Leading Indian and foreign companies including Vodafone, TCS, Larsen & Toubro, Tech Mahindra, Tata Power and France’s EDF are eyeing government’s purchase of 50 lakh smart meters, which will give them access to big data on power consumption and create a market for 50 lakh SIM cards for connecting the devices.
Forty companies, which also include equipment makers and trade bodies, have held discussions with Energy Efficiency Services (EESL), which has tendered for 50 lakh smart meters in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in the first phase as part of the smart-grid project. Bids are expected next week.
EESL is looking at a GPRS-based model for smart meters, which is basically placing a SIM card in the meter for communication. Telecom companies will hugely benefit by this model, EESL managing director Saurabh Kumar told to an English daily.
GPRS is an open technology, and also most widely-accepted worldwide for setting up smart meters, which also brings cost benefit for the procuring agency. “What do you want as a public procurement agency? You want an open procurement, which does not get into any proprietory issues. GPRS is an open communication medium. It does not matter whether the SIM card belongs to Jio or to anyone else,” he said.
A SIM-card based model will help bring down the capital cost for EESL, Kumar added. “Another reason is, because SIM card is very simple, it doesn’t cost much, I mean capital cost. So, my overall cost of procurement will go down. If I take any other source, then there is a capital cost, which gets added to the cost of meter,” he said.
The initial phase will see deployment of 40 lakh smart meters in Uttar Pradesh and 10 lakh in Haryana, Kumar said. He added that other states like Bihar, Jharkhand, Gujarat and even Delhi are keen on deploying smart meters.
Among other players who participated in the pre-bid were HPL Electric and Power, India Smart Grid Forum and Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association (IEEMA), which is a body of 800 manufacturers of electrical, industrial electronics and allied equipment in India.
The tender is divided into two parts — meter procurement and system integration. System integrator will see meter installation, data storage on cloud, preparing dashboards, among other things. The first bidding process is expected to take place this week, Kumar said.
By Baishakhi Dutta
