60
CITY LIFE MAGAZINE N.34
And the Italian utilities, who will be at the cen- consequent differences. The problems that an elec-
ter of these changes, how are they moving? tric utility must face on an island are different from
In Italy, utilities are very attentive to the future and to those of a reality that operates in flat areas or in the
the evolution of the business model, to technological mountains. It goes without saying that the utilities of
innovation, to the possibility of introducing changes, big size are more open and projected to the innova-
similarly to what happened in the aforementioned tion of the medium-small ones, also in strength of
countries. the campaigns of acquisition and bundling in place
The most obvious difference does not concern the in these years which led to the formation of increa-
individual realities, but the Italian system, which is singly larger subjects, with MAG- Investment possi-
decidedly more firm, frozen or plastered – if you bilities.
prefer – within a general regulatory framework that
in some respects is decidedly rigid. This is ne- In this sense, what does Landis+Gyr offer for
gatively affected by the possibility of testing new the Italian context?
technologies or embarking on alternative business Landis was born as a meter manufacturer over 120
models. years ago. A company with such a long history
behind can only have known and addressed seve-
In Italy, not only every transformation, but also ral evolution phases. Today we certainly are solution
every hypothesis of change finds a difficult providers, that is a company that after having me-
path, long and made of different kinds of resi- chanically built networks and realized software-to
stance; a theme that we know well of the ANIE make the most of its specific products-has deve-
Smart Metering Group, of which I am the coor- lopped skills and services able to combine the two
dinator. An example? aspects, providing complete solutions. Among our
If you want to build a radio transmission network of clients there are therefore utilities, to which we give
169 MHz on which to transmit the data collected by assistance in every field of metrology, from the gene-
the meters, it is necessary to place concentrators ration of the Metrological datum, to the maintenan-
that spread the signal; however, if the installation of ce of the infrastructures, up to those we call MDM,
these devices requires long bureaucratic procedu- acronym of Metering Data Management, that is of
res whose response times are not only dilated but platform me for the management of metrological
also unpredictable it is clear that it becomes diffi- data and related infrastructures.
cult and expensive to test, try to experiment with
new ways.
And what about technology?
From our part there are the technologies, the exper-
Is the reduction of the number of managers tise and the experience. Our PLC (Power Line Com-
making the Italian Panorama of public utility munication) solutions are already predisposed and
companies more homogeneous? engineered to function in an IoT logic; They can be
On the one hand yes, especially if you look at the an optimal base on which to engage later services
big utilities. On the other hand, we must not forgot- in smart City optics, using for example the sensors
ten that factors such as the geographic position, the for the development of systems of smart par-king.
climate and the conformation of the territory stron- In this regard, returning to Japan, the second pha-
gly influence the medium-small companies and the se of the project is very much oriented towards the