Intelligent CIO Europe Issue 25 | Page 50

COUNTRY FOCUS: NORDIC The Nordic region is a key player in the development of Europe’s technology landscape, particularly when it comes to 5G. Nokia, as well as other companies, is a huge contributor to technology progression in Finland, shaping innovation and contributing to its Digital Transformation journey. ///////////////// Finland offers technology services of the future N okia has announced that it has been selected by Fingrid, Finland’s national transmission system operator, to build an IP/MPLS network to support the Digital Transformation of its national electrical grid. Fingrid will use the network to operate 120 high-voltage substations and control 14,600 km of power transmission across the country. The new smart grid is needed to manage the growing adoption of variable distributed energy resources, such as wind, solar and micro- generation using bioenergy. As one of Europe’s leading users of renewable energy, Finland’s power transmission network is constantly being upgraded in order to meet the changing 50 INTELLIGENTCIO character of energy generation. Solar and wind generation, for example, require a much more agile and automated grid to manage the variable, two-way power flows by automatically ramping and balancing inputs and outputs. This calls for new distributed energy resource management systems, which need a highly reliable, secure communications system to monitor, control, coordinate and manage distributed energy assets. Nokia’s mission-critical IP/MPLS network solution has been deployed by transmission system operators worldwide – supporting these new grid applications along with other critical ones, such as supervisory control and data acquisition systems (SCADA), teleprotection and current differential systems, which demand stringent control of latency and jitter. This project is in partnership with NetNordic, a longstanding Nokia channel partner. Kari Suominen, Head of ICT for Fingrid, said: “We are committed to realising the potential of renewable energy generation and are embarking on an ambitious transformation of our national grid to make it smarter and more flexible. Nokia’s IP/MPLS solution plays an important role in the Digital Transformation of our distributed energy resource management by providing us with a reliable, secure and agile communications system that has the potential to support all of our power management needs.” www.intelligentcio.com