Cable&Wireless Worldwide and CURRENT Group Partner to Deliver Smart Metering and Smart Grid Solutions for the UK

LONDON and GERMANTOWN, Maryland, December 13, 2010 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Cable&Wireless Worldwide and CURRENT Group are partnering to develop integrated smart grid and smart metering solutions to help utility companies achieve the goals of the UK Government's Low Carbon Economy and National Smart Metering programme.

C&W Worldwide's unique, secure next-generation network and ability to address complex communications requirements will be combined with CURRENT's industry leading smart grid sensors, smart meter data collectors and analytic software. The result will be an end-to-end, standards-based, interoperable smart grid solution that will improve the efficiency and reliability of the UK electric grid while reducing the environmental impact of electric usage.

The solution will take advantage of the open and interoperable "PRIME" metering standard that uses existing electrical wires to communicate with smart meters via power line carrier communication technology. PRIME, which is being adopted by a number of European utilities, enables utility companies to save on the cost of communicating to individual meters and provides them with additional smart grid capabilities that are not available with wireless meter technologies.

Amy Cooke, Strategic Business Development Director at C&W Worldwide comments: "There will be many ways of connecting smart meters to the grid - each with separate technology and cost profiles, suitable for different population densities, and various geographies that will ultimately enable better management and control over the UK's electricity. By working with CURRENT we will be able to add power line carrier capability to our solution, offering a robust answer for smart metering communications particularly in high density urban environments where there is a proliferation of flats or where smart meters are hard to reach with wireless technologies."

Cooke continues, "The electricity infrastructure we use today was not designed for the mixture of low-carbon solutions that are emerging such as increased grid efficiency, the use of renewable energy sources, electric heat and electric vehicles. In order to manage all these and operate as a single integrated system, the smart grid will need secure two-way communication and sensing solutions that facilitates real-time grid information developed through collaborations like this."

CURRENT Group Chief Executive Officer Tom Casey comments: "A smart grid provides one of the lowest cost and most effective solutions to low carbon requirements available today. We have combined PRIME metering and our grid sensing solution with secure communications from C&W Worldwide into one low cost solution. This will allow the UK to leverage its metering investment to build a smart grid and thus achieve its carbon goals faster and at a lower cost. In addition, PRIME metering will provide a low cost metering solution to households in the UK who may otherwise not get access to a smart meter."

About CURRENT

CURRENT provides utilities intelligent sensors and analytic software to improve the efficiency and reliability of the electrical grid. CURRENT's Smart Grid solutions have been proven to reduce unplanned utility outage by 90% and reduce overall load requirements by up to 7% thus reducing cost and carbon emissions. CURRENT jointly developed the PRIME metering standard along with a number of the largest European utilities and vendors. CURRENT's technology is used in some of the highest profile U.S. and European Smart Grid projects and has been selected by 4 of the world's 10 largest utilities as ranked by Platts. CURRENT, a private company, has been recognized by several awards including from the World Economic Forum, Dow Jones and AlwaysOn among others.

CURRENT is headquartered outside of Washington, DC, with activities throughout the United States, Continental Europe, the United Kingdom and Australia. For more information, visit http://www.currentgroup.com. For more information on the PRIME Metering Standard, visit http://www.prime-alliance.org.

About Cable&Wireless Worldwide

Cable&Wireless Worldwide (LSE: CW.) is one of the world's leading mission critical communications providers, delivering a range of high-quality managed voice, data and IP-based services and applications to large multinational companies, governments, carrier customers and resellers across the UK, Asia Pacific, India, Middle East & Africa, Continental Europe and North America.

Reaching 20,500km in length, Cable&Wireless Worldwide owns the UK's largest fibre network dedicated to business users of telecoms, and provides ubiquitous nationwide access through a combination of fibre, digital, microwave, radio and leased circuits. The network has presence in over 400 towns and cities in the UK, with 802 unbundled exchanges covering 55% of the population.

Internationally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide's global next-generation network (NGN) stretches to more than 500,000km, including interests in 69 global cable systems, and provides connectivity to 153 countries. The Group's IP-based Multi-Service Platform, operates across the NGN, offering a single environment on which voice and data applications can be converged to drive business efficiencies. Cable&Wireless Worldwide's network is uniquely designed with inbuilt resilience and the capability to re-route traffic in the event of failure of one or more paths, particularly at the international level.

With more than 6,200 colleagues globally, Cable&Wireless Worldwide is committed to delivering exceptional customer service and developing long term partnerships with its customers.

    To find out more, please visit http://www.cw.com.

    Contacts:

    Hotwire
    Claire Lorimer / Rebecca Honeyman
    [email protected]
    +44(0)20-7608-4667

SOURCE Cable&Wireless Worldwide

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