Alstom has been awarded a contract to deliver its Distributed Energy Resources Management System (DERMS) for the Vendée, a French administrative district, located on the west coast of France. Smart Grid Vendée is a €28 million consortium-led[1] demonstration project launched in June 2013 that will last five years. It will pilot a range of smart grid technologies to tackle the changing energy landscape, integrating renewable energies and modernising the electricity distribution grid.  

The distribution grid is seeing an increase in small-scale power generation, such as wind and solar energies, as well as new ways of using electricity, such as electrical vehicles[2]. All are known as Distributed Energy Resources (DER). The integration of DER in the distribution grid at an optimal infrastructure cost requires the deployment of new information and operation technologies. These technologies smooth the intermittency in generation or consumption peaks, and pave the way to a reliable grid.   

Alstom’s e-terraDRBizNet is a core component of the DERMS solution. This software technology will be fully integrated with the network operator decision support tools and will offer a single active control portal to manage distributed generation and demand side resources. 

“Alstom is proud to be at the forefront of Smart Grid development, supporting the Smart Grid Vendée project. Renewable power is fast-growing, and expected to make up almost a quarter of the global power mix by 2018 [3]” said Karim El Naggar, Vice President of Alstom Grid’s Network Management Solutions. “Today, Alstom’s e-terraDRBizNet solution enables more than 10,000 MW of demand response globally, representing over 1,000,000 end-user residential customers and over 10,000 commercial and industrial customers.” 

Alstom participates in more than 30 grid innovation projects worldwide, financed by private and public funds, such as the recent Nice Grid smart solar district project in Nice, France. These new smart grid innovative solutions are tested in research and development pilot projects around the world, leading the way to the electrical grid of the future. 

About Alstom

Alstom is a global leader in the world of power generation, power transmission and rail infrastructure and sets the benchmark for innovative and environmentally friendly technologies. Alstom builds the fastest train and the highest capacity automated metro in the world, provides turnkey integrated power plant solutions and associated services for a wide variety of energy sources, including hydro, nuclear, gas, coal and wind, and it offers a wide range of solutions for power transmission, with a focus on smart grids. The Group employs 93,000 people in around 100 countries. It had sales of over €20 billion and booked €21.5 billion in orders in 2013/14. 

Alstom Grid has one clear vision: to develop innovative solutions for a flexible, reliable, affordable and sustainable electrical grid, everywhere. We design, manufacture, install and service the power transmission and distribution products and systems that empower the planet’s low carbon economy... for now and for the future.

Alstom Grid has over 130 years’ experience and ranks among the top three in the electrical transmission sector with an annual sales turnover of more than €3.5 billion. Alstom Grid’s 17,000 employees are spread across 87 manufacturing and engineering sites worldwide and have one common mission: be our customers’ trusted partner, from the source to the city.

We are energising a smarter world… with Alstom.