Bihar has become the first Indian state to cross the milestone of deploying 1 million smart meters.
According to an official Union power ministry tweet, Bihar has become the first state to complete the installation of 1 million smart prepaid meters.
The power minister, R.K. Singh, congratulated the two power discoms in Bihar – North Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd (NBPDCL) and South Bihar Power Distribution Company Ltd (SBPDCL) – on this achievement.
It may be mentioned that India has targeted to install 25 crore smart prepaid meters, throughout the country, by 2025, as part of the Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP).
According to official smart metering dashboard of the National Smart Grid Mission (NSGM), the total of 4 million smart prepaid meters have been installed by NBPDCL while SBPDCL has a higher share of 6 million. Prepaid meters, in small measure, have also been installed by private utilities – Bhagalpur Electricity Distribution Company (Bhagalpur region) and India Power Corporation (Bodhgaya region).
Bihar’s current smart meter installation has been dominated by Genus Power Infrastructures as the smart meter provider and EdF as the system integrator. The smart metering endeavour in Bihar falls under the Smart Metering National Programme (SMNP) spearheaded by Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL).
It may be recalled that during the first COVID wave in 2020, state power utilities in Bihar were earning revenue of Rs.5 lakh per day thanks to prepaid metering, whilst most government utilities in other parts of the country found it difficult to even dispatch electricity bills.
More deployment
The installed base of smart prepaid meters in Bihar is set to grow in the coming years. Very recently, Genus Power Infrastructures won the mandate to install 10 lakh smart prepaid meter in Bihar, under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS). Genus will be playing the role of an advance metering infrastructure service provider (AMISP) that would include end-to-end responsibility and not just supply of meters. Genus also placed an order on CyanConnode India for the supply of 1 million RF modules, related to this order.
Touching 5 million
Meanwhile, India’s current smart meter population (prepaid and conventional) stands at around 4.82 million with another 5.88 million under various stages of deployment.
Featured photograph is for representation only
