Do Mere Meters Define the Smart Grid Future?

This week, research company Berg Insight predicted that installed smart meters will shoot past the 300-million mark worldwide by 2015. That’s a lot of meters. A whole lot. But, are we circling, here? Smart meters may be the heart of the smart grid, but where is the rest of the infrastructure we were promised? How is it developing? Are we going to get that intelligent overlay all the way up the T&D path to the power plant, or is the concept of smart meters the only bit of fruition in our smart grid dreams?

The smart grid, overall, has had a lot of setbacks here in the U.S. recently: Boulder’s SmartGridCity project is facing serious doubts and extreme cost overruns (not to mention regulatory issues), utilities like Baltimore Gas & Electric have had their smart grid dreams shattered by public utility commissions that don’t share the vision, and many other utilities have significantly scaled back their smart grid plans to reflect growing consumer fears and economic issues.

But, apparently, the meter is just gonna keep on keeping on, keep on beating. It’s going to shed its problematic smart grid outer shell and emerge new and fresh and victorious.

According to Berg, during the next five years, penetration rates for smart metering technology are projected to increase from around 15–20 percent today to nearly 50 percent in Europe and North America, while Asia-Pacific is projected to soar from less than 1 percent to 25 percent by 2015.

Granted, a lot of this is helped by two things (at least in Europe and Asia): state-run utilities (especially in China and Korea) and regulation. While the regulatory bodies here in the U.S. balk, the regulatory bodies in Europe push. As even Berg admits, the key role in this meter overload is government. Even here in the U.S., while we don’t have the EU legislation demanding change, we do have an administration investing in grid technology as part of the stimulus, a suggested path, if not a push. And, the single most proven part of smart grid technology is, indeed, the smart meter.

 “Smart metering is now a globally accepted mature mainstream technology,” said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst with Berg Insight and author of the report on this meter influx. “All over the world we can see how IT and telecommunication has transformed the metering industry from a business of mechanical devices and manual labor to an arena for state-of-the-art technology in everything from wireless networking to data warehousing and complex system integration.”

Additionally, Berg Insight believes that a number of places around the world may near the 100% smart meter mark by 2020. While that’s all fine and dandy, it still leaves us to wonder where the rest of the smart grid tin man resides. Smart metering may be the heart he’s seeking, but it seems like the bulk of him is still significantly lost, running behind, forgotten along this yellow brick road to meter penetration.