Ember-enabled Zigbee smart meters and Zigbee smart energy devices will be used in the largest smart energy initiative in the UK
Smart meters utilizing the Ember technology are becoming more common throughout Europe as the ZigBee wireless technology is deployed in some of the largest smart meter project on the continent. Ember's low-power ZigBee wireless solutions – CMOS wireless system-on-chips (SoCs), networking co-processors (NCP) and ZigBee protocol software – are extensively used in the smart grid and Home Area Networks (HAN) as well as a variety of other sensor networking applications.
British Gas, the largest energy supplier in the UK, just announced the first commercial-scale smart meter deployment in the UK. The project will supply electricity and gas smart meters to a million customers, plus touch screen in-home energy management displays. The smart energy initiative is designed for reducing an overall carbon footprint by using Ember-enabled Zigbee smart meters and Zigbee smart energy devices in homes.
"It's the first step in our commitment to lead the UK into a new realm of energy management as part of which we will roll out two million smart meters to customers by 2012," said Petter Allison, Director Smart Metering, British Gas. "ZigBee as the preferred standard for smart meters and Home Area Networks combined with the over-the-air upgradeability of Ember-enabled low-power networking solutions will ensure we can keep our consumers always up-to-date with the latest capabilities and performance improvements."
"Europe is at the forefront of smart metering, driven largely by the European Union's goal of having 80 percent of households enjoying the benefits of smart energy by 2020," said Bert Lutje Berenbroek, Ember vice president of sales for EMEA. "Ember's ZigBee technology is optimized for large-scale deployments like the ones in the UK and other parts of Europe, giving utilities and consumers new energy efficiency capabilities such as demand response, time-of-use pricing programs, energy monitoring, pay-as-you-use and net metering programs."
