.
A Win-Win Situation
The utility also benefits. It doesn’t
need to buy as much expensive peak
power and can better manage the
grid, resulting in a more stable network. Moreover, Energie AG doesn’t
need to send employees to switch
power on and off or check consumption on-site. “It’s really a win-win situation,” adds Steinecker.
The new tariff comes with a Webbased portal that customers can log
Energie AG Oberösterreich
is a Linz-based utility with
a history that dates back
120 years. Active in nine
European markets, Energie
AG’s core business lies in
energy, water, and waste
disposal. The federal province of Upper Austria
holds the majority stake in
Energie AG, which employs
around 7,000 people.
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households, but also individual appliances in them. For example, a refrigeration room in a factory could be
cooled down further than usual on a
night when wind power is abundant,
and be taken off the grid for a few
hours the next day. But what about
customer convenience? Will Father
Leopold have to wash his robe at 3 a.m.
or face horrendous power prices? Is
this just a more playful way to make
money?
Energie AG and Siemens vow that customers won’t feel a thing – except
more cash in their wallets.
el. The farm is home to the young
couple Regina Huemer-Schögl and
Robert Huemer, their three-year-old
son Simon, his grandparents, and Felix, a red cat that one day, a few years
ago, simply arrived and decided to
stay for good.
Farm Leaps into
the 21st Century
(Left to right) Johann Kaltenleithner, Werner Steinecker,
and Manfred Litzlbauer outside Energie AG’s SolarCampus.
into from their computer or their
mobile phone. Via easy-to-understand
graphics, they’ll see how much power
they consume at what time of day, and
they’ll be able to compare that to energy efficiency benchmarks. Father
Leopold can wave goodbye to his confusing power consumption bill that
used to come once a year – the AMIS
smart meter is able to monitor electricity flows every 15 minutes.
“It’s similar to the new digital fuel
consumption display in my car,” says
Alexander Schenk, the man overseeing the AMIS business at Siemens AG
Österreich. “I never thought I’d care,
but I have developed a real ambition
to keep fuel consumption down.”
Via the smart meter and a modern
ripple control receiver (9,000 are already installed in homes), Energie AG
will be able to manage not only
50 Living Energy · Issue 5 /July 2011 · www.siemens.com/energy/living-energy
Appliances such as dishwashers,
washers, and dryers account for just
8.5 percent of a typical household’s
energy consumption. The real energy
gobblers are heating and warm water
systems, which make up a staggering
85 percent. In Upper Austria, many
households have heat pumps installed – perfect for flexible power
switching. “That’s a huge leverage
with which we can play without the
customer even noticing,” says Johann
Kaltenleithner of Energie AG. “People
will still have warm homes and hot
water at all times, but they’ll save energy costs.”
The utility says it can imagine rolling
out iPhone and iPad apps so users can
see when power is cheap, and switch
their heating system on or off while
on the road. Then, a smart meter
could be like a computer game that
saves you money. “There are armies
of software developers out there who
are already working on these things,”
Schenk says.
But will consumers really care, especially those who don’t want to bother
with computers or new technology?
What about the many farms and rural
communities in Upper Austria?
Well, don’t underestimate customers’
willingness to adapt.
Via narrow gravel roads that meander
around the rolling terrain above
Gmunden, Kaltenleithner takes the
reporters to a farm tucked away in the
hills, some 700 meters above sea lev-
Photo: Reiner Riedler / Anzenberger Agency
Cash-Saving Convenience
The 14-hectare farm is somewhat of a
symbol for the transition going on in
Upper Austria. Lots of cows used to
roam the Huemer grasslands, but
with today’s milk prices, a mediumsized dairy farm simply doesn’t pay
off anymore. The eight cows that are
left are fed with hay from the fields
and will be sold to the meat industry
when ready. The old farm building,
with doors so low that you have to
stoop down to avoid bumping your
head, has been renovated, its aging,
disconnected oven-heating system exchanged for a new one fed by wood
pellets cut from the trees growing on
the hills. The young couple also built
a new, low-energy house next to the
old grange – it has a geothermal energy heating system and a large winter
garden. “We have the new smart meters in both houses,” says HuemerSchögl, as she opens a wooden compartment in the corridor of the old
homestead and points to the three
rectangular boxes that link the farm
to the new energy age.
The family already benefits from a
tariff that allows Energie AG to switch
off the farm’s hay-drying system, installed in a large barn, for a few hours
at midday during summer months.
That saves the family money, and the
utility has excess power to balance out
the grid. With the new smart grid
infrastructure, tariffs like that can be
designed even more flexibly and
individually.
Regina Huemer-Schögl is excited
about the Web portal that’s about to
be introduced. She says that for a
large household like hers, it would be
great to see when and where the most
power is consumed. “I think then we
could save even more,” she says.
“Eighty percent of the AMIS smart
meter’s possibilities still lie buried
within its electronics. We’ll unearth
those over the next several years,
and then things will be possible
that we might not even be able to
imagine now.”
Werner Steinecker, Chief Technical Officer, Energie AG
For Energie AG and the AMIS developing team, the new tariff is just the
first step.
A functioning smart grid such as the
one Energie AG has in mind for Upper
Austria would link customers directly
to the power market – for example, by
enabling them to sell electricity generated from their rooftop solar panels
to the grid, or to use it at home when
household prices are high. A future
smart grid would also integrate power-charging stations and use electric
cars as a storage pool to manage energy flows within the network. It could
feature smart grid-ready appliances
(these are being developed at the moment) that can switch themselves on
or off, depending on the power price.
And there are many other possibilities
that will certainly come up, Steinecker
predicts. “Eighty percent of the AMIS
smart meter’s possibilities still lie
buried within its electronics,” he says.
“We’ll unearth those over the next
several years, and then things will be
possible that we might not even be
able to imagine now.”
Stefan Nicola, a politics and energy journalist
based in Berlin, is the Europe correspondent for
the US news agency United Press International
(UPI). He also writes for the European Energy Review, an energy publication for decision makers.
Further Information
www.energieag.at
www.siemens.com/energy/amis
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