Brazil's Copel touts 500,000 smart meters milestone

Paraná state utility Copel, one of the largest electric utilities in Brazil, has installed half a million smart meters across their operating areas as part of their smart grid project.

The installation was announced by Copel manager Sérgio Milani, who stated that the completion of the 500.000 meters is part of a wider rollout and estimated that more than 1.6 million smart meters will be available to Copel customers in the coming years.

The rollout is part of the utility's smart grid project, announced in 2020 to deploy smart meters and other technologies to modernise and automate its networks.

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"This is the image of the state of Paraná, with the position of all the radios already installed for the SmartGrid project (Intelligent Electric Network)," stated Milani in a social media post.

"We already have approximately 10,000 radios that make up the backbone network and the AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) network, the challenge is to reach all of our customers’ meters with communication.

"We already have half a million consumers with meters installed in phases 01 and 02 of the project, in the coming years it is estimated that this communication will be available to more than 1.6 million consumers."

Copel's smart grid project aims to install the necessary infrastructure for connectivity across applications. This includes the implementation of network reconfiguration systems, which are self-healing, and the automation of reclosers or voltage regulators.

Copel (Companhia Paranaense de Energia) is one of the largest electricity companies in Brazil, serving over 5 million customers across Paraná state.