Iberdrola has completed the installation of 600,000 smart meters in Maine (US) and has begun mass scale rollout of smart grids in nine Spanish regions, through its STAR project for grid automation and remote management. A similar project is being developed in Scotland.
Through its Central Maine Power subsidiary, Iberdrola USA has completed its first smart grid project in the United States with the deployment of an advanced metering infrastructure for its 600,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers in the parts of the state of Maine where it operates.
Along these same lines, Iberdrola’s Scottish subsidiary is running smart metering pilot projects in various towns while the conditions for business regulation take shape in the United Kingdom. Iberdrola is also involved in innovative projects such as the “Low Carbon Network Fund” programme to facilitate the integration of renewable generation sources into the British distribution grid.
In Spain, the initiative includes all territories where Iberdrola distributes electricity. It will draw to a close in the year 2018, requiring a total investment of some €2bn to replace 10.3 million traditional meters with smart devices and to adapt some 80,000 transformer stations, which will be equipped with remote management, monitoring and automation capacities.
Iberdrola is embracing new technologies through different projects designed to incorporate modern power grids in the regions where the company operates. This new infrastructure, based on remote control and grid automation, enables the Company to provide clients with new products and services, and entails significantly improved quality of electricity supply. The grid transformation will also contribute to fulfil the energy and environmental targets in its service areas, by promoting energy efficiency, system integration of renewable energy sources and mass-scale rollout of electric vehicles.