The frenetic evolution of the energy landscape in recent years has made it necessary to make information relating to electricity consumption more usable, which must be easily consulted in full protection of the activities of sector operators and customers.
Starting from this assumption, E-Distribuzione SpA has designed "Open Meter", the new generation meter which represents one of the leading elements of the company's strategy, in the process of constant renewal towards an open, accessible and sustainable energy concept. The new device is entering the homes of Italians to replace the old meter: the numbers are of great impact given that the new "Open Meter" has been installed in over 13 million users. A work, that of E-Distribuzione, which continues unabated to achieve the objective of the maxi-plan which will end in 2024 with the replacement of 32 million devices. Today there are already virtuous examples of cities in which all the meters envisaged by the program have been installed: Bologna is in fact the first to become 100% Open Meter.
Entirely designed in Italy, the new meter is characterized by an innovative design but above all it is able to combine quality of service with technological innovation.
The customer will have an ever wider monitoring of his own consumption data thanks to an increased memory capacity. In addition to this, a variety of information will be available, which will offer the possibility of understanding one's own consumption habits and interacting more and more with other market operators. The continuous acquisition of the load curves will enable the possibility of making market offers with dynamic energy prices, being able to meet customer needs in an increasingly timely manner, also in terms of information availability, and offer different services.
By exploiting all the data that the new meter is able to manage and provide to the system, market operators will be able to offer a large number of value-added services in terms of both user profiling and commercial offers. Energy producers will be able to have a greater awareness of the operating efficiency of their plant, thus favoring an ever greater integration of microgeneration plants.
The new meter will therefore favor free competition between market operators, allowing for a complete opening of the same.
At the same time, Open Meter will allow for advanced management of service quality parameters like a real advanced sensor, allowing increasingly in-depth monitoring for each individual customer, all with a view to increasingly smarter operation of the distribution network and as the last one is to make the whole system more efficient.
One of the great novelties of the new counter is theenabling of a further channels of communication known as Chain 2, which will allow to significantly improve energy awareness and the integration between home automation systems and the meter through the development and dissemination of commercial devices dedicated to energy management and home automation services. In fact, through these interface devices it will be possible to obtain various information on one's own energy consumption and production data, in the case of prosumer customers, which will favor a more aware and efficient management of domestic loads and generation plants from renewable sources. which will favor increasingly rational management of domestic loads and generation plants from renewable sources.
The Open Meter challenge also represents a fundamental element in the context of smart city projects. With Smart Grids, of which the meter represents the beating heart, E-Distribuzione will be able to integrate the actions of all the players connected to its electricity grid, producers or consumers, to distribute energy in a safe, efficient, sustainable and economical way beneficial. The meter will therefore be the fulcrum for the development of the sustainable city, a project that has already begun to take shape and is arriving in our homes to help us consume energy better, reducing our environmental impact.
