Metering Latin America gathers industry in Aug as Brazil prepares for massive smart meter roll-out

June 19, 2012 - PRLog -- Metering Latin America will gather more than 1500 smart meter and smart grid experts in São Paulo in August as Brazil prepares to upgrade 65-million meters to the tune of 36-billion dollars in smart meter and smart grid technology.  Says Metering Latin America’s Conference Content Director Adriano Rehder:  “the good news is that the Brazilian Federal Regulator will announce the smart meter regulation in July this year, which until now was a bottleneck to the expected strong investment wave in the Brazilian smart meter market.  Our event will contribute to the Brazilian Smart Meter/Grid Regulation-Standards debate with international specialists giving presentations about the best regulations worldwide that contribute to a consistent smart grid market.”

Metering Latin America’s programme will also shed more light on the recent work of the Industry Ministry in mapping out the smart grid value chain to issue a national industry policy towards fostering the smart grid market and its foreign trade potential.   Last April, President Dilma Rousseff issued the “Plano Brasil Maior’’ (Greater Brazil Plan) to highlight some strategic industry sectors and the smart grid industry was included in this plan.

Fraud incentive to invest in smart meters
According to Adriano Rehder, while the 63 energy utilities in Brazil differ quite significantly from each other due to their size and location, a strong common driver for investment in smart meter technologies across the industry remains fraud prevention.  “Some utilities have about 20% of commercial losses”, says Adriano,” and any effective tamper resistant meter implementation delivers short-term returns.  Another important point is that the new tariffs revision (mandated by the federal regulator) is being issued and is particularly strict regarding energy reliability.  Utilities will therefore have a stronger motive to invest in technology to reduce shortages.”

Bigger and better
This year sees Metering Latin America celebrate its tenth year and moving into a bigger and better venue, the Transamérica Expo Center.  “We continue to be part of the conversation in the utilities industry by gathering representatives in the complete value chain in the metering and smart grid industries” says Adriano Rehder.  He continues:  “this past year we saw many multinational companies make consistent moves inside this market, either acquiring national companies or launching products in the smart grid market.”

Once again the conference and exhibition will have a strong international flavor with utility experts and companies from more than 30 countries represented.  The exhibition, which will be free to attend, will be even bigger with more than 80 exhibitors, including electric vehicles and motorcycles that are part of the most important smart cities projects in Brazil.  Rehder explains:  “the utility EDP is leading an important Smart City Project in Aparecida, in the state of São Paulo. One aspect of this project is to test insertion of e-mobility in the city. EDP will showcase some of its electric motorcycles and charging stations at Metering Latin America and they will raffle an electric motorcycle to a lucky participant.”

Speaker highlights at Metering Latin America include:
•  Edison Lobão, State Minister, Ministry of Mines and Energy *
•  Arnaldo Jardim, Federal Deputy and Member, of the Mines and Energy, Committee Chamber of Deputies
•  Cesar Halum, Federal Deputy and President of the Parliamentary Front on Defense of Electricity Consumers, Chamber of Deputies
•  André Pepitone da Nóbrega, Director, ANEEL (National Electricity Regulatory Agency)
•  Nelson Leite, President, ABRADEE  (Assoc. of Brazilian Electricity Distributors)
•  Teus de Zwart, IEC SG3 Dutch member and chairman of the ESNA Working group on Smart Grid Standards
•  Miguel Setas, Distribution VP of EDP Group
•  Paulo Bombassaro, Engineering Director, CPFL
•  Denys Claudio de Souza, Distribution Engineering Superintendent, CEMIG
•  José Geraldo Pereira, Energy Recovery Superintendent, Light
•  Albert Cheung, Smart Energy Technology leader, Bloomberg New Energy Finance
•  Geraldo Guimarães, VP, Elster Integrated Solutions

*Invited

Event dates and location:
21-23 August 2012
Transamérica Expo Center, São Paulo, Brazil

Event website:
www.meteringlatinamerica.com.br