The Smart Electricity Grid Program, the largest of its kind in Latin America, was born from a Copel pilot project in 2018, in Ipiranga, in Campos Gerais, covering five thousand consumer units in urban and rural areas of the municipality with great results.

In 2022, Copel started the installation of smart meters in seven other municipalities in the Center-South region of Paraná. An investment for technological substitution at no cost for the consumer and without burdening the energy bill, with cost reduction for the Company.

Candói, Espigão Alto do Iguaçu, Reserva do Iguaçu, Cantagalo, Marquinho, Virmond and Porto Barreiro entered the calendar of implementation of the new technology that replaces the energy meters, creating a direct and real-time communication with the ‘Integrated Center for Distribution Operation of Copel (CIDIS).

The seven municipalities complete the first stage of the program, which includes 73 cities in the Center-South, Southwest and West regions of Paraná, in an investment of R$ 252 million, with direct benefit to 1.5 million people from Paraná (462 thousand consumer units).

The deployment of sensors and remote control devices allows the energy network to turn on automatically. In cases where this does not occur, the Company can detect and solve eventual shutdown problems from the Integrated Distribution Operation Centre, in Curitiba.

If technicians need to intervene, the centre indicates the exact point that generated the power outage, speeding up the time for re-establishment, increasing the quality of life in the municipalities and safety for agribusiness and industries, in addition to avoiding damage to household appliances.

The project creates a connectivity infrastructure to other applications. Enabling immediate applications, such as, for example, implementation of network reconfiguration systems (self-healing) and automation of automatic reclosers or voltage regulators. Equipment that in real time is integrated with the information systems of CIDIS, creating potential to integrate other services in the future, such as management of distributed microgeneration, use of energy storage technologies, management of intelligent street lighting and supply management of electric cars.