Smart metering in the EU electricity market 

Vasconcelos asserts that smart meters – innovative electronic devices providing more wide-ranging information than traditional electromechanical meters – represent a useful tool for governments to implement policies with a variety of goals, including environmental protection, competitiveness and supply security. 

In addition, he outlines various benefits for energy customers, suppliers, distribution network operators and metering companies alike.

Vasconcelos observes that smart meters allow new contractual arrangements between customers and suppliers as well as smoother consumer switching within Europe, as they can be remote-managed effectively and accurately. They have huge potential to change consumer behaviour towards lower energy consumption, he suggests, as customers will seek energy savings once they receive more detailed information about their consumption patterns.

Renewable energies could be increasingly used if smart meters could mitigate the problems of intermittent power generation, because consumers could reduce their electricity demand during critical drops in power generation, Vasconcelos writes. He adds that service would also be enhanced and losses minimised as more accurate reading allows efficient distribution network planning.     

Nevertheless, after reviewing EU smart metering policies, the paper finds that the current mixture of regulated and liberalised markets is "incompatible with widespread implementation of smart metering". If metering companies roll out incompatible technologies within individual networks, it will exacerbate EU level compatibility problems without a harmonised regulatory framework, it warns.

Vasconcelos thus calls on the EU to urgently adopt guidelines on smart metering. These should include mandatory roll-out targets and minimum functional requirements, particularly considering interoperability and demand response capabilities. Technical standards as well as review and upgrade procedures should be defined, and transparent access to data by all customers, suppliers and network operators should be guaranteed, he continues.

However, given the quick development of ICT, it is important to stimulate competition between service providers rather than impose specific technologies on them, the paper cautions. Harmonisation should thus be carried out at "high levels of functional abstraction and not at low levels of technical detail," it concludes.