Wirepas has recently announced more than 700,000 smart meters for Himachal Pradesh.
As Himachal Pradesh is a mountainous place, it has few challenges for smart meter connectivity. In valley areas, cellular signals become weak and installation of dedicated communication infrastructure can become costly. Indoor and stairwell meter installations can face connectivity issues.
Wirepas’ mesh network architecture helps each meter transmit and receive data through neighbouring meters. It allows data to travel through alternative routes when a connection is disrupted, extending network coverage without relying on a central hub. The company claims that its deployment model does not require dedicated gateways or SIM cards.
Wirepas’s certified connectivity platform provides support to RF-only meters and dual-communication meters that combine mesh connectivity with cellular communication, allowing utilities to address different connectivity requirements across urban and remote areas. The company reports that existing deployments using its platform achieve a service level of 99.9%.
“Himachal Pradesh is the kind of deployment that tells you quickly whether a technology was designed for India or merely adapted to it,” said Ashish Sahay, Sales Director and Country Manager, India, Wirepas. “You have a meter in a village at the top of a valley and another in a crowded stairwell in a hill town, and both need to report on time, every time. Our mesh was built for exactly that range. Extreme terrain, long distances and high densities are not exceptions for us. They are the design brief.”
Smart metering is a major component of the government’s efforts to improve the financial and operational performance of electricity distribution companies. According to Ministry of Power data
India’s aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses declined from 21.91% in FY2020-21 to 15.04% in FY2024-25. The RDSS aims to reduce these losses to between 12% and 15%.
Good smart meter connectivity can be helpful to improve billing accuracy, reduce estimated readings and minimise the need for manual meter inspections, including in difficult-to-access locations.
This is not the first time. Wirepas has been working with India since 2018. The company has worked with domestic meter manufacturers and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) solution providers. Its Wirepas Certified platform is based on the NR+ standard, which the company describes as the world’s first non-cellular 5G standard for massive Internet of Things (IoT) applications, and complies with India’s IS 15959 requirements for Distribution Line Message Specification (DLMS).
India is Wirepas’s largest market globally. In addition to Himachal Pradesh, the company’s technology is deployed across states and regions including Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Ladakh, supporting smart metering at scale.
