Tata Power has begun smart meter deployment in Mumbai, in a first for India’s Maximum City. In this exclusive interview, we have Sanjay Banga, President – Transmission & Distribution, Tata Power, discussing the Mumbai smart metering effort in detail. Tata Power has always been an active proponent of advanced digital technology and is deepening its smart meter deployment in its other licensed areas like Delhi and Odisha, he notes. While maintaining that India definitely stands to benefit from deployment of prepaid energy meters, the country will profit the most if the power distribution ecosystem becomes more responsible and accountable, asserts Banga. An interview by Venugopal Pillai.
It was nice to know that Tata Power initiated smart metering in Mumbai with 10,000 installations so far. What is the overall plan?
Well, this number has now gone up to 20,000 smart meters. We planned to reach 50,000 meters by March 2022 and by March 2023, we want to cover all our consumers in Mumbai who are consuming more than 200-300 units (kwh) of electricity per month. We will, however, exclude consumers whose energy consumption is generally always low.
Who has borne the cost of the smart meters?
The smart meter rollout in Mumbai is based on the CAPEX model. We made the investment proposal to Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission (MERC). The plan and the investment have been approved by MERC. Our consumers are not paying for the meters, it is part of our yearly planned capex.
Also read: Tata Power Completes 7,000 Smart Meter Installations In Mumbai
What is the broad break-up of these 20,000 meters by consumer type?
Out of these 20,000 meters, around 15,000 meters are for residential consumers while the remaining 5,000 meters have been put up at commercial and industrial premises.
What is the broad geographical distribution? Is the rollout clustered around a particular area?
If you leave the slum areas, we have touched upon almost the entire Mumbai city. For residential smart meters, we have looked at housing societies. If we take a housing society, we have changed all existing energy meters to smart meters, even if there are consumers whose consumption is less than our stipulated criterion.
“All new connections in Mumbai will have smart meters.”
How will you treat new connections hereon?
All new connections will have smart energy meters. Also, all energy meters that are over 10 years old are being replaced with smart meters, provided the consumption is more than the threshold value of 200 units per month.
What is the basic difference between a conventional meter and a smart meter, and what is the primary rationale behind the smart meter rollout in Mumbai?
For instance, during the first COVID wave, in April and May 2020, there were many issues about reading of meters and delivering of physical bills. In June 2020, when actual billing was done, the bill was found to be high.
In smart meters, there is no need to take manual reading. You can in fact get near real-time data. These meters also have another useful feature – they can work in prepaid as well as postpaid mode. If a consumer is not paying his dues, the meter (supply) can be disconnected remotely. There is no need to visit the premise and physically disconnect the supply. This is exactly how things are happening with mobile telephony.
Speaking of Mumbai, all consumers are “paying” consumers. That is why the commercial loss level is very low—less than 2 per cent, in the case of Tata Power. In general, while smart meter deployment in India is more towards bringing commercial discipline, in a case like Mumbai, it is more as a means to create value-addition for the consumer.
Do consumers have an interface, with a phone app for instance?
Yes, all consumers use the Tata Power mobile app, in which they can see their electricity consumption, almost on real-time basis.
Do these smart meters have a prepaid mode facility?
Yes, all smart meters that we have installed in Mumbai, or Delhi for that matter, have a prepaid option. In fact, all smart meters being procured nationwide need to have a prepaid and postpaid mode.
Have consumers in Mumbai opted for prepaid billing option?
No. In fact, we have not really offered the prepaid facility to Mumbai consumers. As I mentioned earlier, consumers in Mumbai are very disciplined and of the “paying” type; we don’t really have payment-related issues as such.
“We currently have around 7.5 lakh consumers in Mumbai. Out of this, I would say around 1.6 lakh are directly on the Tata Power network.”
What is Tata Power’s current consumer base in Mumbai?
We currently have around 7.5 lakh consumers in Mumbai. Out of this, I would say around 1.6 lakh are directly on the Tata Power network. These are what we call direct customers. The remaining consumers have switched over to Tata Power supply, because of higher value perception, as compared with their earlier service provider.
Incidentally, is it possible to switch over from BEST, the electricity service provider in south Mumbai?
Yes, it is possible to switchover from one supplier to another in Mumbai. Consumers have this choice only in Mumbai; it is not available in any other part of country. This ensures all utilities optimize on their opex and capex expenditure and remain competitive.
What is your smart metering target for Mumbai, say by end of FY23?
We are trying to cover all our consumers by that time.
“We started smart metering in Delhi around three and a half years ago, and today have around 3 lakh smart meters installed.”
