Metering industry to develop most robust electricity infrastructure

Metering industry to develop most robust electricity infrastructure
A comprehensive analysis on how the metering industry is moving toward better future
Indian metering industry has been growing for the last 4-5 years, as majority of the customers have moved to electronic energy. The present market size is about Rs. 2,200 crore and growing at 10 per cent a year. Currently, 15-20 million single-phase and 2-3 million three-phase static energy meters are being procured and installed every year. The CAGR for the energy meters in India is estimated at 15 -18 per cent in the future.Energy metering market in IndiaEnergy metering industry in India is a mix of multinational players, and a few domestic Tier-1, Tier-2 and Tier-3 players. There is a lot of churn at the Tier-2 and Tier-3 level with new players coming in every year and a little more closing down.
“Energy metering market is going to be huge for the next 20-25 years,” predicts Narang N. Kishor, Mentor & Principal Design Architect, Narnix Technolabs. “In the next few years, say by 2015, the market is expected to come at a reasonably mature level.”
The Indian metering industry is also technically comparable to overseas suppliers. Sunil Singhvi, Vice President – Energy (India, Africa and South-East Asia), Secure Meters said, “Indian manufacturers have designed and manufactured state-of-the-art AMI as well as prepayment meters, and have exported to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and various other countries.”Current scenarioIndian metering industry has been steadily growing over the last 5 years as there is greater thrust by the government to reduce the losses and go for quality electronic meters. Mr Singhvi explained, “In the next 5 years, the demand for the electronic-energy meters will be about 15 million a year, and we will see several new technologies such as prepayment and smart meters.”
However, there is a lot of confusion and chaos on specifications, communication interfaces and protocols, and tampers. “This is simply because there is no standardisation or harmonisation or both on meter specifications,” Mr Kishor explained.
Dependency on telecommunication technologiesThe success and failure of the new electricity infrastructure highly depend on deployed electronics, IT and telecommunication technologies. Mr Kishor emphasised, “A single mistake in choosing the wrong technology might result in a setback, which will take many years to rectify and move forward in the right direction, jeopardising the nation’s progress.”
Even, a whole lot of medium scale and grid scale renewable energy generation projects are being deployed and commissioned nationwide; and there is no co-ordination or intervention with such initiatives to enable these generation plants to seamlessly blend into the nation-wide smart grid infrastructure.
Facing challengesThe major challenge for metering industry is the poor financial health of SEBs along with acceptance of new technologies by government-owned utilities and procurement process to select right quality. “With the debt restructuring the situation will improve,” feels Mr Singhvi. “We are pleased to note that the government has initiated to introduce new technologies such as prepayment and smart meters in India.”
According to Mr Kishor, the challenges for metering industry include lack of funds, lack of harmonisation of meter specifications across utilities, skewed procurement practices and unfair commercial terms in utilities, and confusions in communication technologies harmonisation across utilities.

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