What is the Smart Meter?
A smart meter is an electronic device that can communicate in two directions i.e provide consumers with clearer consumer behavior information and provide power suppliers for system monitoring and customer billing information.
Advantages of Smart Meters-
- Two-way communication
- Helps reduce theft by identifying lost pockets.
- Control center tools
- Enable effective pricing
- Monitor electrical systems almost in real-time
- Minimize manual intervention in metering, billing, and collection
The government has been working hard to promote the implementation of smart meters to reduce losses for some time.
The reason for the implementation of smart meters is that smart meters are part of the overall AMI (Advanced Metering Infrastructure) solution, which can measure and record user power consumption at different times of the day, and by air communication technology it’ll send this data to the energy supplier.
This gives users better access to data and enables them to make more informed decisions about household electricity consumption, thereby reducing power wastage and providing long-term carbon and financial savings.
The smart metering system requires a two-way communication network and software to share, and control center equipment and software to collect data in real-time. The intelligent system transfers energy to the user.
India’s smart meter program is mainly aimed at reducing power distribution losses.
Analysts said that the Indian power industry is witnessing a steady transition to digitalization. The efficacy of smart meters has been proven during the nationwide lockdown. Compared with the problems faced by traditional meter technology, the average monthly income of each consumer has increased. Therefore, the government has been trying to leverage smart meters to reduce losses.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in this year’s budget speech: I urge all states and federal regions to replace traditional electricity meters with prepaid smart meters in the next three years. Moreover, this would give consumers the freedom to choose the supplier and rate as per their requirements.
The center’s UDAY (Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojana) aims to improve the overall financial situation of the discoms with the implementation of 10% of the country’s total smart meter demand.
However, as of July 17, UDAY only reached 6% of the targeted smart meter for connections exceeding 500 kWh, while connections between 200-500 kWh reached 7% of the target.
Crisil Ratings said in a report in August that smart metering will help enhance the functionality of discoms by improving billing efficiency and reducing leakage. It added that the scale of financial investment required is the main obstacle to its development.
