NOS pilots NB-IoT for smart metering in Portugal

Telecommunications operator NOS and utility company EDP Distribuição (EDPD) are piloting NB-IoT to support smart energy grid applications in Portugal. In conjunction with Huawei, Janz CE and u-blox, NOS and EDPD are using NB-IoT to connect 100 smart meters to two base stations in the Parque das Nações district of Lisbon.  The smart meters, some of which are positioned deep inside buildings, were designed and manufactured by Janz CE and Huawei using u-blox SARA-N2 NB-IoT modules.

The pilot aims to demonstrate that NB-IoT can meet the performance requirements of EDPD in a real environment. NOS chose NB-IoT to support smart metering because the technology offers deep indoor coverage, low module costs and can connect large numbers of devices in a single cell. NOS regards NB-IoT as a good fit for smart metering in terms of value for money.

The pilot, which began in November 2016 and will run until the end of 2017, forms part of the EU-funded Horizon 2020 UPGRID project.

Key learnings

NOS and EDPD are monitoring the success rate of both scheduled and ad-hoc meter readings, together with the executions of smart grid commands, especially in deep indoor settings.

Next steps

In 2017, NOS will continue to pilot NB-IoT to support smart grids, and ensure it collects all the data that EDPD needs to confirm the technology is well suited to this specific use case. At the same time, NOS plans to prove the technology in other use cases that have the potential to scale relatively quickly.

For 2017, NOS’ goal is to demonstrate that this new low power wide area technology can efficiently solves its customers’ problems.  As NB-IoT is straightforward to deploy, NOS can roll out the technology as and when its business customers need it.