Italgas monitors 8 million smart meters with new assurance solution

Network provider Infovista has reported that Italgas has over 8 million connected smart meters under monitoring following deployment of its Ativa automated assurance solution.

Italgas, the main distributor of gas and water in Italy, anticipates the solution to deliver over 90% savings through reduced field visits and improved service level agreement controls, the company has reported.

The Ativa solution is designed to provide real-time visibility and control over an IoT network.

With this Italgas is enabled to quickly identify the root-cause of any issues and monitor the reliability of the three service provider networks connecting its nationwide network of smart meters.

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Italgas also can integrate its own cloud-based business intelligence systems to the Ativa platform. With its multi-tenancy capabilities the platform can also enable expansion to the other international markets in which Italgas operates.

“The challenge of managing a network of over 8 million IoT devices is significant – but even more so when you add the regulatory requirement for every one of these devices to be connected and providing daily meter readings,” comments Diego Vola, Telecommunications Project Manager at Italgas.

“The ability to quickly identify and resolve the root cause of a problem is critical to both the customer experience we deliver and the service level agreements to which we are accountable. The cost savings from deploying Ativa are expected to be over 90%, and we are excited to be working with Infovista to look at extending these operational efficiencies to all our markets.”

In addition to mainland Italy, Italgas is active in Sardinia and also has a presence in Greece’s gas distribution sector.

Italgas’s presence in the water sector also is growing, most recently with the completion of the acquisition of Veolia’s concessions in Italy’s water sector.

With these, Italgas is serving either directly or indirectly some 6.2 million people, or about one tenth of the country’s population under the new business name of ‘Nepta’.

A key focus will be on water loss reduction, targeting below 20% from the current more than 40%.

Infovista’s Ativa solution was deployed and integrated within a period of three months.