Tata Power launches smart meters in Delhi on Reliance-Jio’s NB-IoT

Tata Power Delhi Distribution (Tata Power-DDL), the Delhi government and Tata Power joint venture which supplies electricity to north Delhi, has launched Narrow Band-Internet of Things (NB-IoT) for smart meters installed in its service areas. TPDDL had launched 2.3 lakh smart meters on radio frequency technology in Delhi. The newly launched NB-IoT system is a low power, wide area network radio technology standard developed by 3GPP, a standards organisation, to enable a wide range of cellular devices and services. Smart meters require a two-way communication network, control centre equipment, and software applications for near real-time gathering and transfer of energy usage information. This comes in the backdrop of the world's largest electricity smart metering programme underway in India, aimed at cutting distribution losses. The smart meter programme aims to replace 250 million conventional meters to help raise the annual revenues of debt-laden electricity discoms to Rs 1.38 lakh crore. TPDDL said in a statement that the technology integration has been done involving meter manufacturers and the NB-IoT service of Reliance-Jio Network. Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) had been eyeing the smart electricity meter segment and intended to leverage its Jio business to offer meter data collection, communication cards, telecom and cloud hosting services to discoms. The TPDDL statement further said the NB-IoT is a new and cost-effective technology in the 4G and 5G spectrum with fast deployment quality. According to the company, with the new technology, the interference and obstruction arising due to public network congestion will not hamper smart meter performance anymore as data will smoothly flow through a dedicated channel. It will also enable more number of remote meter readings possible, thereby ensuring the safety of the consumers during the Covid-19 pandemic, the statement said. Image Source