With advent of new technologies, EESL's 'smart' meters relying on telecom networks may turn obsolete

EESL, a joint venture between several public-sector enterprises helmed by the ministry of power, invited bids to procure 5 million ‘smart’ meters to be deployed in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana in August, 2017. In choosing GPRS over other technologies, EESL wants to use the existing telecom network to transmit data from smart meters, obviating the need for building a communication network from scratch and reducing upfront cost. A ‘smart’ meter Smart meters use modern computer technology to enable a two-way flow of electricity and information, unlike traditional meters that only record energy consumption and can only be used for billing purposes. Meters are permanently fixed devices and power availability to mobile towers may vary, leading to skewed information GSM/GPRS connections are highly susceptible to call drops, and reconnection time is nearly 20 seconds Telecom companies’ current revenue model may not justify tens of millions of SIM cards logging on to servers at all times and there may be huge increases in running costs Since the GSM/GPRS card is always in communication mode, the power consumption is huge–more than 10 times that of the nearest comparable technology. “If some of the meters in a bad network area are not giving you data in real time the whole purpose of doing this [installing smart meters> will be lost,” Abhishek Jain, senior programme lead for energy access at the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, a Delhi-based nonprofit, told IndiaSpend, adding, “We don’t know how long this system will run when the telecom systems themselves will soon move to 4G or 5G.” Although the EESL statement claimed GPRS is the most widely-accepted technology worldwide for setting up smart meters, the CEA comparison says there is not a single notable installation of GSM/GPRS across the full spectrum of industrial, commercial, household or agricultural connections in the world.