Under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme, the country is targeting 250 million smart consumer meters, alongside full metering of feeders and distribution transformers. By June 2026, 72.4 million smart meters had been installed across different schemes, including 57.3 million under RDSS.
Smart meters can improve billing and support prepayment, but their wider role is as a source of real-time and granular network data. Utilities can use that information to understand electricity demand, identify losses, monitor network conditions and plan future investment more effectively.
The AMISP model has supported end-to-end smart metering deployment, but installation alone does not deliver the full benefit. Utilities also need resilient systems, reliable data handling and analytical tools that convert meter readings into operational decisions.
Domestic prepayment systems need to remain reliable without depending entirely on continuous smart meter network connectivity. System resilience therefore becomes a key part of successful implementation.
Consumers are increasingly generating electricity as well as consuming it, while electric vehicles, battery storage, solar pumps and other distributed energy resources are changing demand patterns and power flows. This means electricity can increasingly move in more than one direction across the grid.
Smart meters can help utilities manage this change by acting as distributed network sensors rather than simply billing devices. They can provide detailed information on consumption, voltage conditions, network behaviour and power flows.
That data can support lower losses, better maintenance, demand management, more flexible tariffs and greater integration of renewable generation.
CyanConnode Holdings plc (LON:CYAN) is a world leader in the design and development of Narrowband RF mesh networks that enable Omni Internet of Things (IoT) communications.
