TSO TenneT taps ECI packet optical transport for utility network

TenneT TSO GmbH Germany, one of the top five electricity transmission system operators (TSOs) in Europe, has installed deployed ECI Telecom's Neptune (NPT) and Apollo packet-optical transport systems in its network. The network upgrade will help TenneT further its smart grid development plans, ECI says.

With operations in Germany and the Netherlands, TenneT supplies power to more than 41 million users via 21,000 km of high voltage lines. The company sought to move from its legacy networks to a packet-based infrastructure that should provide more efficient grid management and traffic control. Like a telecommunications service provider moving from SONET/SDN to packet-based fiber-optic networks, TenneT needed to make this evolution while continuing to support such legacy services as low-bit rate SCADA and teleprotection.

ECI, working with local partner 3M services GmbH, supplied its NPT-1200 (2U) system and its Apollo optical transport systems. The latter will enhance TenneT's long-distance WDM links. Both equipment types will operate under ECI's LightSOFT unified, multi-layer management system.

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