Nokia, A1 provide private wireless connectivity for Siemens renewable energy microgrid

Press Release

Nokia, A1 provide private wireless connectivity for Siemens renewable energy microgrid

• Industrial-grade private wireless network deployed on Siemens campus in Vienna, Austria
• Renewables smartly managed within a microgrid are making an impact by offering energy cost savings and security of supply to industrial campuses
• Private wireless provides critical connectivity for control of all microgrid assets, helping to manage energy loads and lower the environmental footprint

25 November 2020

Espoo, Finland – Nokia and A1 have joined forces to provide a private wireless network for Siemens’ microgrid, which is deployed at its Austrian headquarters in Vienna. The A1 campus solution demonstrates the advantages of using a private wireless solution to operate critical applications such as enterprise or utility microgrids, and how they can be efficiently implemented with secure, reliable and fast connectivity.

Renewable energy sources, storage and microgrids are being adopted by industries worldwide to help enterprises minimize their environmental footprint and reach their sustainability objectives. Smartly managed renewables within a microgrid are making an impact on many industrial applications by offering energy cost savings and supplying security to industrial campuses.

Nokia is providing the , while A1 is providing spectrum along with hosting and management of the newly deployed campus network. The private wireless network is connecting the microgrid assets on the Siemens campus, enabling secure communication between the microgrid controllers and the metering or charging points at guaranteed data rates and with low latency.

The Siemens Vienna campus microgrid project includes solar generation, electric vehicle (EV) charging, building management and battery storage. Initially, Siemens has implemented 320kW of solar generation and 500kWh battery storage, all to support around 50 EV charging stations.

Wolfgang Hesoun, CEO Siemens Austria: "One of the challenges of the future is a reliable and at the same time clean supply, transmission and use of energy. Microgrids can significantly contribute to this. Our campus project, in combination with the infrastructure of an existing industrial plant, is the first of its kind – and offers many opportunities for innovative research and concrete new solutions.”

Intelligence by connectivity

Despite their size, microgrids are complex systems with many elements which need reliable connectivity because they integrate distributed energy sources such as solar cells and battery storage. Voltage levels across the grid are in a constant state of flux with load balancing and optimization between different sources and loads requiring direct control. With private wireless, the microgrid controller easily connects to all assets to manage the grid, ensuring optimal load balancing between energy demand and availability of local distributed energy resources.

Avoiding the need to deploy cabling to connect sensors and other devices associated with managing the microgrid results in speeding up its deployment and enables an easier expansion. A1 network slicing, together with edge cloud processing, is able to achieve the reliable low latency needed for automated microgrid control responses to manage instantaneous load fluctuations. This infrastructure can be used for additional industrial use cases where wireless connectivity and high reliability are critical.

Marcus Grausam, CEO A1 Austria, said: "Network slicing in A1’s mobile networks allows organizations to operate private wireless networks which not only offer the best possible security, but also enable completely new applications thanks to lowest possible latency and high reliability. By using this private campus network as the foundation of the Siemens microgrid, we are demonstrating how 5G technologies enable the optimal control of energy facilities."

Peter Wukowits, Head of Nokia Austria, said: “Managing microgrids is another example where both utilities and enterprises, such as Siemens, can benefit from the reliable wireless connectivity provided by private wireless networks. Nokia brings its experience of supporting more than 200 utility customers in mission-critical networking to this microgrid project. Our private wireless LTE/4.9G solutions contain many of the capabilities required for today’s Industry 4.0 applications, as the Siemens microgrid deployment demonstrates. And additional capabilities for future industrial use cases will follow with 5G.”

As earlier this month, Nokia is providing its industrial-grade private wireless technology and services for all existing and new A1 Austria LTE and 5G enterprise campus network deployments accelerating the digital transformation of A1’s enterprise customers. 

To learn more about Nokia’s industrial-grade private wireless solutions, please visit . With more than 220 large enterprise customers across industries worldwide, and an extensive ecosystem of key vertical partners, Nokia has recently been named leader in private wireless by GlobalData.

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Siemens microgrid images:

Nokia Industrial Grade Private Wireless images:

About Siemens Austria

Siemens is one of the country’s leading technology companies. Around 8,800 employees work for Siemens in Austria in total. Sales in the fiscal year 2020 amounted to roughly 2.6 billion euros. Siemens combines the physical and the digital world — and aims at creating benefits for customers and society. The company focuses on the fields intelligent infrastructure in buildings, decentralized energy systems, automation and digitalization in the process and manufacturing industry as well as on intelligent mobility solutions for rail and road traffic. Automation, software and data analytics play an important role in this context. With its plants, globally active centers of competence and regional expertise in every Federal Province, Siemens AG Österreich significantly contributes to local value creation. Furthermore, Siemens Austria has the overall business responsibility for its own market as well as for an additional 20 countries (region Central and Southeast Europe as well as Israel). Additional information can be found here:

A1 – Internet, Voice, TV and IT-Services from One Source

A1 is Austria’s leading communications provider, encompassing more than 5.1 million mobile communications customers and over 2 million fixed access lines. The customers benefit from a global package of offers from one source: voice telephony, Internet access, digital cable television, data and IT solutions, wholesale services, and mobile business and payment solutions. A1 Telekom Austria AG is part of A1 Telekom Austria Group (ATX:TKA) – a leading digital services and communications provider in the CEE region with around 25 million customers across seven countries. Offering communications, payment and entertainment services as well as integrated business solutions Telekom Austria Group achieved revenues of 4.57 billion Euros, with A1 contributing more than 2.65 billion Euros, by in the year 2019. Around 18,000 employees and state of the art broadband infrastructure make digital business and lifestyle possible and enable people, companies and things to connect everywhere anytime. As European unit of América Móvil, one of the largest wireless services provider in the world, Telekom Austria Group is headquartered in Vienna and gives access to global solutions.

About Nokia

We create the technology to connect the world. Only Nokia offers a comprehensive portfolio of network equipment, software, services and licensing opportunities across the globe. With our commitment to innovation, driven by the award-winning Nokia Bell Labs, we are a leader in the development and deployment of 5G networks.

Our communications service provider customers support more than 6.4 billion subscriptions with our radio networks, and our enterprise customers have deployed over 1,300 industrial networks worldwide. Adhering to the highest ethical standards, we transform how people live, work and communicate. For our latest updates, please visit us online  and follow us on Twitter: @nokia

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