Smart Metering in Gas - Revenue Potential or Waste of Money?

Abstract

So you are thinking about implementing a smart grid infrastructure. You have read all the relevant documentation and standards and looked at the newest and most innovative technologies. You have even talked to existing smart grid users about their experience. But with all of that information there is still this lingering question – is smart grid the right path for my utility? The traditional model to support your decision process is a cost-benefit analysis. More often than not, these analyses follow a feature oriented approach. Starting from technology, the customer implementation environment is evaluated and a path is suggested to realize certain benefits offered by a specific feature. Furthermore smart metering is frequently focused on efficiency improvements to the key utility operational processes. This is even truer for the gas industry: some of the major smart metering drivers for the electricity utilities such as peak load reduction or load control do not apply to gas. Especially in the quickly developing countries, operational efficiency is not a key factor either – low labor costs often outbalance the substantial cost of a smart meter implementation. In this paper Itron introduces its consultancy service for gas utilities that follows a much broader, problem focused approach. Instead of starting from features and afterwards finding problems that can be solved with this technology, Itron’s consulting services take a technological neutral standpoint and focus on the core building blocks that make up a gas utilities’ business model to identify relevant external and internal risks. In his article, André Wankelmuth, director of strategic market development at Itron, provides insight into Itron’s methodology and puts a special focus on key findings as they relate to the Turkish market.