AP keen on smart meter installation

Vijayawada: Following a fiat from the Centre, the power utilities in Andhra Pradesh have decided to speed up work on installation of smart meters. The government of India has decided to facilitate installation of smart meters with an objective to provide more qualitative power, better services and accurate billing to consumers, increase accountability, transparency, and efficiency among utilities besides reducing technical and commercial losses.

During the teleconference, Energy minister Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy on Sunday reviewed with officials various aspects of power sector reforms including smart meters. The officials briefed him about rolling out smart meters in Andhra Pradesh which is an initiative of GoI in association with Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), government of United Kingdom.

Special Chief Secretary for Energy K Vijayanand explained to the Minister that the GoI has decided to replace around 25 crore conventional meters with smart meters across the country under the Smart Meter National Program (SMNP). The smart meters will help in addressing the problems of consumers regarding wrong billing, getting reconnected after disconnection due to non- payment of bills, saving electricity and monitor meter readings online. It also helps power utilities in reducing Aggregate, Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses of power utilities, power theft and distribution losses.

Smart meters are also used for recording the consumption of electricity and measuring voltage levels. While traditional meters measure the power consumption of a home or business, smart meters live up to their name and transmit the same information for every 15 minutes or hourly to utility providers. Since the smart meters are connected to the internet, they can communicate information to the consumer about the usage and also Discoms for monitoring purposes and accurate billing. Both consumer and Discom can monitor readings online.

Vijayanand said that the Union Ministry of Power along with FCDO, UK government in association with Energy department, GoAP, organised a workshop recently to provide AP power utilities officials an in-depth knowledge on introducing smart meters across the State. The workshop also discussed the smart metering journey of India, learning from smart meter deployment in the UK, and smart meter deployment plan for Andhra Pradesh.

AP Energy officials were informed by British Deputy High Commissioner Gareth Wynn Owen and British High Commission Energy Advisor Sushmita Ramoji that "a smart meter can help in improving the average revenue from meter alongside a host of other advantages like better demand side management, better demand forecasting, value-added services like analytics and data and easier implementation of Time of the Day (ToD) tariffs.