Since the first Metering Europe Conference and Exhibition in Madrid in 1999, the DLMS User Association has been an active participant in and contributor to this event.

Our efforts to provide internationally accepted standards for interoperable meter data exchange are recognised by a growing global community of implementers and users of the DLMS/COSEM specification, standardised by the IEC and CEN/CENELEC. Since the foundation of the Association in 1997 by three major meter manufacturers, membership has grown to exceed 100. To date, there are twenty manufacturers providing DLMS/ COSEM compliant meters.

The DLMS pre-conference seminar offered for the seventh time at Metering Europe 2007 attracted a record number of participants. It gave us the opportunity to discuss main principles of DLMS/COSEM, achieving true interoperability, and to provide information about the latest developments.

The general meeting of the DLMS UA also took place in Vienna. On this occasion, we reviewed progress and agreed on the next steps. Two new members were elected to the Management Committee, Ortwin Pfaff from Elster and Slavko Vidic from Iskraemeco. The new set of the “Coloured Books” containing the specification of the COSEM object model, the DLMS-based communication profiles and the conformance testing process, as well as the new version of the Conformance Test Tool, were released.

The conference this year revolved around smart metering. Accordingly to meet the needs of the market for interoperable, standard data exchange solutions for smart metering, the working groups of the DLMS UA are concentrating their efforts to bring together the well-proven power line communication technologies standardised in the IEC 61334 series with the IEC 62056 DLMS/COSEM object model and higher protocol layers. In this work, several meter manufacturers, system providers and utilities are closely cooperating. An important part of this activity is the addition of new tools to provide message security to ensure integrity, authenticity and confidentiality. An agreement has been achieved on all elements and the new specification can be expected by the end of this year.

Another important activity of the DLMS UA this year is the extension of the COSEM object model to cover new applications in gas metering.

Please contact us for more information or any question about the DLMS User Association at Pre-de-la- Fontaine 19, CH-1217 Meyrin- Geneva, Switzerland, e-mail: dlms@dlms.com, or visit our website www.dlms.com

Győző Kmethy, President
Paul Fuchs, General Secretary