Smart Metering National program Providing 360° Benefits for Improved Financial Health of Discoms

Metering has been the Achilles heel of the Indian electricity distribution sector since many years. Despite recent releases of the national smart meter standard, guidelines on smart metering by the Government of Indiaand other policy level initiatives, Indian distribution companies were not keen to implement smart metering owing to high capital expenditure, leading to fragmented deployment in small numbers. Hence Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) formulated aninnovative business modelin which no investment was required from the distribution company. In this model, EESL would incur all expenses and shall be paid a fixed fee by the distribution company. Post implementation of smart metering by EESL, significant benefits were observed by the distribution company in areas of increased revenue, reduced operational effortsand acceptance by regulator. This paper elucidates a case study of a city in Uttar Pradesh, India, that observed these benefits of smart metering.