World Class Solution Heading to Unison’s Regions as Smart Gr

World Class Solution Heading to Unison’s Regions as Smart Grid Enabler

Monday, 27 August 2012 - Unison, a Hawke’s Bay lines company that has fast become an industry leader for advancing its Smart Grid strategy in New Zealand, has today announced a partnership with Silver Spring Networks, a global networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks.

The partnership will see Silver Spring Networks deliver a networking infrastructure solution to Unison, which will enable it to manage its network in real-time whilst receive data that will provide Unison with the knowledge to improve management of its assets.

Unison Group Chief Executive, Ken Sutherland said the availability of a ubiquitous networking platform was an essential enabler to deliver Smart Grid benefits.

“Unison has gone through a rigorous process of evaluating various networking technologies, and Silver Spring Networks’ offering came out on top.

“Silver Spring Networks is recognised as a global leader in this field, with demonstrated capability in the Asia Pacific region - not only for distribution automation, but also for smart metering and demand response.

“Linked in to our fibre backbone, Silver Springs’ networking technology will become the cornerstone for our Smart Grid by enabling real-time communication with network devices, as well as real-time monitoring of the status and quality of customer supply,” he said.

The Silver Spring Networks platform would enable two-way communication on Unison’s network, he said, where it would be able to “talk” to other devices such as Unison’s smart transformers and, in the future, smart devices at the customer’s home.

“Partnering with a global specialist in this field means our solution is future proofed for our customers because we are able to leverage a single, standards-based platform to provide many network applications.

“For example, in a storm event, Unison will be able to receive information from its network and from its customers’ smart devices to pinpoint faults. From this information, we will be able to re-configure and restore services to unaffected areas, whilst we send our field staff out to fix the problem.”

Silver Spring Networks’ CEO, Scott Lang, said the Company was honoured to partner with Unison to deliver the standards-based networking platform underpinning its smart grid strategy.

“Unison is deploying a smart grid infrastructure upon which it can deliver future innovations to customers and is helping establish New Zealand as the global benchmark for modern, efficient, and smarter energy networks.”

The Silver Spring networking solution will be deployed across the total Unison network (in Hawke’s Bay, Rotorua and Taupo), to enable network-wide management and monitoring.

Unison and Silver Spring Networks will work together to deploy the Unison platform. Installation will commence in the coming months.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

About Silver Spring Networks
Silver Spring Networks is a leading networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks. With its pioneering IPv6 networking platform, Silver Spring has connected more than 12 million homes and businesses throughout the world with the goal of achieving greater energy efficiency for the planet. Silver Spring’s innovative products enable utilities to gain efficiencies, integrate renewable energy sources and empower customers to monitor and manage energy consumption. Silver Spring Networks is used by major utilities around the globe including Baltimore Gas & Electric, CitiPower & Powercor, Commonwealth Edison, Florida Power & Light, Jemena Electricity Networks Limited, Pacific Gas & Electric, Pepco Holdings, Inc. and United Energy among others. For more information please visit www.silverspringnet.com

ENDS

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