Cyan, the integrated system and software design company delivering mesh based flexible wireless solutions for utility metering and lighting control, announces that a bidding consortium of 5 companies including Cyan, has deployed a proof of concept pilot of 60 meters to demonstrate Cyan’s CyLec Advanced Metering Infrastructure (“AMI”) technology with the Indian state-owned utility, Uttar Gujarat Vij Company Ltd (UGVCL).
The pilot, in Naroda and Deesa, is part of a competitive tender process that began in late 2013 with four other bidding consortia, consisting of technology providers, system integrators and meter manufacturers supplying their AMI solutions for evaluation by the utility. The consortium which includes Cyan technology is believed to be the only one to have demonstrated an interoperable, sub-GHz smart metering solution. If Cyan’s consortium is successful, it would represent a major endorsement of the Company’s hardware and software and is expected to clearly illustrate the CyLec compelling value proposition for other electricity utilities across the region.
The UGVCL pilot is one of 14 smart grid pilots under the Smart Grid Task Force (“SGTF”) in India being run by the Ministry of Power. Whilst no guarantee can be given at this time that the consortium will be successful in converting this pilot into a commercial order, or that UGVCL will roll out AMI on completing its evaluations of the various solutions currently in pilot phase, Cyan is pleased that its technology has already proven its interoperability across meters supplied by two different manufacturers.
In a separate smart metering initiative at the same utility, Cyan was formally invited by UGVCL in April 2014 to install a further 100 meter 865MHz smart metering proof of concept. The pilot letter specification required that the meters be capable of self-forming/self-healing mesh networking and of being read at a range of at least 100 meters. This pilot has also now been deployed by Cyan, with UGVCL expected to evaluate the results over the next few months.
John Cronin, executive chairman at Cyan, commented: “We are pleased that this consortium was selected to participate in one of the 14 pilots under the Ministry of Power smart grid initiative. Whilst UGVCL has not yet committed to rolling out its smart grid pilot projects, Cyan’s technology has already proved its interoperability between two meter manufacturers, which was a key criteria of the tender.
“We are therefore delighted to be participating in these two pilots and working directly with one of India’s state utilities. Furthermore, we believe these pilots have a better probability of progressing to commercial orders than other Indian state owned utilities we have worked with in the past, should our AMI solution beat the competition under evaluation by this utility. We look forward to building on this relationship.
“The State of Gujarat is viewed as being progressive in terms of adoption of new technology to meet the needs of its population. With 200 million legacy meters currently deployed, it is estimated that India will install 130 million smart meters by 2021 and we look forward to taking a significant role in this technological evolution.”
