With intelligent remote reading in a LoRaWAN network and automated processes, prosumergy implements tenant electricity projects for the real estate and utility sectors. Part of the solution is an optical reader for modern metering systems.
Increasing digitalisation is opening up new business areas for municipal utilities in Germany, according to the 2020 municipal utilities study by Ernst & Young and the German Association of Energy and Water Industries (BDEW). From the utilities' point of view, the housing industry in particular still offers great potential for developing new business areas such as energy supply, energy services and smart metering.
Tenant electricity offers are an interesting segment: "Landlords of apartment buildings and commercial properties, as well as district managers, are increasingly interested in climate-friendly electricity supply from their own solar systems or combined heat and power plants. Tenants also have the opportunity to save costs," explains Daniel Netter, managing partner of prosumergy GmbH. The Kassel-based company implements its own tenant electricity products nationwide and offers corresponding services for the housing industry and energy utilities, from profitability analysis and system planning through securing the electricity supply to metering point operation and customer service including billing. prosumergy also has a white-label product for energy utilities in its portfolio.
Implementation is complex
Professional support in this area is undoubtedly helpful, because implementing a tenant electricity project is not easy, neither for the utility nor for the landlord. In addition to planning a system from an economic and technical point of view, the processes have to be coordinated with the local distribution grid operator and the trades involved. "Almost every distribution grid operator has established its own requirements and processes," says Daniel Netter.
Setting up the metering points is further complicated by the fact that the electrical distribution boards in many existing buildings no longer comply with the technical connection conditions. This makes converting an apartment building to local electricity supply laborious. For such a tenant electricity project to pay off, as large a share of the tenants as possible must also take part. "That only works with a professional approach, possibly support in switching supplier, and attractive electricity tariffs," the prosumergy managing director reports from experience.
Digital billing processes
Also essential when implementing tenant electricity projects is the effective recording of energy consumption and billing that complies with energy law. It must be precisely differentiated which shares come from the building's own system and which from the public grid. Kassel-based prosumergy relies on digital processes here. "Our business concept depends heavily on highly scalable and digitalised business processes," says Daniel Netter. The company was therefore looking for a partner who could support it in obtaining the required consumption data, and found one in Alpha-Omega Technology. With the KLAX optical reader, the IoT solution provider offers a way to read modern metering systems remotely in a LoRaWAN network. prosumergy had special requirements: the solution had to be easy to install, because numerous installers are involved in the projects. And since the meters are often located in basements, good penetration and sufficient range for data transmission are essential.
Remote reading with KLAX
The KLAX reader, developed by Alpha-Omega Technology and its partners ZENNER IoT Solutions and comtac, is simply attached by magnet to the optical interface of the electricity meter and uses LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) for data transmission. The sensor connects to a gateway, which in turn communicates with the network server. Several virtual channels with different data rates are set up for transmission so that the end devices do not interfere with each other. Unlike other WAN technologies, LoRaWAN achieves a range of up to 15 kilometres, and walls are no barrier. In Europe, LoRaWAN uses the licence-free 868 MHz frequency band, so no licence fees are due, and the network can be easily extended and well sealed off from the outside. Two-level symmetric encryption provides additional security.
"KLAX is installed plug-and-play and uses the integrated optical interface of the existing modern metering systems to read the consumption data. The signals from the infrared interface are picked up by the optical head and transmitted via LoRaWAN. The values are available in the back end shortly afterwards and can be processed further with suitable software," explains Jan Bose, managing director of Alpha-Omega Technology GmbH & Co. KG. Since the values are available digitally, they can be assigned to individual customers and evaluated. The data analysis and visualisation software required for this is included in the solution. To be able to offer such product bundles, Alpha-Omega Technology works closely with partners such as ZENNER IoT Solutions, the LoRaWAN provider The Things Industries (TTI) and Datacake.
Simpler and less error-prone
Remote reading of meter readings is thus easier for prosumergy to organise and at the same time significantly less error-prone. Balancing and billing of electricity consumption are automated, individually for each tenant or, as required, across buildings or districts. At the same time, prosumergy can track at any time how much electricity has been consumed and how consumption develops over a given period. The data also makes it possible to uncover further optimisation potential or to adjust advance payments to actual consumption during the year. Bills are produced quickly, and district and vacancy management becomes simpler. "Without scalable business processes, our business model would be unthinkable. Only in this way can we realise our tenant electricity concept on a broad scale, with its rather small-scale and constantly changing framework conditions," Daniel Netter sums up. With this solution, tenant electricity projects at apartment building and district level could soon become more commonplace.
prosumergy GmbH
Daniel Netter
vertrieb@prosumergy.de
www.prosumergy.de
This article was published on 50komma2.de on 22 September 2020