Paris-based Schneider Electric (News - Alert), a global specialist in energy management, announced today that its relationship with Vattenfall Eldistribution of Stockholm, Sweden has been expanded to include responsibility for 85 percent of the electricity distributor’s smart meter system.

Vattenfall Eldistribution AB provides electricity to approximately 850,000 private and corporate domestic customers.  The new contract will be effective through March 31, 2017, and gives Schneider Electric continued oversight of the management of an automated metering infrastructure (AMI) platform, which comprises a cumulative 615,000 smart meters—including 150,000 meters just added in January 2013.

 The unified Schneider Electric Titanium Smart Metering Platform provides Vattenfall with the opportunity to build its meter system with an open-architecture, highly-integrated product. By unifying its smart meters into a single system, Vattenfall expects to enhance service and reduce costs.

The Titanium platform offers hourly readings of energy consumption and auto-recovery of missing values; as well as quality validation of collected meter values; and detection of power outages, for faster response and recovery.

Additionally, Titanium can deliver electric power consumption information to an in-home display, Smartphone, or tablet PC, either through a home gateway or directly from the meter. Titanium uses communication technology such as Zigbee, meeting international standards, to connect the meter and home appliances—facilitating full communication with the end-customer’s out-of-box devices of choice.

The ability to establish reliable home area network communication yields even further value from investment in smart meters; it helps the utility to educate customers about their energy use and control their energy.

 Schneider Electric has successfully partnered with Vattenfall since 2005, implementing and operating its network of smart meters.

According to Ignacio Gonzalez, executive vice president, Smart Infrastructure Division, “We are pleased to continue our successful relationship with Vattenfall and to provide smart grid technology that enables the utility to operate more efficiently. The expanded partnership reaffirms Schneider Electric’s regional and global leadership in the smart grid industry.”

Vattenfall Eldistribution AB is one of the largest electricity distributors in Sweden, and is a part of the business unit Vattenfall BU Distribution, which operates in Sweden and Germany.