Benefits of sponsorship (Virtual Conference)

• E-Meet influencers and decision-makers
• Reach out to and engage with new or active prospects
• Generate high quality sales leads
• Increase brand recognition
• Target a captive and engaged audience
• Drive website traffic through social media promotions
• Position your company as the thought-leader in your industry

For  sponsorship opportunities contact:
Nishpreet Bhasin,
Email: nishpreet.bhasin@indiainfrastructure.com
Mob: +91-9953452964

• Over the past couple of years, revamping the metering infrastructure with the adoption of smart meters has been one of the key focus areas of distribution utilities. Smart meters can improve the operational and financial performance of discoms by automatically generating bills, preventing delayed payments through the remote disconnections feature, and reducing aggregate technical and commercial losses, among other things.
• Smart meters made it possible for discoms to achieve around 95 per cent billing efficiency during the lockdown, besides increasing monthly revenue per consumer by 15-20 per cent. These benefits are compelling an increasing number of discoms to adopt smart metering technology.
• So far, 2.26 million smart meters have been installed across the country under various government schemes and programmes, and deployments of around 6.90 million smart meters are underway. State-wise, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana are currently leading in terms of deployments, with 1.14 million and 258,060 meters installed so far.
• EESL plans to replace 250 million conventional meters with smart meters under the Smart Meter National Programme. So far, 1.58 million smart meters have been installed under the scheme by EESL and Intellismart Infrastructure (its joint venture with NIIF).
• Smart meter adoption is also being supported by other government schemes and programmes including the IPDS (244,222), the National Smart Grid Mission (8,980) and smart grid pilots funded by the MoP (156,533).
• Budget 2021, which has announced the new reform-based scheme for the power distribution segment with an outlay of Rs 3 trillion for five years, is further expected to provide a push to metering with assistance to discoms for infrastructure creation including prepaid smart metering.
• Notably, smart prepaid metering is fast emerging as one of the preferred options for utilities. Bihar is the first state to use about 25,000 smart prepaid meters. On an average, consumers are recharging their prepaid smart meters with a credit of Rs 20 daily, resulting in daily recharge revenues of Rs 500,000. The state is targeting to install 2.34 million smart prepaid meters.
• To accelerate adoption, a joint venture for providing a common back-end infrastructure facility is also in the works, which will offer a plug-and-play architecture with standardised, preconfigured, pre-integrated, scalable back-end infrastructure. The facility will be offered to discoms on a software- or solution-as-a-service basis, and only usage fees will be charged.
• Given the large volumes of data to be generated, a key focus area for discoms is expected to be meter data management systems for consolidating and storing data from the meters and deriving useful actionable inferences through meter data analytics. For this, next-generation technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and internet of things could also be useful.
• A reliable and secure communication infrastructure is also imperative for the smooth operation of the smart metering infrastructure. Depending on their needs and requirements, the utilities can choose from an available array of technologies including fibre optics, power line communication, radio frequency mesh, cellular network and narrowband internet of things.
• That said, in order to accelerate the adoption of smart meters, there is a need to address issues pertaining to interoperability, integration of the legacy billing system, and manpower training. Besides, with the growing interconnectedness and access to granular power consumption data, maintaining data privacy and ensuring cybersecurity are paramount.

The mission of the two-day virtual conference is to highlight and deliberate upon

• Progress under various government schemes (SMNP, IPDS, NSGM)
• Utility experience and plans
• New and emerging technologies
• Future outlook and key focus areas

KEY TRENDS AND OUTLOOK

• What are the key trends in the power distribution segment?
• What have been the recent trends and developments with respect to metering?
• What are the new and emerging utility requirements post-COVID? What is the outlook?

GOVERNMENT PERSPECTIVE

• What has been the progress on smart metering under various government schemes?
• What is the government’s vision for smart metering? What are the targets for roll-out?
• What are the key issues and challenges and how are these being addressed?

UTILITY VIEWPOINT

• What has been the discom experience with regard to metering so far?
• What are the key considerations in the selection of the smart metering technologies?
• What are the future plans? What are the key focus areas?

