BSES to install 5 mn smart meters across Delhi in country's largest rollout

Floats tender worth Rs 4,000 crore to procure the meters; installation to start by October

Reliance Infrastructure’s BSES Limited, a power distribution company (discom) in the national capital region, will install five million smart meters in its designated areas, making it the largest rollout across the country. The company has issued a tender worth Rs 4,000 crore to procure smart meters.

BSES owns and operates two discoms –- BSES Rajdhani Limited and BSES Yamuna Limited, across south, west and east Delhi. The smart meters rollout will start with high-consumption areas and consumers, said executives.

The company aims to commence the rollout by October this year and conclude it by March 2025. Currently five states have a large-scale smart meter installation programme ongoing. Uttar Pradesh has installed 1.16 million meters, Bihar 870,000, Rajasthan 550,000, Haryana 452,000 and Assam 283,000.

A smart meter has a modem (communication device) and a remote switch by which demand, supply and billing can be monitored and controlled remotely. Data from the device is collected in a cloud server. This reduces energy theft, improves billing and bill collection, and helps discoms collect data of consumer demand patterns, which in turn, can be used to plan supply.

The smart meters by BSES would provide the choice to consumers to switch to prepaid mode from postpaid. Company executives said the plan would also assist in renewable energy integration, along with load forecasting and scheduling, demand side management and load management.