Qualcomm is working with Italian company Gridspertise to explore opportunities on electricity distribution assets monitoring and grid digitalisation for utilities.

Enel subsidiary Gridspertise hope the collaboration will see the digital transformation of electric utilities and make the grid more reliable, flexible, resilient and easier to maintain.

The collaboration sees Qualcomm as a technological partner for developing smart grid services, beyond the Quantum Edge (QEd) device for digital substations.

A few months after Gridspertise launched QEd, which leverages Qualcomm IoT technology, the two companies have announced this further collaboration to accelerate the digital transformation of the power grids, targeting especially the needs of US electric utilities.

Qualcomm and Gridspertise have come together to explore opportunities for the joint development of technology to help electric utilities manage the increasing complexity of the grid. The collaboration provides a framework that could lead to the creation of technology for energy asset monitoring and applications for grid management based on the QEd device. The aim is to foster technological innovation, improve quality of service and health and safety compliance, and enable the transition to a low-carbon economy through reliable electrification.

The collaboration intends to help electric utilities address prominent challenges experienced across the industry, which include accelerated decarbonisation, electrification and climate change. Using its technology roadmap and expertise across IoT with the growing number of devices at the connected intelligent edge, Qualcomm will bring its skills in developing innovations for 5G, edge computing, security and cloud-based services, to build industrial-grade technology for utilities.

Gridspertise will leverage the many years of operational know-how from Enel, bringing expertise in electronic design and development, industrialisation, and first-hand experience of running grids in various countries. Moreover, the company will provide data analytics models for grid operations, predictive maintenance, design of software in platform, early alerting services based on AI algorithms, and an environment for grid and data access on large scale field-testing.

The smart grid services that could be created through this collaboration will be commercialised globally by Gridspertise to utilities and energy service providers looking for scalable products that can be easily deployed with efficient return on investment.

Reaping the benefits of digital power grids gives the opportunity to monitor grid assets remotely, with an enhanced visibility and availability of real-time data to perform asset management and maintenance. With this transformative evolution, electric utilities are empowered to take action faster and more strategically than before, reducing equipment failures, avoiding unplanned outages and more. Ultimately, a smart connected grid can deliver higher resiliency and quality of service while improving efficiency for the operator and making accessibility to clean energy a reality.

“Strategic collaborations, such as the one with Qualcomm, enable us to promote a leap forward in network infrastructure digitalisation for utilities all around the world, combining the most advanced technologies designed by Gridspertise with those developed by its ecosystem of partners,” said Robert Denda, CEO of Gridspertise.

Jeffery Torrance, senior vice president at Qualcomm, added: “Qualcomm is excited to collaborate with Gridspertise to unleash the next generation of utilities. As Qualcomm diversifies with new opportunities powering the connected intelligent edge, Gridspertise represents the type of strategic partners we will collaborate with across IoT to continue to build a transformative ecosystem that addresses non-linear changes now and in the future.”

And Enrico Salvatori, senior vice president for Qualcomm in Europe, said: “We are delighted to be supporting Gridspertise, headquartered in Europe. Emea is an epicentre for innovation and we are proud to support the digitisation of industry, including utilities.”