CKW AG - Project Cloud Meter

"With iRIX, we have a reliable partner at our side. The collaboration is characterized by exceptional transparency, open communication and a strong sense of shared responsibility"

Christoph Häne,

Introduction
As part of the federal government's Energy Strategy 2050, a new Electricity Supply Ordinance has been issued. This requires that at least 80% of the grid operators' conventional electricity meters be replaced by intelligent metering systems, so-called smart meters, by 2027.

Challenge
The nationwide introduction of smart meters marked a significant step for CKW because it created a data-based foundation for an optimized energy future.

180,000 customers had to be contacted and their meters replaced[1]. In addition to this Herculean logistical task, however, the resulting flood of metering data also had to be managed. Downstream systems had to be adapted and new ones implemented in order to be able to process the approximately 30 million measured values per day.

At the same time, the data had to be both easily understandable and accessible to the end user and comply with strict data protection guidelines. The fact that each customer only has access to his own data is a basic requirement and must be ensured at all times.

Solution
Today, CKW customers can view their consumer data securely and on a daily basis on the myCKW customer portal[2]. In addition, this data is made available to the public in anonymized and aggregated form as part of the Open Data strategy[3].

To this end, CKW's Data Analytics team has worked closely with iRIX to build a highly scalable analytic platform in the Azure Cloud. At its heart is the Spark Appliance Azure Databricks[4], which validates smart meter data using Structured Streaming, enriches it with master data and makes it available in a data lake and an Azure SQL Database with Hyperscale[5].

In 2019, CKW received the Neos Award in bronze for its customer portal. A nice reward for all involved in this project.