South Carolina-based not-for-profit electric cooperative Berkeley Electric has selected Landis+Gyr’s Gridstream Connect for its smart grid deployment.

Swiss company Landis+Gyr and Berkeley Electric Cooperative have signed a contract for a smart grid technology deployment to connect advanced metering, load management and street light automation on a single network.

Berkeley Electric, the largest cooperative utility in South Carolina, is deploying the Gridstream Connect IoT platform for grid management. It features a multi-purpose RF mesh network which enables communication with meters, intelligent sensors and switches. The smart grid project also includes 110,000 meters, 55,000 street light controllers and 33,000 load control devices for improved reliability, efficiency and customer service.

“We recognised the need to connect to more devices and access more data to manage the rapidly changing power requirements of our members,” said Dawn Pascoe, advanced metering infrastructure leader at Berkeley Electric “While our cooperative’s top priority remains delivering reliable power, we are also expanding other services and ensuring we provide support for distributed energy resources and electric vehicle integration.”

Gridstream Connect supports a wide range of intelligent devices for grid management and the ability to run software apps on those devices for a variety of purposes. The street light controllers and load management devices both feature metrology functions and can run programmes that expand their capabilities to multiple functions.

“This is a ground-breaking project that demonstrates the many ways smart grid technology can impact utility operations and customer service,” said Jim Richardson, senior director of sales at Landis+Gyr. “We’re excited to be working with a forward-looking cooperative like Berkeley Electric to help set a foundation for grid modernisation programmes in the future.”

Berkeley Electric Cooperative serves more than 100,000 member accounts in Berkeley, Charleston and Dorchester counties.

Landis+Gyr provides integrated energy management for the utility sector with a portfolio covering smart metering, grid edge intelligence and smart infrastructure. With sales of $1.4bn in 2020, it employs around 5000 people in more than 30 countries across five continents.