SEEN AT ITRON UTILITY WEEK The regional make-up of investment is shifting North America, once the leading market for investment in smart meters, has not held the top spot since 2013. Policy support has led China and then Europe to overtake the once booming North American market. This shift in where investments are being made will continue. In a rush to meet national and EU targets, European utilities will install 182 million smart meters over 2016–20, amounting to $37.8 billion of investment. Likewise in Japan, 55 million meters, costing $16.6 billion, will be installed from 2016 through 2020 (see Fig.1). The story is not confined to developed markets. Utilities in emerging economies are exploring the use of smart meters for applications ranging from grid reliability to theft detection. The trials and errors in early-mover markets such as North America and Australia have demonstrated the importance of fully understanding the use case before investments are made. By learning early lessons and benefiting from the technology cost reductions that have ensued, utilities can make a strong economic case for deploying smart meters to improve billing accuracy, reduce theft and mitigate line losses. Global trends in smart metering By James Sprinz, Bloomberg New Energy Finance The smart meter industry is maturing. In 2016, utilities will invest $14.3 billion in smart meters for electricity and gas, pushing the total installed globally to 700 million. Though over half of them are in China, the rest of the world will install over 52 million meters this year alone – a 58% increase from 2015. As the technology cements its place within the utility sector, three trends have taken shape. 16 As a result, over the past year we have seen announcements in new and unexpected places: a 2,000-customer pilot in Nigeria; a 216,000-meter project in Serbia; and an ambitious project connecting one million meters over cellular networks in Uzbekistan. Non-OECD deployments outside of China are growing rapidly, up from an expected 8.6 million meters in 2016 to almost 21 million in 2020. This will accelerate in the next decade as activity ramps up in large Asian markets such as India and the Philippines. Metering data is more integrated and has growing application The convergence between smart metering and distribution automation has long been under way. North American utilities have successfully integrated AMI data with other operational technologies such as outage and distribution management systems. Of the 11 largest smart metering projects, seven use meter data for outage management, six for theft detection and four for asset management – and almost all the rest are in the process of doing the same or planning to. While these applications are par for the course in North American projects and becoming so globally, integration of AMI with more advanced smart-grid technologies is more gradual. Volt/VAR optimisation and state estimation are two well- known examples where the volume and geographic Figure 1: Global annual smart meter investment ($bn), 2010–20e Source: Bloomberg New Energy Finance. Note: includes smart electricity and gas meters. METERING INTERNATIONAL ISSUE – 5 | 2016