Larsen & Toubro bids lowest for EESL’s Smart Meters tender

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has emerged as the lowest bidder of the tender issued by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) to procure 50 Lakh smart meters. The company has been selected through an international competitive bidding. The meters will be installed over a period of three years in a phased manner in Uttar Pradesh (UP) and Haryana. 
 
L&T quoted the lowest price of Rs. 2,722, per single-phase smart meter, while Genus Power and KEONICS emerged as second and third lowest bidders. The EESL tender was floated for procuring smart meters and services of the system integrator with 100% investment and the utilities will make zero-investment.

Bids were received from 14 leading global manufacturers. Of the total procurement, 40 lakh smart meters will be deployed in UP and the remaining 10 lakh in Haryana. The price quoted by L&T is 40-50% lower than the current market rates.
 
Smart meters are a part of the overall Advanced Metering Infrastructure Solutions (AMI) aimed at better demand response designed to reduce energy consumption during peak hours. The overall AMI solution will also have a system integrator who will be responsible for meter installation, data storage on cloud, preparing dashboards, etc. The bids for the system integrator will open on October 31, 2017.
 
The meters are being procured for implementation of smart grid projects in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh since these states grapple with huge transmission losses. The smart meters will help these states in not only significantly reducing their AT&C losses by way of increased billing efficiency but will completely change the way in which electrical energy is presently being consumed and paid for by the consumers. Installation of these smart meters along with its associated communication and IT infrastructure will enable the DISCOMs to obtain real-time energy consumption data of each consumer for subsequent analysis.
 
The Smart meters procured by EESL use GPRS technology to allow two–way communication between the DISCOM and consumers. Once installed, an energy supplier can read a meter via the mobile phone network. Householders can also receive a digital display which helps them to access how much power they are consuming – and its cost – in real time. Smart meters enable one to see the consumption pattern and the cost. This means one can adapt the energy use and cut down on waste to provide financial savings to consumers. 

EESL is promoted by Ministry of Power, Government of India as a Joint Venture company of four Central Power Sector undertakings viz. NTPC Ltd, PFC, REC, and Power Grid.EESL is driven by the objective of facilitating faster adoption of disruptive technology solutions while balancing economic development and environmental sustainability.