The global market for smart electricity meters is expected to reach $15.2 billion by 2026 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6.7 percent between 2020 and 2026. This is one of the more widespread energy and utilities IoT solution, which powers advanced metering infrastructure that leverages smart meters to monitor the use of gas and electricity use.
Smart metering has the potential to optimize energy usage, which can support cost and sustainability initiatives and, in whole, create a smart grid that is more resilient to increased energy usage or meeting any regulatory compliance measures for sustainability, as well as support security.
Low power wide area (LPWA) networks, as well as eSIM, are two opportunities within the energy and utilities industry to help create widespread infrastructure of smart metering and smart grids for several key reasons.
First, LPWA networks are designed to support lower-complexity IoT devices – the type that turn on to take a reading, transmit a very small packet of data, and then return to sleep mode until the next reading. LPWA networks support that type of functionality by not draining the device battery or running up usage by constantly requesting data communications. This means that devices that have long battery lives – up to 10 years in some devices – can be deployed in the field for potentially the entire device lifetime. This makes solutions that are underground or widely distributed much more feasible, as well as cost-effective.
eSIM, as a companion technology, supports the ability of energy and utilities solutions that have hundreds or thousands of IoT devices by not requiring a physical SIM change if there is a network or carrier change over time. The 2G and 3G sunsets have shed light on how challenging it can be to update devices or device SIM cards in deployments – particularly those that have a large number of devices and may be located in hard-to-reach areas. It can be expensive, time-consuming, costly, and – especially in the energy and utilities sector – a risk of causing service interruptions.
By leveraging smart metering, not only can this create sustainability and efficiency in the use of utilities, but it can also make a smoother billing and usage system to help streamline internal operations.
Looking further out, IoT can enable deep analytics through artificial intelligence that can handle the load on grids with minimal intervention. The more intelligence derived from IoT solutions, the greater the visualization on solution performance is and the more data-driven decisions can be made.
Smart grid demands are likely going to increase if the rise of electric vehicles is to be realized. The CAGR for the global electric vehicle market is expected to be 18.2 percent from 2020 to 2030 and reaching a value of $823 billion. The need to balance loads to address the requirements for electric vehicle charging is likely to rely heavily on digital intelligence.
KORE has partnered with Kaleido Intelligence to address the opportunities and challenges for IoT in the energy and utilities sector during a webinar on October 13. Kaleido Intelligence recently released a global survey for 2022 which details key research on IoT in five different vertical areas, and in this KORE webinar, Kaleido Intelligence and KORE will discuss the findings and give practical tips and insights on how to maximize the IoT digital transformation. Stedin, a sustainable energy provider in The Netherlands, will join the webinar to share information on their journey to smart metering through IoT
Want to join the webinar? Click here to register.
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