Cuculus GmbH, a developer of smart metering and home control solutions based in Ilmenau , Germany, has been selected to supply its ZONOS platform to RheinEnergie to support the roll-out of 30,000 smart meters in Germany—one of the largest deployments to date in that nation.

RheinEnergie— the regional service company for electricity and water, serving 2.5 million people in Cologne and the Rhineland region around Cologne —has used the Cuculus ZONOS platform since 2009, when the system was first deployed to a select group of 3,000 employees and customers for a smart metering/smart home pilot program.  During the test, ZONOS was used to monitor electricity, gas, and water consumption. In addition, the utility reviewed various infrastructure-related technologies.

The ZONOS platform is a comprehensive Advanced Metering Management (AMM) and Meter Data Management (MDM) system with features that makes it easy for utilities to implement and operate smart metering, according to Cuculus. It also provides the functionality to set up end-customer services based on usage data. The platform is open, which is critical to ensure that it works within the existing system infrastructure of a utility.

RheinEnergie will use the ZONOS platform in conjunction with Walldorf, Germany-based SAP’s IS-U EHP5 Interface for Smart Meter Data Unification and Synchronization (MDUS) to provide an integrated, seamless solution.

The smart metering solution will facilitate:

·         Installation and problem resolution processes,

·         Regular and on-demand meter reads, and

·         Distribution of system messages, alarms, and statistics to the connected systems.

 Wolfram Bennerscheidt of Rheinenergiecommented, “The very positive experience from our earlier pilots gives us confidence that Cuculus will meet our expectations. Smart metering is complex and will lead us to explore new frontiers. We are pleased that, in this project, we can continue to benefit from Cuculus’ flexibility and focus on finding solutions. ”

CuculusChief Compliance OfficerRene Böringer said, “We are delighted that RheinEnergie has chosen the Cuculus platform to support their extensive roll-out of smart meters. RheinEnergie is a leader within the field of smart metering in Germany and we look forward to [working] with them to help realize the potential of this key project.”