REGULATORS’ PERSPECTIVE

• What is the perspective of regulators on the roll-out of smart meters across states?
• What are the key issues and areas of concern for regulators?
• What is the regulator’s outlook? What are the key focus areas?

METER MANUFACTURERS’ OUTLOOK

• What are the technologies most suited for Indian utilities?
• What is the level of industry preparedness for the large-scale roll-out of smart meters?
• What are the key challenges faced by meter manufacturers?

UPDATE ON SMNP

• What is the current status of smart metering under the SMNP? What has been the impact of COVID on deployments?
• What has been experience so far? What are the key lessons learnt?
• What are the future smart metering targets? What are the issues & challenges?

SMART PREPAID METERING

• How has been the utility experience in the adoption of smart prepaid meters?
• What are the key issues and challenges?
• What are the utility plans? What is the outlook?

NET METERING

• What is the current status of net metering across states? How has been the experience so far?
• What are the key issues and challenges?
• What is the outlook?

SPOTLIGHT ON DT METERING

• What is the current status of DT metering?
• What are the issues and challenges?
• What is the outlook? What are the key focus areas?

METER DATA MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

• What are the MDMS technologies most relevant for Indian utilities?
• What are the key considerations in the selection of MDMS?
• What are the key issues and challenges?

METER DATA ANALYTICS

• What are the key use cases of smart meter data analytics for utilities?
• What has been the trend in the uptake of meter data analytics by utilities?
• What are the issues and concerns? What is the outlook?

FOCUS ON COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY

• What are the meter communication technologies most relevant for Indian utilities?
• What are the key considerations in the selection of communication technology?
• What are the issues and challenges being faced?

CYBERSECURITY AND DATA PRIVACY

• What are the cybersecurity threats and risks to the metering infrastructure?
• What is the way forward for better data privacy and cybersecurity?
• What are the best practices?

Confirmed speakers: 

• Anjuli Chandra, Member, Punjab Electricity Regulatory Commission
• R.K. Choudhary, Member, Bihar Electricity Regulatory Commission
• Annepu Suresh, Director, Distribution, Ministry of Power
• Saumya Agarwal, Managing Director, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam
• Srinivas Thouta, Director, Projects, Southern Power Distribution Company of Telangana
• Manoj Kumar Jhawar, Director, Commercial, MP Paschim Kshetra Vidyut Vitran
• S.K. Gupta, Director, Commercial, Dakshinanchal Vidyut Vitran Nigam
• Debasish Sarkar, Director (Technical), Tripura State Electricity Corporation
• Kaladhar Rao, Director, projects, Andhra Pradesh Southern Power Distribution
• Rajesh Bansal, Senior Vice President ,BSES Rajdhani Power
• Subhadip Raychaudhuri, HOD (CMG, AMI, MRG, Analytics, Eaas) & Smart Metering Project, Tata Power Delhi Distribution
• Sunil Singhvi, CEO, Energy SBU, Secure Meters
• A senior representative from Genus Power Infrastructures
• Udayan Ganguly, General Manager, CESC
• Lalit Kumar, General Manager-IT Security, BSES Yamuna Power
• Dr Rahul Tongia, Senior Fellow, Center for Social and Economic Progress

• Power distribution companies (public and private)
• Other utilities
• Meter manufacturers
• Research and development organizations
• Technology providers
• System integrators
• Consultants
• Financial institutions
• Government agencies
• Regulatory agencies
• Telecommunication providers
• Solution providers, etc.

Delegate benefits (Virtual Conference)

• Direct interaction with senior speakers (Q&A facility)
• Easy connectivity to geographically dispersed delegates (click of a mouse)
• Concise report offered as a backgrounder
• Cost effective (lower ticket price as compared to a physical conference)
• Offers flexibility and convenience
• Access to conference recording
• Recap of conference sessions
• Contributes to sustainability and lower carbon footprint

For registration process/payment  to attend any one conference, please contact:

Nishpreet Bhasin
Email:   nishpreet.bhasin@indiainfrastructure.com
Tel: +91-9953452964

• There is a 30 per cent discount before April 30, 2021
• Complimentary registation for state-owned discoms.
• Registration will be confirmed on receipt of the payment.