AMI AND SMART METERING REMOTE METER READING – THE “HERA – MODENA” PROJECT Briefly put: Enabling a remote reading metering project across multiple utilities will allow consumers in Modena to manage water, gas, electricity and district heating through a single interface. The Italian Authority for Electricity and Gas (AEEG) has issued a call for the implementation of pilot projects for the remote reading of meters in multi-business households. The HERA 1 project has been selected among those eligible for funding for a project of this type, which will be built in the city of Modena, covering approximately 13 300 users. For these customers, the service will be provided for the remote reading of natural gas, water, electricity, and district heating. The project will address, in addition to the installation of smart meters end-users, the implementation of a 1 HERA S.p.A. is one of Italy’s largest local utilities and operates mainly in Environmental services (waste collection and treatment), Energy services (distribution and sale of electricity and gas) and Water services (waterworks, sewerage and purification). The Group has over 8,500 employees, all committed every day to meeting the different needs of more than 3.5 million citizens. More information on: http://eng.gruppohera.it/group/ METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE – 6 | 2014 logical Smart City in relation to some of the services managed by HERA. Background to the project AEEG requires that 60% of all residential gas meters (G4 and G6) be replaced by 2018. Additionally, the authority is interested in assessing the constraints and methods of sharing communication infrastructure for different types of services that are regulated or part of public utilities. The goals of the project include: • the overall verification of technical and technological feasibility of sharing communication infrastructures for smart gas metering with other services (multi-service logic) including areas outside AEEG’s scope; • testing the interaction between regulated and other liberalised services, even if consumption readings are not included in remote management – as in the case of street lighting and traffic light control; and • assessing the economic efficiency of the various solutions. Project definition In particular, the project includes the construction of: • a Smart Water Grid, consisting of a system of smart meters and a software platform that allows for real time measurement of water consumption and the use of a specific portion of the network enclosed within a perimeter of analysis (districts); • a Smart Heating Grid, through the installation of smart meters in a distribution substation’s district heating system and from end-users (each substation is headed by the distribution of the service to multiple end-users that can be individual units or whole apartment buildings), combined with the heat meter installed in the power plant; • a Smart Waste Grid, through the installation of smart meters in the 17