Wirepas achieves milestone of 1 million smart electricity meters deployed in India

Tampere, Finland, Dec 7, 2023 – Wirepas, a global leader in wireless connectivity technology, announces a significant achievement with the deployment of 1 million smart meters powered by Wirepas mesh technology across India. This landmark underscores Wirepas' commitment to advancing smart metering solutions and positioning RF mesh technology as the most reliable technology for smart meters.

Jani Vehkalahti, Senior Vice President of Smart Grids at Wirepas, states, "Unrivalled reliability, that’s our secret. Together with our partners we had already achieved the highest 99.9% SLA in the demanding European smart metering market. Now exceeding 1 million smart meters deployed in India proves the robustness of Wirepas technology in harsh conditions. Our focus on affordable reliability positions Wirepas as the trusted wireless technology partner for any utility."

Wirepas stands out in the market with its ultra-reliable, yet affordable RF mesh technology. Unlike cellular solutions, RF mesh offers inherent advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness and reliability. The decentralized nature of mesh ensures a resilient and self-healing network enabling seamless communication with minimal infrastructure even in challenging environments. Despite unlimited scale, Wirepas technology can run in a minimal memory configuration compared to the traditional routing table approach, and therefore enables the most cost-efficient radio chipsets.

India has one of the toughest smart metering requirements in the world, demanding features such as frequent reading intervals and a pioneering cloud-based prepayment system. Technology used must ensure immediate access to electricity upon balance top-up, emphasizing consumer satisfaction. In regions with minimal electricity consumption, users upload small amounts to their prepaid accounts, leading to over 10% of smart meters receiving disconnect and connect commands daily. Additionally, many smart meters in India are situated in secured metering rooms where cellular coverage is severely restricted. Wirepas mesh technology has demonstrated exceptional reliability in linking smart meters within these enclosed spaces. Essentially, only a single smart meter is required to establish a route to the rest of the network.

These requirements highlight the need for a very robust connectivity. Wirepas technology, through its partnerships, has demonstrated its ability to meet the rigorous requirements of the Indian IS-16444 standard and Standard Bidding Document in Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions.

Vehkalahti further explains, "As the market evolves, we are steadfast in our mission to help the Indian government to succeed in the world’s most ambitious electricity smart metering roll-out. Wirepas has heavily invested in core technology but also on a complete AMI reference enabling its partners to accelerate their projects execution while ensuring performance and reliability at scale. Wirepas is also increasing its local investments to bring more high-quality partners into the mission of deploying 250 million meters in India. Our strong partnerships, which are already delivering and building solutions in India, stand as testament to our capabilities. The first million is a great start but less than 1% of our target. We are determined to help the ecosystem to meet the challenge that the India government has set.”