npower smart meters shine a light on energy use

Case Study | May 2014

npower, part of the RWE Group, serves around 6.5m residential and business customers in the UK. RWE is one of Europe’s top five electricity and gas companies.

Business need

The UK government are mandating energy companies to offer smart meters to all 26 million homes across the UK by 2020. For npower, the challenge is to have the capacity to potentially install smart meters in more than one million homes a year, nearly 19,000 each week. These meters must be secure, easy to deploy and super-reliable.

Solution

Providing secure connectivity through a Vodafone Global SIM allows npower to install a smart meter anywhere in Britain. The smart meter can send a monthly or daily reading and 48 half-hourly profile readings where consent is given. All updates, along with a map of the daily usage, can be seen via the customers’ In Home Display.

Benefits

• Solution capable of connecting to all UK homes, with the ability to send and receive data
• Creates a roadmap to deliver a true smart home experience
• Able to ensure a roll-out of 19,000 smart meters each week, for six years
• Provides network testing environment to ensure flawless technical infrastructure

"Vodafone’s network experience has proved invaluable."

Dave Clarke,
Smart Metering Technical Business Architect, RWE npower