Bglobal & Neul Achieve UK First in Smart Metering

Bglobal, the UK’s leading provider of smart energy solutions, and Neul, a world leader in ‘white space, have achieved a UK first in smart meter reading, opening the door for significant cost and energy savings for the industry and consumers.

For the very first time, Darwen-based Bglobal has carried out a smart meter reading over a distance of 1km using previously unused ‘white space’ – the spare frequency of television channels that is no longer utilised following the switch over from analogue to digital TV. 

The ground-breaking trial, which was facilitated by Neul – a world leader in ‘white space’, could result in smart meters being fitted in every home across the UK, however remote their location.

Aaron Forshaw, solution architect for Bglobal, commented:

“The use of ‘white space’ to collect meter readings could potentially revolutionise the nationwide roll-out of smart metering, as it breaks down one of the key barriers – that of communicating with meters in rural areas or other areas poorly served by cellular or wired-broadband connections.

 “Whilst Bglobal deploys the most appropriate technology for any given situation, the trial has shown that ‘white space’ can have a highly significant role to play in any smart meter programme. Through this innovative use of emerging technology, Bglobal is once again leading the way in pioneering the new ‘smart energy’ future.”

According to Forshaw, the use of ‘white space’ in smart metering could deliver significant cost and efficiency benefits to the energy market and ultimately energy consumers. Customers who live in remote areas, or otherwise inadequately served by existing communications connections, will be able to receive the benefits of accurate energy consumption data. This will ensure accurate energy bills and allow them to implement additional energy saving techniques.

Paul Egan, VP of business development, said:

“White space delivers a huge amount of much-needed new capacity to meet the current and future needs of the machine-to-machine (M2M) market. However, a new industry standard is needed to drive innovation and growth.

“By using Weightless – a simple protocol that is entirely optimised for M2M applications, such as smart meters – we expect to see ‘white space’ M2M standards and network infrastructure in place by 2013, if not by the end of 2012. This will truly utilise the enormous potential of this technology.”

 For more information, visit www.bglobalmetering.com.

– Ends –

Media contact:

Alex Kappor Elizabeth Mather

Tel: 0161 941 4252

Email: alex@peppermintpr.com or elizabeth@peppermintpr.com

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Notes to editor:

About Bglobal

Bglobal is the UK’s leading provider of smart energy solutions to businesses and end consumers.  From its base in Lancashire, Bglobal provides an end-to-end energy efficiency service including: innovative smart meters to measure energy consumption; energy management consultancy and advice; energy procurement services; and solutions for renewable energy.

Background and technical Information

In December 2009 the UK’s Department of Energy and Climate Change announced its intention to have smart meters in all homes by 2020.  One of the main barriers to this goal has been communication. Each smart meter must be able to communicate effectively with a central location. This can be difficult within environments such as rural areas or properties otherwise inadequately served by cellular or wired-broadband connections.

Smart meters measure and communicate individual properties’ energy usage back to utility companies for billing and monitoring purposes. Smart meters bring a wide array of benefits to consumers including an end to estimated billing and tools for helping people to manage their energy use.

White space radios take advantage of the plentiful vacant parts of the TV spectrum to communicate information. Signals in these frequencies can travel long distances and easily penetrate walls and obstacles. This free-to-air spectrum is considerably more cost-effective than cellular communications, and white space radios also require a fraction of the power. This makes white space radio ideal for smart metering applications.

About Neul

The name Neul is pronounced like ‘fuel’ and is from the Gaelic word for ‘Cloud’.

Neul was formed in Cambridge, UK in 2010 by a group of entrepreneurs with successful track record. The core management team was responsible for building Europe’s most successful fabless semiconductor company, CSR.

Neul aims to unify the fragmented world of Machine-to-Machine (M2M) communications, with the world’s first white space radio system and a new, open M2M communications standard.

Neul is transforming wireless data communications being the first to enable access to large amounts of license exempt UHF spectrum, vastly reduce the costs of base stations and the terminals needed for wide area wireless networks. This will enable our customers to build networks and applications that offer completely new kinds of devices, services and business models.

Neul’s grand vision is to bring about a revolution in the way devices and applications communicate.  From the predicted 50 billion connected Machine-to-Machine (M2M) devices, through smart metering to local broadband delivery, transportation and beyond , Neul is helping to create ‘the internet of everything’. Further details can be viewed at http://www.neul.com