• The infrastructure - successfully tested in Barcelona, Brescia (Italy) and Tampere (Finland) - is an open communications system which as well as providing grid information also allows any type of data to be exchanged in real time.

• The project will last 35 months and has a budget of around 6 million euros. The European Commission will subsidise almost 60% of this amount.

The Integris project (Intelligent Electrical Grid Sensor Communications), led by Enel Energy Europe and captained in Spain by Endesa, has resulted in the development of a robust, flexible and low-cost telecommunications network capable of efficiently collating and channelling in real time all the data required by new smart grids.

The resulting architecture is capable of extending monitoring and control capabilities, which previously only existed for the high-voltage grid, to all points of the low-voltage grid in a distributed and efficient manner. The software developed has been successfully tested through three pilot projects in Brescia (Italy), Tampere (Finland) and Barcelona, and combines communications functions and electrical applications in one device, resulting in capital cost savings and lower operations and maintenance costs. Standard, open protocols and systems have been used to implement functions that are typical of the distribution grid and communications functions. In the first instance, these include control of distributed generation, loss minimisation, and improved asset management; while in the latter case, different technologies can be safely integrated, routing redundancy can be automatically managed, and network performance can be continuously improved.

The infrastructure, which is cheap to roll out, efficiently integrates high-frequency, broadband Powerline technology that uses the existing electric cable for transmission, with telecommunications technology typically used in wireless sensor networks, which are cable free and extremely energy efficient. As it is an open platform, any type of application can be implemented and it can operate like a communications system for other types of data or services, including telephony services.

Integris' primary advantages include the ability to distribute processes among all the network devices, promoting more independent, reliable and automated network operations, and actively manage loads in order to control network saturation in real time.

For the pilot testing in Barcelona, Endesa selected a scenario involving 11 transformer centres in which temperature sensors were installed in addition to the basic low and medium-voltage parameters, to analyse the effect thereof on the performance and useful life of the cables and batteries. These 11 centres communicated through a broadband-based network such as WiFi or Powerline, and narrow-band network such as RFID or ZigBee.

The efficient smart grid integration of distributed generation using architecture such as Integris will boost the efficiency of the distribution system and improve the overall quality of supply, while driving down CO2 emissions.

The project will last 35 months and has a budget of around 6 million euros. The European Commission will subsidise over 60% of this amount. It is part of the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Commission and is one of the six projects approved as part of the 2009 "Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and Energy" in the Technologies for Energy Efficiency/Novel ICT solutions for Smart Electricity Distribution Networks section.

Led by Enel Energy Europe, the Integris project has been carried out by an interdisciplinary consortium composed of electricity and telecoms sector companies and two universities, marrying theoretical know-how with experience in both sectors. As well as Enel Energy Europe and Endesa, the consortium has also included Indra, Marvell Hispania, Fundació Universitat i Tecnologia (La Salle), Schneider Electric, Current Technologies International, TESMEC, A2A Reti Elettriche and Tampere University of Technology.

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