Musings from European Utility Week – Wi-SUN arrives in Europe
by Phil Beecher, President, The Wi-SUN Alliance
It’s been a busy couple of weeks but I’ve finally found the time to jot my musings down from European Utility Week (EUW) in Amsterdam. This is Europe’s premier event for the Utility Industry and the ideal place to find out what’s happening right now in the energy industry.
Wi-SUN Alliance has a well-established presence across the Americas and Asia-Pacific region and this year we have been investing time and energy into growing our presence in Europe: our efforts certainly paid dividends at this event. There was a large amount of interest at the Wi-SUN booth and we were constantly busy.
The event attracts 12,000 smart utility experts from across the energy industry and many visited the booth where we held useful conversations with a number of European Utility Companies, Telecom Service Providers as well as research houses Navigant and Berg Insights and several members of the press. In addition, Wi-SUN Alliance had a strong presence with 24 member companies also exhibiting.
EUW’s major theme of digitalisation carried through and I was lucky enough to participate in a live panel discussion entitled ‘From Smart Cities to Digital Urban Platforms’ in which we were tasked with the challenge of answering what is the biggest barrier to creating low-carbon cities? My fellow panellists included Eric Woods from Navigant Research, Serge de Gheldere, co-founder and lead at Futureproofed, FutureproofedCities.com and Klimaatzaak, Bram Sieben of Liander and the USEF Foundation, Marc Delandre, G3-PLC Alliance and Eric L Helguen from EMBIX Smart Building Alliance. It proved an interesting and lively debate.
Another highlight of the event was the opportunity to sign a liaison agreement with the DLMS User Association. The Wi-SUN Field Area Network is an ideal communications transport layer for DLMS/COSEM and we look forward to a fruitful collaboration.
So, it’s safe to say that it was a full and fruitful three days at EUW and the resounding message was that Wi-SUN has well and truly arrived in Europe’s smart utility space. We will be back next year for sure.