Moving on to Delhi, where Tata Power Delhi Distribution Ltd initiated smart metering much earlier, what is the current position?
Yes, we started around three and a half years ago and currently have around 3 lakh smart meters there. Though we aspired to do much more, we are contending with the issue of regulatory assets in Delhi. We are therefore limiting our capital expenditure. We will keep deploying smart meters in Delhi, but not at a very rapid pace. We want DERC to address regulatory assets liquidation issue before we embark on further capital expenditure on smart metering.
What has been the overall response to smart meters from consumers in Delhi?
Wherever we have installed smart meters, be it in residential societies, industrial and commercial area, our consumers are very happy. Complaints related to billing have reduced drastically.
Do you have prepaid consumers in Delhi as yet?
No; only postpaid consumers.
We also recall that Tata Power DDL is experimenting with NB-IoT meters to obviate 3G/4G connectivity issues.
Let me clarify first that NB-IoT technology has nothing to do with availability of 3G/4G spectrum. It is simply a different low-cost technology that is best suited for industrial application. The pilot experiment for NB-IoT meters is currently going on in Delhi. There have been no communication-related issues with NB-IoT meters though we have found some technical issues. Overall, the results have been encouraging so far. We have done around 10,000 NB-IoT meters so far and might scale up this pilot in the medium term. Having said that, we have not yet concluded that NB-IoT is a better technology; the pilot is still on.
We recall that there used to be protocol-related issues with smart meters of different manufacturers. What is the situation now?
I don’t think this problem exists any more. Currently, the DLMS (Device Language Message Specification) Protocol is considered as the standard and is being followed by all meter manufacturers. Many smart meter projects have been implemented in India and these meters have also been connected to the head-end system. I would say that issues related to protocols have been tackled.
What about Odisha where Tata Power has recently taken over power distribution? We gather that some Tata Power would be investing some Rs.250 crore for installing smart meters in the erstwhile CESU area, now under TPCODL.
We are in advanced stage of finalizing contracts. In a year’s time or so from now, you will find that all our three-phase consumers – industrial, commercial and large residential – will be on smart metering in Odisha. Again, this is across all the four Odisha discoms.
What about the IT backend where much work was expected in FY21?
It is currently underway. For instance, call center solutions and ERP system has been implemented in all the four Odisha discoms. Billing system in TPCODL is already implemented. Work on the new billing system in the other three discoms is going on, and is expected to be finalized by end of September 2021. All the four discoms will therefore soon have a new integrated ERP and billing system.
Are there plans for smart metering in Ajmer, Rajasthan, where Tata Power is a distribution franchisee?
In Ajmer, we have planned not to implement smart metering. It is a small territory of 1.5 lakh consumers, with an 8 per cent T&D loss. In any case, the franchisee model does not promote much capital expenditure.
“Any grant that results in reduction in tariff is ultimately in the interest of the consumer, irrespective of whether the discom is government-owned or in the private sector.”
All government-related schemes related to smart metering generally keep the private sector out of its purview, assuming that private discoms are profit-making. What is your view?
Yes, private utilities are kept out of the purview. In Odisha, however, we are in discussion with the state government because it is the state government that has to take up the case with the Union Ministry of Power. We are of the firm view that any scheme promoted by the Indian government, which benefits customers, should not differentiate between a state government-owned discom or a private discom. Any grant that results in reduction in tariff is ultimately in the interest of the consumer, irrespective of whether the discom is government-owned or in the private sector.
India has envisaged to install 25 crore smart prepaid meters by 2026 or so. What are the general challenges that you foresee in this mammoth task?
One is this high expenditure is not justified for very low-end consumption of 100 units or less per month.
Secondly, once you implement smart metering, there is an urgent requirement of strict discipline, especially in state government discoms. It is never the case that once smart meters are installed, all problems of meter reading and collection are solved. Consumers can still bypass meters, since direct hooking is still not captured by smart metering. So data analysis, and, on the basis of that, regular enforcement process will be required to yield good result from this project.
Again, if you say that efficiency will improve drastically by itself, I don’t think so, unless you change the ecosystem with respect to responsibility and accountability. Smart meters give you lot of data but if this data is not analyzed periodically and scientifically, the benefits of smart metering will be limited.
The recent Rs.3-trillion revamped distribution scheme envisages a big outlay for smart metering. It also provides for collaborative work with state government discoms. What is Tata Power’s inclination towards engaging with state discoms?
We definitely want to help state government discoms, based on our rich experience of deploying cutting-edge technologies especially in Mumbai and Delhi. Whenever opportunities of smart metering or smart grid technologies deployment come from state government discoms, we would surely like to associate.
