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SILICON VALLEY POWER SELECTS TROPOS WIRELESS MESH NETWORK AS KEY COMPONENT OF SVP METER CONNECT™ SMART GRID PROJECT
SUNNYVALE, CA. -- December 15, 2010 - Tropos Networks, the leader in high reliability outdoor wireless IP networks, today announced that Silicon Valley Power (SVP) has selected Tropos’ GridCom™ as the distribution area communications network for its smart grid program, SVP Meter Connect. SVP is the City of Santa Clara’s municipal electric utility, which serves over 50,000 customers.
The SVP Meter Connect program includes the Tropos’ private wireless communications network, automated metering infrastructure (AMI) systems, and integration services. The utility eventually plans to use the Tropos network to support additional smart grid applications, including distribution automation and mobile workers. In the future, the City plans to use the same network to provide mobile access for municipal field workers (public safety, building and fire inspectors, parks and recreation, and more), reducing operational costs versus cellular cards, and delivering greater bandwidth.
A key goal of the SVP Meter Connect project is to further increase reliability of the utility’s distribution system; it’s estimated a power blackout can cost financial and IT-based Silicon Valley firms a million dollars per minute. SVP recently achieved the highest rating among power utilities in the nation for business customer satisfaction and value, scoring well above industry standards in reliability.
The project is expected to significantly reduce the time to detect and pinpoint outages in the distribution area, dramatically reducing response time for utility repair crews. Today, SVP relies on customers to report outages, and pinpointing the location of problems is a manual process. With the new smart grid systems in place, detecting and identifying the location of distribution area problems can take place centrally and within a few minutes of a fault occurring.
The first phase of SVP Meter Connect will begin in the first quarter of 2011 with rollout of the Tropos network and free public Wi-Fi access across the community. Beginning in the second quarter, SVP will install advanced meters for commercial and industry customers; residential advanced meter rollout is slated to begin in 2012.
SVP will utilize Elster's EnergyAxis® Smart Grid solution which will form a network of advanced meters. Tropos’ GridCom™ high performance mesh network will provide communications between Elster’s metering network and substations.
“Over the past five years, we have carefully developed our AMI plans and evaluated communications technologies that would provide efficiencies for both the utility and the City,” said Larry Owens, manager, customer services for Silicon Valley Power. “Other systems and technologies we considered are limited and don’t meet our needs moving forward. Tropos’ wireless network was the only one that could support our distribution automation requirements as well as offered the capacity to support other utility and municipal applications reliably and securely. The Tropos network gives us the ability to build broadband bridge to the future for our city.”
“We’re very pleased to have been chosen by Silicon Valley Power as they embark on the first phase of building their smart grid vision,” said Tom Ayers, president and CEO of Tropos Networks. “We look forward to being a part of the utility’s smart grid initiatives and in helping the City increase efficiencies and services for the community.”
About Silicon Valley Power
Silicon Valley Power is the trademark adopted for use by the not-for-profit electric municipal utility of Santa Clara, CA, serving residents and businesses for over 100 years. SVP provides power to more than 50,000 customers, including Applied Materials, Intel, National Semiconductor and Yahoo! at rates 25 to 45 percent below neighboring communities.
About Tropos
Tropos® Networks is the worldwide market leader in IP broadband mesh network systems. Its solutions create greener, safer, smarter communications foundations for deployment of high-value applications that increase efficiencies and reduce operational costs within communities. Greener – smart grids and intelligent transportation systems. Safer – mobile public safety communications and IP video surveillance. Smarter – enabling mobile workers to access information from the field. Tropos, a proud supporter of American Forests’s Global Releaf effort, is planting a tree for each router sold to help build a greener future for our planet. Tropos delivers the highest levels of reliability, scalability, performance, security, and control in the industry with more than 750 customers in over 30 countries. Founded in 2000, Tropos Networks headquarters are in Sunnyvale, California.
For networking the smart grid, check out: www.tropos.com. |
