Technology Trending: substations, broadband, battery IDs and smart homes
Dubai substations, broadband in Germany, a proposed battery identification standard and the forthcoming Matter standard are under the technology radar in this week’s Technology Trending.
Dubai substation bonanza
Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) reports commissioning no less than 11 new substations during the first half of the year – a 400/132kV substation and ten 132/11kV substations – along with 100km of 400kV overhead lines and 132kV underground cables connecting them to the network at a cost of over AED1.7 billion or almost US$0.5 billion.
This forms part of an AED10 billion investment in transmission in the period 2021 to 2024 from the tech driven utility, whose motto is “Your happiness is our priority”, and is reported as part of efforts to provide an advanced infrastructure that keeps pace with the increasing demand for energy in Dubai.
The substations are said by Hussain Lootah, Executive Vice President of Transmission Power at DEWA, to use the latest digital technologies, reflecting DEWA’s efforts to promote digital transformation in all its operations and services.
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Broadband for Germany
German energy company E.ON is forming a joint venture with investor Igneo Infrastructure Partners to supply more than 1.5 million households and businesses across the country with high speed fibre broadband.
The jv, yet to be named and subject to customary approvals, will emerge from a 50% acquisition by Igneo of E.ON subsidiary Westenergie Breitband GmbH, in turn a subsidiary of Westenergie AG, Germany’s largest regional energy service and infrastructure provider supplying more than 6.6 million people with electricity, gas, water and broadband Internet.
“Strong partnerships are particularly important for the digitisation of our country,” said Thomas König, member of the E.ON SE Board of Management responsible for networks – indeed for any country intent on being at the leading edge of technology.
Westenergie is no stranger to novel business opportunities and earlier in the year launched a ‘last mile’ e-car sharing in the town of Borgholzhausen. The scheme aimed at commuters without access to a bus service, enables them to reserve a vehicle as part of their ticket to get to their destination.
Battery identification number
The Mobility Open Blockchain Initiative (MOBI) consortium has released a proposed framework for defining a global identity for electric vehicle and other battery packs.
The renewable battery identification number standard, which takes its lead from the ISO vehicle identity number standard, is composed of a manufacturer identifier and descriptor and information sections, each of which denotes a battery’s specific characteristics, integrated with a unique and traceable identity.
The aim is to enable multiparty track-and-trace, supply chain security and authentication and facilitate battery swapping, battery passports and lifecycle traceability among other anticipated benefits.
Connectivity Standards Alliance at 20
The Connectivity Standards Alliance – formerly Zigbee Alliance – has completed 20 years, growing from an initial 15 members to over 500 spanning 40 countries across the world and over 4,000 Zigbee-certified products.
Zigbee was developed as a low power, long range wireless communication standard, finding wide application for example in smart metering and sensor networking in the energy sector among others including home and building automation, healthcare and industry.
“The Connectivity Standards Alliance is an innovation hub for the future of the IoT,” proclaims Tobin Richardson, CEO and President.
The latest standard evolution, Matter, due to launch later in the year, is for device connectivity in smart homes. Whether it will kickstart the widespread take off of smart homes remains to be seen but with the solid industry support behind it including major smart home product developers, it has every intent to overcome the limitations of earlier standards.
