Energetica India 89 - May 2020

SMART CITIES Energizing India’s Smart Cities vision Smart meters make DISCOMs agile by offering lead indicators on demand and mitigating the need for manual checking. They also play a vital role as enablers of renewable energy consumption. In February, India set its Smart Meter National Programme on course towards an ambitious target - the installation of 25 crore smart meters. This deployment will play a transformative role in establishingIndia’s Smart Cities. The Smart Cities Mission aims to promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a higherquality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions.The Smart Cities energy vision calls for seamless integration of all energy uses, and robust, reliable, and secure communication infrastructure to track and respond to issues across the energy value chain. Smart meters play a key role in enabling this vision. Smart meters also make DISCOMs agile by offering lead indica- tors on demand and mitigating the need for manual checking. They also enable auto collection of meters read over the air, reducing the need for manual intervention, remote connect/ disconnect as per the state utility guidelines and allow digital payment of bills.This also helps DISCOMs plan realistic upgra- dation of distribution infrastructure as they have real-time visi- bility of the actual load. In real-time, consumers can tracktheir consumption patternsand adopt more energy-efficient behavior and appliances. They can also pre-pay for electricity, based on their requirements and thus be in control of their total energy spends. By analyzing smart meter data, DISCOMs can generate new insights about consumptionand generation. With predictive maintenance and early indicators into when to ramp up, power outages can become a thing of the past, and a higher degree of automation can be brought in. Another vital role that smart meters’ play is as enablers of renewable energy consumption. Net metering can enable any consumer to benefit from grid-connected rooftop solar energy. By selling back surplus energy generated to the grid, the consumer can not only enjoy a highly affordable and more sustainable source of energy for household consumption, but also reduce their carbon footprint. Thus, rooftop solar greatly incentivizes the goal of having 10 per cent of a Smart City’s energy requirements to be fed from solar energy.Smart meters also enable time of day metering and can therefore play a pivotal role in the integration of renewable power.Smart meters thus have many deep inter-linkages with the energy blueprint of India’s Smart Cities vision. Essential to this long-term vision, smart meter deployments are already demonstrating their benefits, within mere months of their installation. DISCOMs using Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) have seen an average 15% increase in monthly revenue per consumer, amounting to ~INR 250. In Uttar Pradesh, which is a major beneficiary of smart metering, there has been a 36% reduction in exceptional billing for its four DISCOMs. New Delhi Municipal Council, which is the first DISCOM to achieve 100% smart metering, has been able to monitor all meter tampering attempts as well as abnormal usage conditions in real time, thus greatly alleviating issues of power theft and losses. Demonstrating their role in enablingenergy reliability, accessi- bility, and sustainability, smart meters are a vital component of India’s Smart Cities. They will play a key role in delivering the promise of the Smart Cities –as providers of a more comfortable, sustainable, and energy-efficient way of life. 25 energetica INDIA- May_2020 Amit Kaushik Executive Director (Growth), EESL