Tuesday, September 24, 2013

University of Cyprus and Corinex open BPL Competence Centre for Smart Metering

VANCOUVER, B.C. & NICOSIA, Cyprus - Monday, September 23rd 2013 [ME NewsWire]

(BUSINESS WIRE) The University of Cyprus has opened a BPL Competence Centre (as part of its newly established Research Centre for Sustainable Energy) with the support of industry technology leader Corinex Communications. The Centre is equipped with the latest in Corinex BPL-to-the-meter technology, with facilities for testing and validating BPL communications performance on LV and MV lines and free samples from leading meter vendors.

The Centre now forms part of the University’s School of Engineering, with a dedicated staff of over 20 researchers. The Centre is headed by George E. Georghiou, former Fellow at the University of Cambridge and the Chair of Photovoltaic Technology at the University of Cyprus.

BPL technology is hundreds of times faster than any other narrowband powerline technology used for meter data acquisition, yet at nearly the same nominal costs. This high speed capability makes it easy to deploy and apply full AES 56-bit or 128-bit security. It also offers endless opportunity for further innovation.

“I believe we are seeing the beginning of a major shift in requirements in metering infrastructure from collecting meter data for billing purposes to load management within the meter cluster. As ever growing proportions of our energy are produced by renewable sources, this management has to be dynamic – almost happening in real-time. This can only be achieved using a very high speed communications technology – BPL,” says Professor George E. Georghiou.

“We see utilities expressing interest in automated load management on the LV level. It requires—within minutes—responsive delivery of metered data and supplied energy measurements, including local PV production, to the local Smart Grid concentrator unit. The Corinex concentrator is powerful and fast in communicating with the meters. It is ready to employ sophisticated algorithms to process these data together with data on forecasted weather in order to generate effective responses and issue commands to the meters, such that efficient localized energy load management and/or storage is realized,” says Peter Sobotka, CEO of Corinex.

In this commercial cooperation, parties plan to enrich the Corinex BPL concentrator and SmartGrid solution with new algorithms researched and developed by the University, and then validate them with Corinex customers. The University also plans to introduce a new learning subject specialization: Energy Sustainability and Smart Grids, which include BPL and its applications in the Energy sector.

Corinex Communications Corp. develops and manufactures Smart Metering and Smart Grid Communication infrastructure. Its products, software and solutions cover load and asset management, energy theft and security. Corinex high speed BPL communication is AES-128 bit encrypted and supports multiple meter vendors conforming to ANSI and IEC standards as well as SNMP and/or DLMS/COSEM protocols. It can be used either to backhaul data among concentrators on MV lines and/or provide communication also within metering cluster. Corinex ranked five consecutive years among the Fastest Growing Technology Companies in Canada and USA in Deloitte’s Tech Fast 50/500 Program www.fast50.com, www.fast500.com.

Since its establishment in 1989, the University of Cyprus has consistently pursued excellence, fulfilling its mission to the Cypriot society. Today, the University is recognized as the most important research and higher education institution of Cyprus, and has also, moreover, been honored as a ‘distinguished Mediterranean University’.

Currently, the University comprises six Faculties and 21 Departments offering a wide range of undergraduate, postgraduate and research study programs to 7,000 enrolled students. The University employs over 900 people in its academic and administrative staff.

The Research Centre for Sustainable Energy (RCSE), University of Cyprus, was created in order to play a key role in research and technological development activities in the field of energy within Cyprus and at international level with the aim of contributing to the achievement of the relevant energy and environment objectives set out by Europe. In particular, the RCSE strives to become a centre of excellence in energy that will act as a structure where world-standard R&D work can be performed, in terms of measurable scientific production and/or technological innovation. The RCSE is part of the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Cyprus (UCY).

Contacts
Corinex Communications
Martin Kominek, +421910961176
martin.kominek@corinex.com



University of Cyprus
G. E. Georghiou, +35722892272
geg@ucy.ac.cy







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