WIMAX TO AUSTRALIA

Motorola, General Electric and Grid Net are part of a group of companies installing smart meters in almost 700,000 households and businesses in Australia by 2013. Officials with the companies say the initiative will be the first smart grid based on the WiMax wireless platform.

The plan (pdf), developed by SP AusNet, one of Australia’s largest publicly-listed energy delivery businesses, calls for the smart meters to be installed by the end of 2013. A communication network also will be set up enabling the smart meters to communicate with SP AusNet’s smart grid.

In the SP AusNet initiative, GE will provide the WiMax 4G-based meter communications technology across the entire network, as well as half of the smart meters that will be installed. Grid Net will bring its PolicyNet network management software suite to help manage the meters, controllers, switches and other devices on the smart grid network, and Motorola is supplying its mobile broadband technology.

Motorola said it had been awarded a four-year project in which it would supply 60 to 80 base stations operating at 2.3GHz as well as an access service network gateway and new microwave systems to extend the wide area network to new coverage areas. Motorola will deploy their WAP 650 base stations as well as Access Service Network Gateways and new microwave systems to extend the WAN to new coverage areas. The company would start shipping products by the end of this year. SP AusNet has done a deal with Unwired to use its 2.3GHz spectrum for the network.

“This is the first time WiMax technology will be used in smart metering for an electrical utility company,” Eric Starnes, vice president of sales and operations for Motorola’s Home and Networks Mobility business in Asia, said in a statement.

Grid Net announced a PolicyNet Reseller program with with GE Energy, which is bundling PolicyNet with its WiMAX SmartMeter and SmartGrid Router product lines (based on hardware product reference designs licensed from Grid Net).

SP AusNet owns and operates an electricity distribution network in eastern and northeastern Victoria, including outer eastern metro and outer northern metro Melbourne. SP AusNet’s electricity distribution network, which is 47,000 kilometres in length and spans an area of 80,000 square kilometres, delivers energy to more than 600,000 people across eastern and northeastern Victoria.

Cisco Systems and IBM have also pursued smart grid projects across the globe. Cisco officials in May announced a smart grid push as keys to developing highly intelligent and manageable electrical distribution systems from the home to the power source. They say smart grids could grow into a $20 billion business within five years.