Cisco has a new partner for IP-based smart grid buildout initiative

Some months ago Cisco announced it’s plans to provide network infrastructure to utility companies and their customers to manage power supplies and energy consumption.  Now, Cisco found a partner in a Switzerland based company called Landis+Gyr (L+G).

LG_logoLandis+Gyr is the leading global provider of integrated energy management products tailored to energy company needs and unique in its ability to deliver true end-to-end advanced metering solutions. Landis+Gyr operates in more than 30 countries across five continents, and employs over 5,000 people with the sole mission of helping the world manage energy better. For more information please visit www.landisgyr.com.

Together with it’s partner, Cisco is looking to supply utilities with an IP network, from the power generation facilities to the home. The partnership is intended to deliver solutions based on Landis+Gyr’s expertise in advanced metering infrastructure and applications as well as Cisco’s experience in defining the architecture of an end-to-end networking and security solution.

Landis+Gyr’s and Cisco’s collaboration aims to capitalize on the strengths of open standards, such as IP, allowing for greater ease of deployment and scalability, as well as optimized efficiency of communications networks. The two companies plan to work on future architectures in the areas of smart metering, the utility data center, and wireless and fixed last-mile communications with the objective to ensure interoperability across Cisco’s and Landis+Gyr’s smart grid solutions.

According to L+G, their product Gridstream, helps you maximize the effectiveness of your energy management assets through the seamless integration and flow of technology and information. Whether you need the latest smart metering and network technology or personal energy management tools, Gridstream gives you access to a complete range of advanced multi-energy products and systems.

If you take this and associate it with Cisco’s IP based solution, you obtain one excellent product which can communicate remotely based on the most used protocol in the world. For Cisco, and not only, this seems to be a new “gold mine” which will generate a large amount of income since today’s global direction is to reduce functional costs, such as energy in this case.

Source: Landisgyr.com