Smart Meter – the intelligent electricity meter

Luxmetering – A common solution for Luxembourg

This directive was transposed into Luxembourg law by the “Loi du 7 août 2012 modifiant la loi modifiée du 1er août 2007 relative à l’organisation du marché de l’électricité”. This states that “Les gestionnaires de réseau de distribution déploient, pour l’ensemble des clients finals raccordés à leurs réseaux, une infrastructure nationale commune et interopérable de comptage intelligiente qui favorise la participation active des consommateurs au marché de l’électricité. The smart metering installation is based on a central common system that allows the communication of data through a single common system for at least electricity and natural gas. The central common system allows other sources, such as water or water, to be connected to it later. Les gestionnaires de réseau exploit l’infrastructure nationale commune de comptage intelligent et effectuent un enregistrement et traitement des données de comptage à une cadence au minim nécessaire pour prester les services d’ajustement et les services auxiliaires.”

As a result of a jointly conducted analysis, the seven distribution network operators founded

• Creos Luxembourg S.A.
• Hoffmann Frères Energie et Bois S.à r.l. (Electris)
• Sudgaz S.A.
• Sudstroum S.àr.l. & Co S.e.c.s.
• Ville de Diekirch
• Ville de Dudelange
• Ville d’Ettelbruck

At the end of 2012, the Luxmetering G. I. E. founded an economic interest group called Luxmetering G.I.E. Luxmetering’s mission is to acquire and operate the central national smart metering platform.

The grid operators will purchase, install and maintain the meters and all other components in the field (data concentrators, external relay modules, etc.) themselves. Luxmetering will be responsible for reading the meters.
Luxmetering and the seven network operators are working closely with the regulatory authority ILR (www.ilr.lu) to define the functionalities and services of the national common system.

Remote meter reading and data transfer

Smart meters installed at the end customer communicate via power-line-carrier (PLC) technology with the data concentrators located in the transformer stations. The data is collected in the concentrators and forwarded from there to Luxmetering’s central system. In some isolated cases, the communication of the meter with the central system will be done directly via GPRS. In this case, all communication is encrypted.

Luxmetering validates the data and forwards it to the grid operator Electris. Electris will then make the data available to the relevant supplier. This allows each supplier to charge its end customer exactly for the electricity actually consumed.