Europe smart meters projection

From Berg Insight 's report 

December 2014

40 percent of Europe's gas customers will have smart meters by 2020 

According to a new report from the research firm Berg Insight, 40 percent of all gas customers in Europe will have smart gas meters by 2020. At the end of 2014, there were 2.5 million smart gas meters in the EU28+2 area, corresponding to a penetration rate of around 2 percent. By 2020, the installed base is projected to reach 49.0 million units. The increase will mainly be driven by nationwide rollouts in France, Italy, the Netherlands and the UK. In early 2015, the Netherlands will become the first European country to reach 1 million units installed as the Dutch utilities start the mass-deployment of smart meters. At the end of the year, Berg Insight also expects that massive installations will get underway in Italy and France. Earlier this year, the French national gas distribution network operator GrDF placed orders for a total of 11 million smart gas meters that will be deployed until 2020. GrDF and several leading gas network operators in Italy intend to use 169 MHz radio technology as the communication platform for their solutions, while smart electricity meters will be used as local communication hubs in the UK and the Netherlands. 

While the smart gas meter rollouts are largely proceeding according to plan in the countries mentioned, the UK is facing a more difficult situation. Following the announcement that the country’s centralised data and communications system will not become operational before the end of 2016, Berg Insight expects that the mass-rollout of smart meters will not begin before 2017. As a consequence of the delay, the official target that the rollout should be completed by 2020 seems unattainable. “We are fully convinced that the UK smart metering project will eventually come to its conclusion, but the multitude of challenges arising from such a complex undertaking require considerable time to resolve” says Tobias Ryberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report. “If there is one thing that can be learned from a decade of smart metering projects in Europe, it is that they get delayed.” 

70 percent of Europe's electricity customers will have smart meters by 2022

At the end of 2014, there were 67.9 million smart electricity meters in the EU28+2 area, corresponding to a penetration rate of 24 percent. By 2022, the installed base is projected to reach 199.7 million units. The vast majority of Europe’s smart electricity meters are today deployed in Italy, Spain and the Nordic countries. Over the coming 6–8 years, nationwide rollouts are planned in a number of additional countries in Western Europe, including France, the UK, the Netherlands, Austria and Ireland. Moreover, Berg Insight expects a significant uptake in several countries in Eastern Europe such as Poland, Bulgaria, Slovakia and Estonia. The outlook for Germany is however less optimistic as several regulatory and technical issues still need to be resolved. 

Berg Insight expects that the European smart electricity market will perform well in the coming years as a number of new and ongoing rollouts ramp up to full speed. During 2015, shipments of smart electricity meters are expected to grow by 30 percent to 8.4 million units, fuelled by new and expanded projects in France, the Netherlands and Norway. By 2017, Berg Insight also expects that the much delayed rollout in the UK will finally get up to speed. “Based on the current time plans and projections, the European smart meter market will peak at 25–30 million units per year in the early 2020s”, says Tobias Ryberg, Senior Analyst, Berg Insight. “Besides greenfield deployments, we also expect to see next generation upgrades of the oldest existing systems in countries such as Italy“. 

M2M : Electricity and Gas Smart metering in Europe

Taken from Berg's Report 

SMART METERING IN EUROPE

EU28+2 has 281 million metered electricity customers and the annual demand for electricity meters for new installations and replacements is in the range of 12–16 million units. Penetration for smart meters, providing more comprehensive functionality than basic meter data collections, was 24 % at the end of 2014. By 2020, Berg Insight projects that the penetration rate will increase to 58 %, driven by large rollouts in Spain, France and the UK, in combination with nationwide rollouts in several smaller countries. The installed base of smart electricity meters is forecasted to grow at a CAGR  of 15.8 % between 2014 and 2020 to reach 163.8 million units at the end of the period. The rate of installations is expected to accelerate towards the end of the decade as nationwide rollouts in France and eventually also the UK get underway. Berg Insight also anticipates that deployments of a new generation of smart meters will start in Italy by circa 2020 as the first intelligent metering devices installed in the country reach the end of their technical lifespan. Moreover an uptake in adoption in Germany is likely, although full-scale installations cannot be expected to begin before the mid-2020s.

Europe’s national governments play a key role for the adoption of smart metering. The EU’s highly publicised 20/20/20 targets merely include a recommendation for the member states to evaluate the technology and introduce it – if there is a positive business case. Over the past years, almost all European countries have performed cost benefit analyses of smart metering and the majority of the cases have resulted in a recommendation to go ahead with a rollout. Italy and Sweden were the first countries in Europe to complete smart meter rollouts in the late 2000s, followed by Finland at the end of 2013. A second wave of deployments is now prepared or underway in France, the Netherlands, Spain, the UK and several other countries in Western Europe. Estonia is doing the first nationwide rollout in Eastern Europe, where other markets with a high level of activity also include Poland and Latvia. At the end of 2014, a total of seventeen European countries had developed regulatory roadmaps for the full-scale introduction of smart meters and at least two more were planning for partial rollouts. Among the largest countries, only Germany remains indecisive about smart meters. The official position of Germany’s federal government is that the country should design the roll-out of smart metering systems in a targeted fashion which meets the needs of its energy reforms. A proposed plan for a partial rollout to around 30 percent of the households is currently being evaluated. If approved, Berg Insight believes that it could result in a gradual ramp-up of smart meter deployments in the late 2010s and full-scale replacements beyond 2020.

Smart gas metering is starting to take off in Europe as a number of countries have identified a positive business case for the technology. Seven countries – Austria, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and the UK – have made positive assessments in their national cost benefits analyses and plan full-scale rollouts. The Netherlands made the installation of smart gas meters mandatory for new connections and replacements in 2012 and the UK has also started with replacements on a small scale. During 2015, large-scale installations are planned to begin in France and Italy as well. At the end of 2014, there were 2.5 million smart gas meters in operation, corresponding to a penetration rate of around 2 %. By 2020, Berg Insight projects that the rate will increase to 40 %, mainly driven by nationwide rollouts in the UK, Italy and France. The installed base of smart gas meters is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 63.8 % between 2014 and 2020 to reach 49.0 million units at the end of the period.