(Credit: Pixabay)According to a new report, deployments of more than 16 million smart meters occurred globally between April and September 2019. The report, from Navigant Research, provides an analysis of global utility smart meter projects and tracks data related to global customer endpoints, meter manufacturers, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) communications vendors, systems integrators, and meter data management system (MDMS) vendors.
The smart electric meter continues to evolve across both technologies and geographies. The report notes that in developed markets, penetration rates continue to climb while a burgeoning market for second-generation deployments begins to emerge. Meanwhile, developing markets are finally advancing beyond the nascent stage, with an uptick in project announcements across Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, and the Middle East.
“The North American market saw the greatest number of new project announcements in the last several months, with a notable uptick in public utility deployments,” says Michael Kelly, research analyst with Navigant Research. “Western Europe also remains a hotbed of activity as new players emerge, multiple nationwide rollouts continue, and second-generation upgrades are realized.”
The research says that in Eastern Europe, new markets are emerging, including Russia, Latvia, and Lithuania, while the Asia Pacific market remains highly fragmented, according to the report. In the Latin America and Middle East regions, which have been underdeveloped markets slow to adopt AMI, many countries are exploring advanced metering at a national scale. Africa is still inhibited by financial constraints, though small- to mid-scale projects continue to propagate, along with a handful of more meaningful deployments.
