Insights success The 10 Fastest Growing Security Solution Provider Companies november2016-min

• Locational awareness: For the first time, smart meters
and grid devices know where they are in relation to other
grid assets (feeders, phases, substations, transformers,
distributed generation, other meters, etc.). This “selfawareness”
opens up an entirely new approach to smart grid
use cases and applications.
• “Multilingual” devices: A unified software platform
supports multiple communication/application protocols,
allowing a single meter or grid device to simultaneously
speak the language of distribution automation, load control
and smart metering. This enables highly localized
communication and action among diverse devices, assets
and grid control systems to respond to changing conditions
at the edge of the network.
• Edge processing power: Thanks to Moore’s Law, Itron is
embedding the computing equivalent of a recent generation
smart phone in high-volume meters and grid devices to
enable advanced communications, data processing and
analysis in the edge device.
Standpaoint, ,CXO
“Led by
companies
such as Cisco and Itron,
a growing ecosystem of
smart grid technology
providers have collaborated
to evolve network
architecture so that
utility eld area networks
look and behave much more
like enterprise
IT networks”
,,
Jeff Carkhuff
The ability for edge devices to know exactly where they
are, process and analyze data independently and
communicate with other types of devices creates many new
possibilities for improving the accuracy, resolution and
timeliness of analytic applications. A clear opportunity
exists to deliver new business value in areas such as
localized demand response/load control, asset monitoring
and management, outage detection and response,
renewables integration and diversion detection. This
approach allows utilities to put intelligence where it makes
the most sense, whether that’s in the edge device, the field
area network itself or at the enterprise level, meaning
analytics no longer must always take place in the back
office where “tomorrow” or “next week” is no longer good
enough.
Perhaps most interestingly, the Itron Riva distributed
intelligence platform has enabled Itron to revolutionize grid
communications. Known as adaptive communications
technology, this capability incorporates multiple
communications media-RF Mesh, Wi-Fi and Power Line
Carrier-on the same chipset, working in concert to solve
key network performance and connectivity challenges.
Running on the OpenWay smart grid network, adaptive
communications technology always utilizes the fastest and
most reliable communication path for every message and
every link based on location, network operating conditions
and the nature of the application or data. This is true
whether communicating with an office application or
another device on the grid.
This makes deployment of network infrastructure easier,
faster and less costly, while offering a single
communications solution for both dense and difficult urban
environments as well as lower-density areas. Adaptive
communications technology flattens the cost curve during
the latter stages of network deployment when the “hard-toreach”
devices and areas must be addressed. In other words,
it provides a network that continuously self-optimizes based
on geography, topology, operating conditions and business
requirements.
Together, these developments mean that many utilities
throughout the world are in a good position to leverage
these recent and significant advancements in network
architecture, edge intelligence and analytics as they
implement their grid modernization strategies and connect
to broader opportunities such as smart cities and IoT.
There is absolutely no doubt that the convergence of
information technology and operational technology in the
global utility industry will continue and accelerate, and that
technology advancement will continue to outpace the asset
lifecycle paradigm utilities have so long operated within.
Nevertheless, thresholds are reached that warrant a shift in
thinking about how to approach and solve problems. For
tomorrow’s grid, that time is now.
November 2016 36