Energy Efficiency Services Ltd (EESL) and National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) have announced a new joint venture, IntelliSmart Infrastructure Pvt Ltd (“IntelliSmart”), to implement, finance and operate the smart meter rollout program of power distribution companies.
EESL has already secured contracts for IntelliSmart to install and maintain over 1 crore smart meters across various state distribution companies.
The government of India plans to install 25 crore smart meters in the next few years. With the replacement of 25 crore conventional meters with smart meters, billing efficiency can improve from 80 per cent to 100 per cent, and has the potential to increase discom revenues by Rs.1,104 billion. EESL, has been spearheading the smart meter deployment in India with installation of over 6,25,000 smart meters. This partnership of NIIF & EESL will give a fillip to the smart meter ambition of the Government of India.
With a focus on expediting the deployment of smart meters across the country, 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.
Leveraging its extensive experience with smart meters technology, EESL has already secured contracts for IntelliSmart to install and maintain over 1 crore smart meters across various state distribution companies; the JV will work alongside EESL to scale this up further.
Smart meters will lay the foundation for smart grids which will be crucial to meet challenges of the evolving energy mix and the Government of India’s target of providing uninterrupted 24×7 power supply to every Indian.
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. Smart meters also bring benefits to end-consumers by empowering them with consumption data thereby enabling households to lower their energy bills by becoming more energy efficient and contributing to greater security and affordability of the Indian energy market.
