smartOPTIMO GmbH & Co. KG
Change of GWA provider during the ongoing smart meter rollout
The Customer
smartOPTIMO GmbH & Co KG - smartOPTIMO for short - is a service provider for municipal energy suppliers in the areas of consulting, operational metering business and the provision of IT system platforms such as smart meter gateway administration. The rollout of smart metering systems is a central component of the business. In order to be able to offer its customers a future-proof overall solution, the municipal utility network opted for Robotron as its new software service provider for the smart meter gateway administration system at the beginning of 2023. And has thus set itself an ambitious goal.
The Challenge
The rollout of intelligent metering systems, known as smart meters, is a legal requirement of the German government as the basis for the digitalisation of the energy transition and the achievement of climate targets. At the time the project was launched, there was very little experience in the industry and no standardised processes for changing the GWA system during operation. The enormous complexity of the migration project emerged primarily due to the number of companies involved and the parallelism.
60 GWA customers had to be connected to the new platform with their backend systems in parallel. Many of the municipal utilities had already rolled out SMGWs, which meant that the transmission of measured values had to be ensured on a permanent basis.
An additional major hurdle was the enormous time pressure due to existing contracts that had already been cancelled and the ongoing smart meter rollout at the participating municipal utilities. "We always had in mind that thousands of SMGWs that were already in live operation at end customers would become electronic waste if we weren't ready by the deadline," recalls Edgar Herrscher, Project Manager at smartOPTIMO.
The Solution
In the search for a software provider for the active external market participant service, Robotron also impressed with its IT system. The combination of Robotron's GWA and aEMP systems offers smartOPTIMO a comprehensive solution from a single source. This creates a close link between the two services and significantly reduces the complexity of the interfaces.
All smart meter gateways were to be migrated from the existing system to the new GWA system within the specified project schedule. In the first step, the SMGWs that were still in the procurement process or already in the warehouse had to be put into operation in the old system. In a second step, all existing devices were transferred to the new GWA system.
The project was also a real power act for Robotron. The particular challenge was to realise the migration at the individual municipal utilities as unnoticed and trouble-free as possible. The compatibility of the migrated metering systems with the ERP systems of the municipal utilities without adapting the master and profile data in the ERP proved to be very complex. Due to the large number of municipal utilities, there was also a large number of different ERP systems from which the iMSys operating processes are controlled or triggered.
The Benefit
The challenging project was a success, above all thanks to the great trust placed in it by the customer and the intensive dialogue throughout. "Not everything always worked out the way we had planned. As always, the devil was in the detail," recalls Edgar Herrscher. "We often had to find new solutions, and in the end that was only possible with the close cooperation of everyone involved."
The successful migration to the Robotron system is a milestone in the further development of our services," Markus Strenge, Head of IT & Metering at smartOPTIMO, is certain. In addition, the exemplary nature of the project is becoming increasingly clear following the timely and successful implementation.
"We receive many enquiries from energy suppliers outside the SmartOPTIMO network about our experience, milestones and implementation periods for the GWA migration project. This shows that genuine expertise from service providers in both the hardware and software sectors is more in demand on the market than ever before."
Markus Strenge, Head of IT & Metering, smartOPTIMO
aEMP: active external market participants I ERP: Enterprise Resource Planning I GWA: Gateway Administration I iMSys: intelligent metering systems I SMGW: Smart Meter Gateway