Smart Meters Redefine Energy Management Landscape
A critical component of India’s power sector reforms, smart meters are expected to contribute significantly to improving the billing and collection efficiencies of distribution companies (discoms). What’s more, these meters can have multi-uses as a single point entry into the consumer's home as these can connect, read and transmit data related to electricity, gas and water, all via a single hub.
While the multi-use case may be the next step, for now the government is accelerating the installation of 250 million smart meters across the country. As of now, about 8.5 million smart meters are in service. Under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), smart meters are being deployed through the public-private partnership on a total expenditure model.
Why did the need for smart meters arise? The national aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses of dicoms stood at 23 per cent as of FY 2021-22 but the actual losses, including agricultural losses, would lie between 30-35 per cent, experts say. Since losses of such magnitude were unbearable, the government had no option but to come up with the Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP), since smart meters provided an excellent solution for increasing efficiencies. The results are for everyone to see. In FY23, the AT&C losses of distribution companies decreased to 15.4 per cent from over 17 per cent in FY22, the power ministry highlighted in its year-end review, attributing it to the various measures taken under RDSS, which aims to reduce the AT&C losses across the country to 12-14 per cent by FY25, a senior government official said.
The RDSS comes with an outlay of Rs 3 lakh crore over a five-year period ending in FY26. The government-owned Power Finance Corporation has approved projects worth over Rs 1 lakh crore for various state discoms under RDSS as of September 2023. "Under RDSS’ prepaid smart metering intervention, over 197 million prepaid smart meters, 5 million distribution transformer meters, and around 2 lakh feeder meters worth over Rs 1.3 lakh crore have been approved," the power ministry official said.
What’s a Smart Meter?
Smart meters provide real-time data be it for the consumption of electricity, gas, or water. They capture, record and transmit this data wirelessly to the utility company. This information empowers users to make informed decisions about energy usage, identify areas for efficiency improvements, and ultimately reduce energy costs.
Smart meters enable remote meter reading, eliminating the need for manual meter readings. This not only reduces operational costs for utility companies but also ensures accurate and timely billing for consumers. By automating the meter reading process, smart meters streamline billing operations and improve customer satisfaction.
Smart meters also facilitate demand response programmes by providing utilities with insights into peak demand and fluctuations in energy consumption. This enables utilities to implement load management strategies, such as time-of-use pricing or incentives for shifting energy usage to off-peak hours. By balancing energy supply and demand more efficiently, smart meters help utilities improve grid stability, reduce the risk of blackouts, and optimise resource allocation.
The Rollout
Leading the way is IntelliSmart Infrastructure, a joint venture of the National Infrastructure Investment Fund (NIIF) and Energy Efficiency Services (EESL). IntelliSmart has been established with the core purpose of becoming the most preferred digital partner of the utilities.
Intellismart is currently installing smart meters for approximately 20 million households and much more in terms of contracts awarded or in the pipeline. The smart metering rollout portfolio, with a value of Rs 20,000 crore ($2.4 billion), has been boosted by awards in four states, including a project each in Uttar Pradesh, Assam and Bihar and two in Gujarat. The Uttar Pradesh project is the largest so far for a national smart meter rollout and should see the installation of 6.7 million smart meters in 14 districts under the jurisdiction of the Pashchimanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam (PVVNL), a distribution company.
In Assam, Intellismart is to install 1.5 million smart meters for the Assam Power Distribution Company. There is another rollout currently under way in Assam by Intellismart for 600,000 smart meters, which is a little over 60 per cent complete. In Bihar, IntelliSmart has won a project to install 3.6 million smart meters for South Bihar Power Distribution Company.
In Gujarat, IntelliSmart has secured the letter of award for implementation of end-to-end smart metering solutions from Madhya Gujarat Vij Company (MGVCL) and Dakshin Gujarat Vij Company (DGVCL) for a total of 5.1 million prepaid smart meters.
An immediate objective of the RDSS smart meter programme is to achieve accurate load profiling and energy audit to improve discoms’ operational and financial efficiency. How will this work? Talking to BW Businessworld, Anil Rawal, MD & CEO, IntelliSmart Infrastructure explained: "The smart meter’s two-way communication feature, along with the associated metering infrastructure, permit discoms to conduct automatic energy accounting at the consumer and feeder-transformer level, and enable them to improve billing and collection efficiency and make precise load forecasting."
Recently, smart metering company Kimbal Technologies secured $5 million in a funding round led by Niveshaay. Having already deployed over 1 million smart meters to date, the organisation plans to utilise the funds to scale up existing operations, and undertake new product development, helping build a modern power distribution ecosystem with efficient distribution to the last mile. On successfully raising the first round, Ayush Sinhal, CEO of Kimbal Technologies said, “We are growing at a solid pace, and I am strategically focused on ensuring that our growth is not only steep but also steady and sturdy.”
Airtel Steps In
In December, Airtel announced that Airtel Business, the telecom major’s B2B connectivity, technology, and communications solutions provider arm, has entered into strategic partnership with IntelliSmart for powering up to 20 million smart meters.
Airtel is working with utility providers to deploy millions of meters powered with Narrowband IoT (NBIoT) connectivity. Cellular IoT provides utilities with a standards-based communication offering for connecting the meters, which ensures there are no interoperability challenges between different service providers.
Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO, Airtel Business (India) said about the venture, “We have further strengthened our market leadership as the largest IoT enabler in the country. IoT is one of the fastest-growing business segments for Airtel Business and, with this deal, we are now strategically positioned to play a pivotal role in driving the government’s vision of digitising 250 million conventional meters to smart meters.”
A key benefit of licensed cellular networks is the plug-and-play nature of the offering. These networks do not require customers to incur any upfront capex for network rollout and eliminate costs and challenges associated with deploying, managing, and operating these proprietary networks, Lakshminarayanan explained.
Let’s hope that the collaborative efforts lead to not just the seeding and usage of smart meters, but also helping the consumers become smart enough to stop wastages.
‘Smart meters rollout should include every household’
Anil Rawal, MD and CEO, IntelliSmart Infrastructure is an ex-civil services officer of 1996 Batch with over 25 years of leadership experience, talks to ASHISH SINHA about nuances of Smart Metering initiative. Excerpts
What steps along with smart metering could be implemented to bolster the profitability of the state utilities?
Smart metering enhances the potential of the industry to unlock distributed energy resources (DER) programmes and create new power system opportunities which will further enable discoms to ramp up their financial position and increase profitability.
For a country like India, the target of 250 million smart meters should be considered as just the beginning and the programme should eventually envisage a rollout to include every household in the country.
How does smart meter data play a role in the demand response (DR) programmes and how critical is its application in the success of these programmes?
Smart metering serves as the technological backbone for DR initiatives. Smart meters capture energy consumption data enabling discoms to identify peak demand, helping them better understand when and where demand is highest. This enables discoms to target DR initiatives more effectively.
What are distributed energy resources (DER) and what role do they play in the overall digitalisation efforts of the power distribution sector?
DERs are decentralised renewable energy resources that are located close to the point of consumption. These energy resources, which include solar PVs, wind turbines, battery storage systems, etc., enable greater flexibility, resilience, and efficiency in the grid. Smart meters play a vital role in seamless DER integration with the grid by enabling bi-directional communication between consumers and discoms.
What is the final application of demand response and DER programms in the electricity system in the context of energy transition?
Implementing DERs like rooftop solar, battery energy storage will enhance the flexibility and resilience of the electricity grid by providing additional resources for managing supply-demand imbalances and grid disturbances, while DR programmes like time of day (ToD) tariff will help discoms manage peak electricity demand more effectively.
