# Telecommunication Technologies for Smart Grid Projects with Focus on Smart Metering Applications
## 3 Smart Meter Technological Solutions in Europe and Projects for Their Implementation
### Germany  
In Germany, several pilot projects have been carried out by the utilities, according to which thousands of smart meters have been deployed. Apart from this, every new construction since 2010 is required by law to have a smart meter installed [54]. In the following we list some of these pilot projects and we present the main technological solutions selected for them. For example, the energy supplier E.on launched a pilot project during which 10,000 smart meters have been installed in the region of Bayern and especially in the city of Bad Staffelstein. The technologies of PLC and GPRS have been applied on smart meters. The end client had also an important role, by providing a feedback for the whole project via a questionnaire [55].  
Figure 3: Example of the usage of a smart meter and an in-home display.  
Another pilot project, named \"Mulheim Zahlt\", has been carried out by the energy provider RWE. During this project 100.000 smart meters have been installed in the city of Mulheim involving an investment of more than 30 million euros. The project's completion has been achieved at the end of 2012 and as a result, Mulheim was the first mid-size German city to be close to fully equipped with smart meters. Apart from the smart meter itself, an information/communication module was provided to the customer. The project results showed that there was a slight improvement in energy savings for customers using a smart meter with respect to clients not using one [56].  
One of the developments made by the energy provider EnBW has been a smart meter with an integrated module that allowed all smart meters within a building to be connected, thus leading to successful in-home/building communication. Transmission of data to the energy provider could be achieved via the power line technology. The end-client has the possibility to obtain information about energy consumption even through his/her own computer thanks to an adapter, when connected to the Internet. These first smart meters have been installed in the region of Baden-Wurttemberg [57].  
EnBW has a subsidiary, YelloStrom, having as business scope the distribution of energy and energy-related services to residential and commercial customers. A solution developed by YelloStrom is based on using the customer's broadband connection to transfer the smart meter data back to the energy provider. Through the project \"Yello sparzahler online\", smart meters have been implemented with the scope of creating an energy system that would allow the customers to measure and control the power consumption of their electrical appliances [58]. The smart meter communicates through the power line with the router, which in turn sends the data to the energy supplier through Internet [59].  
Finally, the energy provider Vattenfall has initiated its activities in Sweden and afterwards expanded in several countries, like Germany, Finland, Denmark, The Netherlands and the UK. In Germany it has carried out a pilot project in 2010 in which around 10,000 smart meters have been installed in Berlin, mainly in the district of Reinickendorf [60]. The company has also successfully tested G3-PLC modems manufactured by Devolo, a company providing PLC hardware solutions [61].