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Aim to power 250 million smart meters in India: Airtel Business CEO

Airtel is leveraging NB-IoT tech and a suite of offerings, he says

Ganesh Lakshminarayanan

Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO of Airtel Business (India)

Subhayan Chakraborty New Delhi
Ganesh Lakshminarayanan, CEO of Airtel Business (India), says the company has already secured contracts to power close to 50 million smart meters and is looking out for further deals. He tells Subhayan Chakraborty that smart meters remain a major part of the company's Internet of Things (IoT) business, a space in which Airtel has a 56 percent market share. Edited excerpts.

 
What is behind the push by a growing number of power discoms transitioning towards smart meters?

There is a strong incentive for discoms to digitize the distribution of power. Today, all the discoms put together in the country lose about Rs. 60,000 crores a year due to a wide variety of reasons. Some of the main challenges are how to get real-time data of actual demand and supply of power in the country, how to make the distribution of power a lot less error-prone in terms of billing, and make sure there is no revenue leakage.
 

They also need to be able to shift to a prepaid model for many of their meters and load the subsidies they want to give without any pilferage. Both the Centre and state governments are clearly showing an interest in making the distribution system a lot cleaner and more efficient.


What is the order book position for Airtel Business in this space?

Various discoms have to replace 250 million existing meters with smart meters. This is the addressable market. That number will grow further as the country grows and more meters come online. We have got an early start in space. In select circles, we are also trying to implement the meters using our own workforce.

Adani Energy Solutions has gone exclusive with us across Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Maharashtra, and Uttarakhand. We have entered into a strategic partnership with IntelliSmart Infrastructure Private Limited to power up to 20 million smart meters. We have won a cellular IoT solution mandate with TP Western Odisha Distribution Limited for 200,000 smart meters. We are also implementing 1.3 million smart meters in Bihar. We have signed contracts for close to 50 million smart meters. We would like to power the other 200 million as well.


How is Airtel positioned in the space as a connectivity provider?

Looking at the existing ecosystem, there needs to be a sufficient number of smart meter producers in the country. Those meters need to communicate with each other using a network, and the data stored. All of this needs to be powered by a managed service that does the implementation and maintenance.

We are working with smart meter manufacturers to ensure they get access to the right technology for communication and are able to test it with various meters. We are enlarging our network to ensure smart meters communicate with each other across the country. We are building infrastructure to store this data and bringing software applications needed to monitor and manage the meters.


What are these applications?

We offer a one-stop solution for smart metering with an extensive suite of offerings that comes bundled with IoT connectivity alongside Narrow Band (NB-IoT) and 4G. We provide advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) applications such as headend systems, meter data management system (MDMS), and related apps. We offer enhanced control over energy consumption. Airtel Cloud and Airtel IoT Hub, real-time tracking & monitoring & insights, advanced analytics & diagnostics are also offered.


How do you see technology evolving?

Smart meters will go through three significant levels of evolution. Level 1 is making sure the existing meters are replaced by smart meters, and billing can happen. Level 2 will ensure that the data we generate about actual demand at state, circles, and household levels feeds into the supply side, to equally match both sides. Power generation and storage being in sync lead to less leakage in the system. The third level of evolution will kick in when power demand gets democratized in the country, with most households having a solar cell and producing power, which can also be fed into the grid. In that distribution model, smart meters will be required to deal with the more complicated billing that will emerge.


Moving forward, what will be the focus for Airtel IoT?

Airtel is already a leader in the IoT space, with a 56 percent market share in India. We have more than 30 million devices running on our network right now. We are now building a strong set of capabilities to serve the smart meters as well.


Will smart meters powered by Airtel need to be deployed near the company's existing network infrastructure?

We are smart meter agnostic. We recommend communication modules the meters could use. We have wide 4G coverage nationwide. Our network is being enhanced with Near Band-IoT (NB-IoT) capability. While 4G enables your smartphones, we are bringing this additional NB-IoT capability which is an extra power that the smart meters need. For every wall the network goes through, it loses 5 decibels of power, which needs to be strengthened. Wherever our 4G towers are located, NB-IoT would work. We will also explore other technologies if NB-IoT can't cover a small percentage of locations.

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First Published: Jan 18 2024 | 7:30 PM IST

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