The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) and Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), have announced a new joint venture called Intellismart Infrastructure Private Limited or ‘IntelliSmart.’ This joint venture has been formed to implement, finance and operate the smart meter roll-out program of power distribution companies.

Smart meters will play a transformational role in bringing efficiencies and generating significant commercial benefits for power distribution companies, while at the same time empowering end-consumers to make informed choices regarding power consumption.

According to the company, “Smart meters will lay the foundation for smart grids, which will be crucial to meet the challenges of the evolving energy mix and the government of India’s target of providing uninterrupted 24×7 power supply to every Indian.”

Saurabh Kumar, managing director, EESL, stated, “India has embarked upon a mission to reduce the aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses; proven world over for enabling universal, transparent and responsible energy consumption, and smart meters can play a central role in enabling such an endeavor. This venture will support the ambitions of ongoing government programs, such as UDAY and National Smart Grid Mission.

The Government of India (GOI) plans to install 0.25 billion smart meters in the next few years.

Sujoy Bose, CEO, NIIF, said, “IntelliSmart will support the efforts of the Indian power sector as it strives towards delivering dependable 24/7 service to end-consumers.  Smart meters will play a transformational role in bringing efficiencies and generating significant commercial benefits for power distribution companies, while at the same time empowering end-consumers to make informed choices regarding power consumption.

According to the company, IntelliSmart will seek to operate at scale by leveraging the expertise and capital of both the shareholders, EESL, and NIIF. IntelliSmart will work collaboratively with all stakeholders to procure, deploy and provide operations and maintenance for the smart meter infrastructure.

Smart meters communicate on a real-time basis with distribution companies enabling remote meter reading and prompt identification of network failures, thereby reducing response time and improving the quality of networks and services.

Leveraging its extensive experience with smart meter technology, EESL has already secured contracts for IntelliSmart to install and maintain over 10 million smart meters across various state distribution companies. The JV will work alongside EESL to scale this up further.

In August 2019, EESL issued a tender for the procurement of five million smart meters to be installed across India.

Smart meters are slowly coming into vogue with numerous states initiating the process of replacing the conventional meters to become more energy efficient.

For instance, earlier this year, Uttar Pradesh issued a tender to set up bi-directional smart meters in the state. The bi-directional smart meters will be set up for each state-owned power distribution company in the state of Uttar Pradesh.

Recently, the New Delhi Municipal Council area became the first municipal council in India to implement a 100% smart metering solution in its area.

Image credit: National Institute of Standards and Technology [Public domain]