Hamburg, 5th September 2018

EnBW has tested the first Siconia^TM “SMARTY IQ” smart meter gateways (smgw) from Sagemcom Dr. Neuhaus under PKI conditions and, thus, carries out the life cycle test with the second smgw manufacturer in the German market.

In order to meet the high requirements for data protection and data security for the rollout of smart meter gateways, SMGw manufacturers and meter operators must follow stringent safety precautions for the entire SMGw lifecycle as a part of the SMGw certification according to the Common Criteria (CC) at the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) in Germany. With the delivery of the SICONIA^TM ‘SMARTY IQ’ SMGw from the protected production environment in Rostock to the gateway administrator (GWA) EnBW, the secure supply chain was practically tested. In the secure GWA environment of EnBW in Karlsruhe, the pre-personalized SMGws could then be personalized into the smart metering public key infrastructure with the Sagemcom Fröschl GWA software, meters were paired and tariffs (Tarifanwendungsfälle) were imported. The gateway has successfully transmitted meter readings, and it is going to be tested for two months.

“Thanks to the experiences and findings from our group project on the rollout, we were able to complete the tests successfully with the smart meter gateways from our partner Sagemcom Dr. Neuhaus in the secure environment of a GWA in Karlsruhe within a short period of time”, says Nils Kraft, team leader gateway administration at EnBW. "The successful life cycle test of the SICONIA^TM ‘SMARTY IQ’ SMGw in the production system proves that both EnBW and Sagemcom Dr. Neuhaus are ready for the rollout”, explains Dirk Engel, head of product management at Sagemcom Neuhaus GmbH.

The ALC (Class ALC = Life-Cycle Support) test enables that, for the first time, the full lifecycle process of smart meter gateways can be performed while being connected to the smart metering public key infrastructure (SM-PKI). With the approval of the ALC test, the BSI authorizes a SMGw manufacturer to test five devices together with a GWA under real conditions for a period of two months. After having completed the ALC test, the certificates are blocked in the SM-PKI and the gateways are disposed of safely.