JEDDAH – Huawei – a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider –has seen an increased interest in smart grid technologies among power companies looking to transform their businesses to generate less energy waste by providing electricity across the country with integrated network solutions that are more reliable, flexible and convenient. Market intelligence firm IDC has predicted that smart grid spending will increase by a compound annual growth rate of over 17 percent globally from 2010 to 2015, while overall spending will reach nearly $46.4 billion worldwide in 2015. Linking up with technology experts at the 4-day Saudi Arabia Smart Grid Conference 2013 that opened on Sunday in Jeddah, Huawei said utility companies in the region today are faced with the challenge of providing stable and cost effective energy while being able to respond to increasing environmental concerns. Growth in the alternative energy market is also raising new opportunities to be addressed, with companies looking for ways to integrate new energy sources with smarter upgrade projects. Smart Grid solutions are playing a central role in transforming the modern power industry to not only protect energy sources from blackouts or attacks, but are also giving customers greater control of their own power consumption. “By letting people and businesses know how much power they are using, with which machines and at what cost during every minute of the day, you provide them with tools to measure and ultimately cut energy consumption,” said Shi Xiaohua, Director of Huawei Enterprise Business, KSA. “Smart Grid solutions ease the lives of utility companies thanks to automated processes and meter reading. This will inevitably cut down the level of administrative work and allow them to focus more on their core business of developing more competitive delivery models.” As part of its involvement at the conference, experts from Huawei's enterprise business will be previewing how local utility companies can provide a more seamless flow of power to businesses and individuals through an intelligent network infrastructure that is able to detect faults in the process of rerouting power supplies, for instance. From power transmission & transformation communication services to power distribution automation and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), Huawei has successfully deployed a host of effective smart grid solutions worldwide helping customers realize significant results. Utility companies that have deployed Huawei's smart grid solutions now enjoy better management-automation levels and reductions in operational expenditure (OPEX) by as much as 10 percent. In addition to its smart grid technology, Huawei has also lined up live demos of its data center service solutions and its new eLTE broadband trunking solution, already used by a number of organizations in government, oil & gas, utilities and transportation sectors worldwide – all of which now enjoy a higher performance of mobile broadband access. — SG
