IT IS believed that smart metering will bring about a small revolution in the distribution of electricity. Slovak operators of electricity distribution networks believe that replacing conventional metering systems with intelligent ones will enable electricity consumers to reduce and adjust their electricity consumption, while the new system will give the operators information that will help them to better respond to the needs of consumers.
“By introducing smart metering, we offer to end consumers of electricity a tool, thanks to which they can reduce their electricity consumption and afterwards save,” Andrej Juris, director of Západoslovenská Distribučná, said on August 26. “The system will provide them with simple, uninterrupted online access to currently measured figures, on whose basis they can adopt concrete measures to save electricity.”
Smart metering will provide consumers with a detailed time diagram of their electricity consumption, thus allowing them to do activities that consume more electricity during times when the tariffs are lower, and therefore save money. Electricity distributors can also respond with offers of more time-related tariffs.
Západoslovenská Distribučná plans to install smart meters to about 190,000 out of the total of about one million of its clients by the end of 2020. It will do so in three phases, starting with large electricity consumers (minimum annual consumption 15 MWh) and following with smaller ones with an annual consumption of 4 MWh (including bigger households) and those with charging stations for electric cars or other special consumers. Thus, the installation of smart meters will not affect average families for now as their annual consumption is about 2.2 MWh.
The costs of installing the smart meters, as well as the meters themselves, will be covered by Západoslovenská Distribučná from its own resources.
