In a mega project, BSES power discoms in Delhi will install 50 lakh smart meters with a capital outlay of Rs 4,000 crore. It will help consumers make informed decisions on how to optimise electricity consumption and reduce bills, and it will also give alerts on faults and outages.

According to officials, the BSES discoms- BRPL and BYPL- have begun the process to replace the existing electricity meters with smart versions. The discoms have issued tenders for supply (and contract maintenance) of five million smart meters.

"BSES' rollout is a first-of-its-kind prestigious smart-meter programme on many fronts.

Almost five million smart meters will be deployed in a single location utility, making it one of the largest such exercises anywhere in the country, including any metro city," an official said.

The BSES prepaid smart meter project is larger than the estimated 4.4 million installations under various stages of execution so far in the country including the top five States- Uttar Pradesh (11.54 lakh), Bihar (8.7 lakh), Rajasthan (5.5 lakh), Haryana (4.52 lakh) and Assam (2.83 lakh), discom officials said. In compliance with the Ministry of Power guidelines, it is the fastest and largest private sector smart meter installation project in the country, said a BSES spokesperson. 

The tender for the project was floated on June 17. Execution of the smart meter installation is planned from October this year and expected to be completed by March 2025 as per existing Power Ministry timelines, he said.

Typically, smart-meters rollout programmes, both in India and abroad, have been executed between 5-8 years while the project by BSES targets the installation of five million smart meters within just two-three years, they said.

The smart meter project will empower the BSES with greater operational efficiencies and benefit consumers due to the ease of doing business along with various value-added services like monitoring and analysing energy consumption.