IoT service layer capitalises on smart meter revamp in US

Aetheros, which specialises in machine-type computing and communications, has entered the US market with its IoT service layer solution to drive smart meter deployments with distributed intelligence.

According to the company, their Aether Operating System (AOS) provides an oneM2M-compliant IoT Service Layer.

The California-based company’s solutions have been commercially deployed across Australia and New Zealand. They are now bringing the AOS to the US to meet the demand for smart meter-enabled distributed intelligence at the grid edge.

As demand for renewable energy, battery storage and electric vehicles grows, AOS aims to enable an open ecosystem for secure edge applications and smart meters that addresses the changing needs for electricity in the US.

The company’s US deployment aims to align with new smart meter requirements; the country is seeing the replacement of initial deployments of over 100 million smart meters and utility requirements are prompting the need to re-imagine these endpoints.

Aetheros states this need, whereby US utilities need to add analytics and control at the edge of their distribution network, as requiring an IoT service layer.

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“Our smart meter networking software, field proven with over fifteen years of deployment in Australia and New Zealand, has accelerated innovation by enabling distributed edge intelligence in the most advanced utility markets in the world,” stated Ray Bell, founder of Aetheros, former CEO and co-founder of Silver Spring Networks and CEO and founder of Grid Net.

“For years, we’ve enabled our customers to deploy analytics and control at the edge of their distribution network to detect conditions such as floating neutral, high and low voltage, and frequency imbalances, and to implement advanced services like virtual power plants and dynamic volt/var control.”

Bell’s company states how AOS provides the only ‘massive scale’ proven open IoT Service Layer that does not lock in customers.

According to Aetheros, the AOS enables utilities and suppliers:

• A transactive, distributed energy market: Energy providers can build applications that facilitate the buying and selling of energy resources.
• Balanced power based on distributed resources: Grid edge applications can access cumulative and instantaneous smart metering data, enabling local demand response and load management decisions.
• Industrial IoT: Edge devices collect data from industrial equipment to filter, prioritise and process OT data.

Bell commented on the revamp in US deployments, where “the first deployments of smart meters in the US were all about time of use billing and using demand response programs to offset the need to build more generation capacity.

“Today’s requirements are much more complex [and] utilities need to use distributed edge analytics and control to build a more efficient and diverse smart energy ecosystem.”

This marks the second commercial move into the US this year for the Aetheros.

Earlier this year in February, announced at DISTRIBUTECH 2023, the company made available their Open Computing and Communication cards for smart meters in the country.