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Elster Groups points Latam as potential market for smart grids

An increase in the machine-to-machine market may be driven by smart grid adoption, which is in its very beginnings in Brazil and other Latin American countries due to the lack of regulation. However, companies such as Elster Group believes that both Brazil and Latin America are potential growth markets. “It’s a good opportunity for us, since Latam economy is growing faster and the head is Brazil,” said Elster’s CEO Simon Beresford-Wylie in a recent interview for RCR Wireless News.

Elster has a global presence in 130 countries and focuses on providing measurement and control mechanisms for gas, electricity and water companies. “Utilities companies want to know what’s going on in their lines. Smart grids help them to gain efficiency and give customers more transparency,” explain Frank Hyldmar, executive vice president for the business unit at Elster Group. According to Hyldmar, enterprises are also concerned about reducing their carbon foot prints and smart grid can help them to do that.

But if Latin American countries are going to follow worldwide trends in the smart-grid space, regulations will have to be adopted to force utility companies to change meters from analog to digital ones. That is no easy task because the governments and utilities will have to decide how to finance the projects, especially if the governments don’t approve rate increases. “While companies wait for legislation, some of them are working in some pilot projects and trying solutions,” said VP for Latin America Geraldo Guimarães.

Guimarães said that Brazilian energy company Light has been partnering with Elster for the last two years and is testing Elster’s produsts. “They are one of the most innovative utilities in Brazil. But we also have partnership with Eletropaulo and Grupo Rede Energia; and we are showing Aneel [regulator agency] how it works.”

According to Elster, United States is further along in deploying smart meters. Company believes that by 2020 all of them will be smart. In Latin America, Elster counts 124 million end points of energy. “North America is moving quite quickly. In Latam, Colombia is ahead, because has some kind of governmental incentive. It is going to happen. The question in when,” said Beresford-Wylie.

From a telecommunications market perspective, executives pointed out that utilities have their own fiber-optical networks so they should be able to handle increased data traffic from the smart grid. But in some point this bill may come to carriers.

In the near future, several specialists predict that many appliances will use technologies like Zigbee, for example, to connect to a hub or directly to the utility company. Most likely, these connections will use a variety of technologies, including fiber, satellite, cellular and others.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Roberta Prescott
Roberta Prescott
Editor, [email protected] Roberta Prescott is responsible for Latin America reporting news and analysis, interviewing key stakeholders. Roberta has worked as an IT and telecommunication journalist since March 2005, when she started as a reporter with InformationWeek Brasil magazine and its website IT Web. In July 2006, Prescott was promoted to be the editor-in-chief, and, beyond the magazine and website, was in charge for all ICT products, such as IT events and CIO awards. In mid-2010, she was promoted to the position of executive editor, with responsibility for all the editorial products and content of IT Mídia. Prescott has worked as a journalist since 1998 and has three journalism prizes. In 2009, she won, along with InformationWeek Brasil team, the press prize 11th Prêmio Imprensa Embratel. In 2008, she won the 7th Unisys Journalism Prize and in 2006 was the editor-in-chief when InformationWeek Brasil won the 20th media award Prêmio Veículos de Comunicação. She graduated in Journalism by the Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Campinas, has done specialization in journalism at the Universidad de Navarra (Spain, 2003) and Master in Journalism at IICS – Universidad de Navarra (Brazil, 2010) and MBA – Executive Education at the Getulio Vargas Foundation.