Smart meters have led to 5% cut in AT&C losses, 20% rise in revenue for discoms: EESL Director Commercial

• Gopal said that EESL has installed around 1.44 million smart meters in the states of UP, Haryana, NDMC and Bihar so far

• He said that said that the Ministry of Power has an ambitious plan to roll out 25 crore smart meters in the next three years

New Delhi: The deployment of smart meters in the country has led to a 20 percent increase in monthly revenue per customer for DISCOMs, on average a 5 percent reduction in AT&C losses, remote disconnection provision for defaulters and has completely eliminated manual meter reading requirements leading to reduced expenditure, said S Gopal, Director (Commercial) of Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL). Highlighting the role of EESL in smart metering deployment in India, Gopal said that EESL has installed around 1.44 million smart meters in the states of UP, Haryana, NDMC and Bihar so far.

Speaking at a webinar on "Addressing Implementation Challenges to Smart Metering Deployment," organised recently by ICF, EESL and BHC, Gopal said that the Ministry of Power has an ambitious plan to roll out 25 crore smart meters in the next three years. 

'SERCs need to ensure DISCOMs implement smart metering properly'

Addressing the webinar, Sanoj Kumar Jha, Secretary, Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC), stressed on the need for coordination by State Electricity Regulatory Commission (SERCs) for approval of DISCOM budgets (CAPEX, OPEX) and having sufficient means to control DISCOMs through Aggregate Revenue Requirement (ARR) and ensuring that DISCOMs implement smart metering properly. Bureau of Indian Standards, Central Electricity Authority, and Ministry of Power also have their roles to play to formulate policies for smart metering, building political consensus for it and ensuring no resistance from the public in general. 

He also provided his perspective on Peer-to-Peer (P2P) trading as a solution for the future and informed that a P2P trading platform with app integration for users to get details, set prices and share energy amongst themselves has been set up in Slovenia. Jha mentioned that this would be big change from the current provision of purchasing electricity through DISCOMs only. He concluded that India is at an early stage right now and still has long strides to cover for enabling smart metering through policy initiatives.

'Two-way smart metering is win-win for both utilities and consumers'

Rathin Kukreja, Energy Efficiency Expert, ICF, stressed on the fact that India is the largest untapped smart metering market in the world with demand of around 300 million smart meters expected in coming years. Kukreja highlighted that two-way smart metering infrastructure is a win-win situation for both utilities and consumers with benefits such as monitoring of Aggregate Technical & Commercial (AT&C) losses on a real-time basis, effective load/demand forecasting, improved billing and collection efficiency, flattening the demand curve, etc. The smart meter roll-out program in India has faced some challenges such as a lack of consumer awareness, scalability, cybersecurity issues, integration, and interoperability, he noted. 

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