Smart meter roll out across the country?

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Poor financial health is preventing state discoms from supplying uninterrupted power under the Govt's 24x7 power-for-all action plan. Latest information shows discom losses have jumped by 62% in the first 9 months of 2018-19!! Govt is using many means to reduce power waste and limit discom losses, such as LED lighting, solar-power irrigation pumps, new sub-stations and upgrading transformers, segregation of agricultural power feeds, and using insulated wiring to prevent theft. Smart meters are ideal as they capture real-time power usage data, identify sources of power losses and improve billing efficiency & collections.

Govt has now decided to install smart meters in every home and business!! As per the plan, 300m smart meters (~Rs 60,000cr) in over 3 years will be required and Centre will subsidize part of the cost. Smart meters are expected to cost Rs 2000 or $29/- a piece. (Though negotiations with manufacturers are under way, units should be cheaper than the earlier rate of Rs 2,500/- a piece). ITI Ltd., Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd. and state-owned Karnataka State Electronics Development Corp. have won bids to supply smart meters in previous tenders. Other companies that make smart meters include L&T, Schneider Electric SE and Siemens AG.
India considers mass roll-out of smart meters to revive utlities

Worldwide installations of smart electricity meters will reach 800 million by 2020. China is expected to have installed 435 million smart meters based on M2M technology by 2020, followed by the US (132m), Japan (58.7m), the UK (53m) and France (35m). Installed base in China, India, Japan and South Korea will grow at a CAGR of 7.9% from 613.4m (2018) to 966m (2024). In the next six years, smart meter penetration among electricity customers in the region is expected to grow from 67% in 2018 to 94% by end-2024. Following a few years of pilot projects, India is launching large-scale smart metering projects, driven by governmental targets to reach nationwide coverage of smart prepaid metering. With the re-election of PM Modi, deployments are expected to pick up pace in 2020 after a slow start in 2019. 

India's deployments were boosted by government-owned energy services company EESL. Through its demand aggregation and bulk procurement model, EESL is addressing the cost issue of smart metering investments, which is currently the main obstacle for Indian state utilities. So far, EESL has procured 10 million smart meters, which can be compared to the total installed base of less than 1.5 million meters in 2018. Since EESL has made cellular point-to-point its preferred smart meter communications technology, cellular connected meters are expected to take a central role in the coming mass-deployments. With NB-IoT-ready meters already emerging in the market, the uptake of smart meters with cellular LPWA connectivity is expected to see a sharp increase as soon as the relevant network infrastructure is in place.
China, India, Japan, South Korea to install 1 bln smart electricity meters by 2025

June 28th, 2019