In Europe, Spain’s largest utility Iberdrola claims that it has improved its service quality for customers in the Castilla-La Mancha area by 18% due to investment in smart grid technology.
The utility, one of the largest in Europe, told local Spanish media that it has reduced power outages from 45 minutes between January to July 2014 to 37 minutes in 2015 over the same seven-month period.
Iberdrola attributes the improvement to spending €30 million on its distribution network infrastructure in the Castilla-La Mancha in central Spain.
The utility has built and upgraded its substations, power lines and transformer stations as part of the STAR project (System Remote Management and Automation Network), which it is carrying out in all regions where it operates.
The company has installed more than 340,000 smart meters, almost half of all meters in Castilla-La Mancha for customers using up to 15 kilowatts.
By 2018, all 700,000 end points in the region will be smart meters at a cost of €90 million.
Iberdrola’s smart meter rollout
The rollout comes as part of a nationwide smart meter scheme.
At the end of 2014, Iberdrola had deployed 4.2 million smart electricity meters across ten areas of Spain as part of STAR.
The total STAR project requires the replacement of 10.3 million analogue meters with smart devices using PRIME standards.
In August 2015, Iberdrola was named most sustainable Spanish utility and the third-most sustainable utility in the world this week by magazine Newsweek, citing the use of smart meters to help cut carbon emissions.
The awards committee of Newsweek’s Green Rankings 2014 ranked Iberdrola as one of the top three Spanish companies with the most respect for sustainable development and also commended the company for its efforts to reduce emissions, increase energy efficiency, and improve reporting on environmental progress.
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