SLOVAKIA is gradually preparing for the installation of smart meters in the electricity sector. In early July the Slovak cabinet approved a concept for how to proceed in this area. The Economy Ministry, which developed the concept, envisages that by 2020, 600,000 smart meters should be installed in Slovakia, the SITA newswire wrote.
“The aim is to introduce smart metering systems for at least 80 percent of all electricity consumers connected to regional or local distribution systems at the low voltage level and annual consumption equal to or greater than four megawatt hours per year,” the ministry said as cited by SITA.
According to the Economy Ministry, the costs of installing 600,000 smart metering systems should be about €90 million, of which investment costs amount to €68 million and operating costs of the remaining roughly €22 million. The costs of installing smart meters include the cost of buying them, the communication technologies and a data centre.
Annual return from the installation of smart meters should be about €22 million.
“Of the total benefit from the introduction of smart metering, the distribution companies and producers should gain the lowest contribution,” said the Economy Ministry. “End-consumers should benefit the most. All the costs should be borne by power distributions companies.”
Smart meters will be installed gradually to end users according to their annual consumption.
“The objective is to deploy instruments progressively from the higher levels of annual consumption,” the ministry said.
The introduction of smart meters will be divided into two implementation phases. In the first phase, which should be completed by February 2015, about 6,000 devices will be installed, and their operation will be tested. During the second phase, smart meters will be installed across the board.
