Metering.com 6 OCTOBER 2016
Mexico’s state utility Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) has selected Honeywell to help CFE continue modernising and stabilizing grids in east and southeast regions.
Under the agreement, Honeywell will deploy more than 200,000 smart electricity meters, with communications devices and software analytics tool to seven cities in the utilities east and southeast regions.
Honeywell has to date, provided more than one million meters to CFE since 1992 in a bid to reduce costs and boost energy efficiency for 35 million customers. The deployment includes the rollout of 700,000 smart meters – for residential and commercial customers as part of multiple network upgrades in all of the utility’s 16 regional divisions in Mexico. [Smart grid Mexico: 30.2 million smart meters by 2025]
According to a release, the work will help the utility reduce costs and enhance service by minimising electricity losses across its transmission network and more quickly identify and respond to power outage.
CFE grid modernisation
Says Rob Tupker, president Honeywell Smart Energy, “These new CFE awards are the latest in our expanding base of successful turn-key projects across Mexico.” [Mexico touted to be the largest emerging smart grid market]
“The Mexican Electrical Utility estimates the country’s electrical grid loses 13.11% percent of the electricity it produces, as stated in the 2015 CFE Annual Report. For more than 10 years we’ve partnered with Honeywell to help CFE modernise its operations and work toward its goal of reducing electrical losses using smart grid technology,” added Bernardo Castro, general manager of Tecnologías EOS, a member of the consortium chosen by CFE to manage its smart grid initiative.
Comisión Federal de Electricidad is the largest utility in the Central America and Caribbean region and is in the process of replacing outdated energy transmission infrastructure and metering equipment with modern technology that enables remote monitoring as well as outage detection. The rollout in CFE’s east region was completed in August and the southeast region is expected to be completed in July 2017.