Rețele Electrice companies launch 24 million euros tender for smart meters

The companies Rețele Electrice Muntenia, Rețele Electrice Banat and Rețele Electrice Dobrogea (part of the PPC group in Romania, previously named E-Distribuție Muntenia, Banat, and Dobrogea, respectively) have launched, through the public acquisitions platform, a procedure for the purchase of smart meters. The contracts will be framework agreements, with a duration of 12 months and a maximum estimated cumulative value of 24.25 million euros.

The three distribution operators intend to purchase up to around 300,000 smart meters, the minimum volume being around 120,000.

At the end of 2023, the three Rețele Electice companies were the leaders of the electricity distribution segment in Romania in terms of smart metering, with over 1.5 million smart meters installed for residential and business customers: approximately 713,000 at Rețele Electrice Muntenia (which serves Bucharest and the counties of Ilfov and Giurgiu), more than 436,000 at Rețele Electrice Banat (counties of Arad, Caraș Severin, Hunedoara and Timiș), respectively over 376,000 at Rețele Electrice Dobrogea (counties of Călăraşi, Constanța, Ialomița and Tulcea).

“The resilience of the networks and the digitalization of the energy infrastructure are our priorities, the smart meters being important elements in the energy circuit that help us offer our customers the necessary tools on the way to the energy transition. The resilient networks of the future, which will work in a digital way to integrate both localized production sources, such as prosumers, but also new types of electrified consumption, such as electric vehicles, are based on smart meters, which, in addition to the basic functions, transmission of the consumption index or remote reconnection, offers the possibility of viewing energy flows from the network and managing them according to the needs of customers for the reading period,” said Mihai Pește, General Director Rețele Electrice companies.

Starting from 2015, Rețele Electrice companies install smart meters for customers in the Banat, Dobrogea and Muntenia regions, in accordance with the implementation schedule established by the National Energy Regulatory Authority. For the current year, the Rețele Electrice companies aim to install over 171,000 smart meters.

More details about the installation calendar for each of the counties of Arad, Caraș Severin, Hunedoara, Timișoara, Călărași, Constanța, Ialomița, Tulcea, Ilfov, Giurgiu and Bucharest can be accessed here.

More details about smart meters are available at https://www.e-distributie.com/ro/contorul-inteligent.html.

The equipment for which bids are expected in the open auction are single-phase and direct three-phase smart electronic meters, as well as fully equipped data concentrators (including router/modem for remote data transmission). All of these must use the Meters & More communication protocol that supports bidirectional data transfer in metering systems, required for example in the case of prosumers.