This year’s PPC Customer Conference was once again a resounding success—featuring engaging technical presentations, productive discussions, and over 250 participants from the energy industry. Across three tracks this time, attendees presented, evaluated, and discussed how we can work together to advance the digital transformation of the energy system.
“What has been your experience with the smart metering system?”
As PPC, our expertise lies in providing customers and partners with exactly the solutions their rollout requires. An industry event organized by us thrives on having precisely these partners and their rollout experiences take the stage—to share firsthand accounts of the challenges they’ve faced in their respective fields and how they’ve skillfully overcome them.
For this reason, it was clear to PPC early on that we not only wanted to give topics related to SMGW, CLS, and BPL much more space with three stages—but that we also wanted to make this space available to as many external speakers as possible.
PPC and Partners in Practice
To kick off the first day, however, we didn’t head to the stages right away—instead, we went to the work tables. At various workshop stations, our partners and we presented technical demonstrations related to the intelligent metering system.
How does the physical antenna installation work, how does the installation tool successfully pair a CLS device, and what does the next step in the secure supply chain—without a box—look like? This hands-on approach ensured that visitors could take their time throughout the morning to familiarize themselves with the many facets of the iMSys world.
Have you heard of CarLoS yet?
Over the course of two days, our CLS landscape took center stage at the “All Applications. One Platform” event, along with the unique paths that partners and customers have already taken within it. How is the CLS rollout progressing? How does fast EEBUS pairing work? And what added value does CLS offer as a platform?
A highlight was the in-depth panel discussion featuring participants from the EMS sector. With representatives from Kiwigrid, Solar Manager, SMA, and gridX, we were able to explain to the audience how energy managers benefit from the advantages of iMSys—and why digital control is the way of the future.
The rollout requires reliable connectivity
No rollout is without challenges in data transmission. So there was good reason to devote as much time as possible over the two days to the topic of connectivity and transmission technologies. This included presenting the strengths of the new BPL Generation 6, called “Nessum,” as well as holding in-depth discussions on selecting the right LTE antenna. We were joined by our subsidiary Coms4Grid, our implementation partner, who was able to fully address questions regarding the rollout based on the “WAN-as-a-Service” concept.
The SMGW with that extra something
Although the rollout is underway in Germany, it was clear that there would still be more to discuss regarding SMGWs. Together with Netze BW, we explored how to manage SMGWs during a mass rollout, and partners such as Octopus, Enpal, and Zählerhelden shared the perspective of competitive metering point operators on the rollout.
And then, of course, there were the coming years of the Smart Meter Gateway to consider. How would the SMGWplus deliver added value directly to iMSys? What new features are already in the pipeline for PPC customers? And what experiences had EWE Netz and TMZ already gained during the control system rollout?
