According to Arqiva, the solution will enable the energy company’s engineers to remotely restore customer supplies in the event of a power cut. It will also enable them to monitor and receive regular status updates from the field.
A new multi-year framework agreement will also see Arqiva partner with Inmarsat to leverage both the latter’s satellite network and its BGAN terminals.
Speaking of the roll-out, a spokesperson for Arqiva said: “Our solution needed to be able to scale, in order to keep pace with the anticipated increase in SCADA communications across [UK Power’s] low voltage network.
“To future-proof the communications network it also had to provide resilience to power failures, as well as high levels of availability, low latency transactional messaging, and be designed to withstand potential security attacks.”
Roger Yeo, operational telecoms manager at UK Power Networks, said: “As one of our existing SCADA services providers, we already have a great relationship with Arqiva so were delighted that the team was able to find a solution for our secondary network.
“Offering a fully managed service, combined with deep expertise in critical national infrastructure and strong cyber-security credentials, we knew Arqiva was the right partner for us.”
