If you’re sceptical about the pivotal role assigned to smart meters in energy decarbonisation, the emergence of smartphones as a foundation for global ride-sharing companies like Uber might also have seemed like a stretch.

But that’s precisely what mass-adoption of new technology does – enable breakthroughs that were previously unthinkable.

Not so long ago, energy meters were analogue devices that did little more than record customer usage, generating the required data for billing.

However, energy markets in Australia, New Zealand and other advanced economies are now undergoing a transformation, embracing electrification of sectors such as transport and industrial processes while lifting the contribution of renewables.

The result is a more complex system where generation is increasingly intermittent.

Also, electricity is flowing both ways, from the grid to the customer and vice versa, with installation of rooftop solar enabling households to become small-scale generators.

The role of the smart meter in the new energy system is to generate real-time data and insights, lowering the risk normally associated with increased complexity.

Bluecurrent chief executive Neil Williams, who manages more than 2.5 million electricity and gas meters in Australia and NZ, says the shift to a more distributed rather than centralised system will only accelerate.

“The move to distributed energy capabilities, whether it’s solar panels, batteries or electric cars, is only going in one direction and it’s not slowing down, as far as I can see,” Mr Williams says.

“The widespread use of smart meters provides a level of data and capability that lets retailers and others create products that customers want.

“I can pull up my app and see how much power my house used per half-hour, how much it used yesterday, or an estimate of my bill based on that level of usage.

“Retailers in NZ use that kind of data and analytics to develop products, such as free power for an hour every day. You can do that type of thing when you’ve got an advanced meter.”

Bluecurrent was established when NZ-based Vector sold 50% of its share in Vector Metering – its NZ and Australian metering business – to Queensland Investment Corporation (QIC) in June 2023.

The aim of the deal was to cement the company’s position in the Australian energy sector, where it recently extended its contract with Origin Energy to instal smart meters into more Australian homes.

Also last year, Bluecurrent signed an agreement with NZ electricity distribution business Orion to provide operational data from the company’s smart electricity meters.

This enables Orion to optimise the capacity and performance of its low-voltage network, minimising the need for more lines and cables while promoting transparency and better offers to the market, according to Bluecurrent.

The Australian Energy Market Commission recognised this in an August 2023 review of the regulatory framework for metering, where the key recommendation was to speed up the rollout of smart meters by setting a 2030 target for universal take-up.

The current rate of deployment was assessed as “slow”, and less efficient than it could be.

Outside of Victoria, the average level of take-up in each state was around 30 per cent, which meant it would take at least another 4-5 years to achieve 50 per cent.

At that rate, full deployment might not occur until after 2040.

Despite this, customers were increasingly investing in consumer energy resources (CER), such as solar panels and, increasingly, battery storage and electric vehicles.

The rapid adoption of CER had already delivered significant benefits to households, so it was important to develop a framework for metering services suitable for an energy system in transition, according to the AEMC.

“Smart meter deployment supports the transition of the Australian energy system to net zero,” the report said.

“A faster deployment will enable customers and the parties that service them to access the benefits of smart meters more quickly.

“Distribution network service providers would develop an annual schedule to retire legacy accumulation and manually read meters. Retailers would then be responsible for installing smart meters at these sites over the five-year acceleration period.”

The report said the market was undergoing “unprecedented” change in response to market and technology developments, changing community expectations and the shift to a cleaner energy system.

It predicted households would become smarter and more autonomous over time and would increasingly interact with the grid and energy markets, either actively or passively.

Mr Williams said Australia had the highest density of installed solar panels in the world.

Once CER started to proliferate, he said, advanced meters were required to manage the network efficiently and reliably.

“If you have solar panels and you want to be paid for injecting electricity back into the network, you need a smart meter to get paid for the electricity production at that point in time,” the Bluecurrent boss said.

“Also, if you have a battery or something like that, you might want information that comes from an advanced meter, and the other thing as economies decarbonise is to use the flexibility that’s effectively embedded inside people’s homes without any interruption to their electricity supply.

“So if our meters are configured for it, and our retail customer and its customer signs up for it, they can remotely control some load at the property – normally it’s the hot water cylinder for short periods of time.

“For the retailer and distributor, knowing what’s happening in your low-voltage network is really important to making sure that people get the power when they want it and when they need it.”