Smart Metering in North America – 7th Edition

Smart Metering in North America is the seventh consecutive marketreport from Berg Insight analysing the latest smart meteringdevelopments in the US and Canada covering both electricity andgas. This strategic research report from Berg Insight provides youwith over 145 pages of unique business intelligence, including 5-yearindustry forecasts, expert commentary and real-life case studies onwhich to base your business decisions.


Smart metering is widely regarded as the cornerstone for future smart grids and is currentlybeing deployed all over the developed world, with a growing number of large-scale initiativesnow also being launched in developing countries. Asia-Pacific constitutes the largest market byfar while North America ranks as the third largest market after Europe. North America and Europeare two highly dynamic market regions that saw a wave of massive smart metering projects beinglaunched or completed during the first half of the past decade. Several major utilities in theseregions are thus now preparing for a second-wave of deployments to take off, driven by newsmart meter functionalities and smart energy use-cases. Berg Insight forecasts that the installedbase of smart electricity meters in North America will grow at a compound annual growth rate of2.9 percent throughout the forecast period, from 152.4 million in 2024 to a total of 180.9 millionin 2030. The installed base of smart electricity meters in the US reached 136.9 million in 2024,while the installed base of smart electricity meters in Canada reached 15.5 million in the sameyear. The penetration of smart electricity meters is higher in Canada compared to the US howeverthis difference is expected to continuously shrink until 2030 when the countries are forecastedto have penetration rates of 97 percent and 91 percent respectively.

North America was the first region in the world to move beyond traditional energy meteringthrough the widespread introduction of AMR which started in the 1980s. Today, intelligent gridsare becoming an integral part of the development of smart cities, and smart meters’ ability toimprove the reliability and resilience of energy supply constitutes an important driver of growthin the region. A significant majority of the large investor-owned utilities in North America are noweither fully deployed or in the implementation or planning phases of large-scale projects, and asecond-wave of deployments is on the horizon for the early adopters. The penetration of smartelectricity meters in the region was around 82 percent in 2024 and is expected to increase toover 91 percent in 2030, mostly driven by large investor-owned utility projects in the US as therelatively mature market in Canada is only expected to see moderate growth. In terms of totalshipments of smart electricity meters, second-wave rollouts for early adopters are ramping upand will grow their share of annual shipment volumes throughout the forecast period, accountingfor almost 75 percent by the end of the forecast period.

The market in North America is dominated by the two US-based companies AcIara and Itron, aswell as Swiss-based Landis+Gyr. Itron and Landis+Gyr have a 35 and 32 percent market sharerespectively of the installed base of smart electricity meters in North America. Aclara is in thirdplace with a market share of 21 percent and the remaining 12 percent is predominately sharedbetween Honeywell and Sensus. In terms of network endpoints, the largest player is Itron with amarket share of 64 percent, followed by Landis+Gyr with a market share of 25 percent andSensus with an 8 percent market share.

North America is a technologically advanced market where smart electricity metering isimplemented in the context of the smart grid. Wireless RF technologies are today preferred andaccount for the vast majority of installations, both in the electricity and the gas sectors. Theleading players provide proprietary RF mesh or star topology platforms for the unlicensed 915MHz ISM band, in addition to licensed sub-GHz spectrums. Wi-SUN-based mesh networksoffered by vendors such as Landis+Gyr and Itron is currently the most widespread variant andalso accounts for the majority of shipments. In the North American region PLC has generallybeen perceived as inferior in terms of performance and cost mainly due to the characteristics ofthe grid, where the ratio of meters per substation is low. Cellular communications have alsohistorically enjoyed limited adoption in the region, partly due to the technology being perceivedas too costly compared to RF communications. The evolution of public cellular standards hasalso raised questions about network longevity and backward compatibility, leading to concernsthat meters reliant on cellular technologies might become unsupported before the end of theiruseful life. A few significant cellular deployments totalling less than 5 million meters have howeverbeen made throughout the past decade. The prospects for cellular technology in the NorthAmerican smart metering sector are meanwhile improving, particularly driven by the utilities’increasing interest in private cellular networks which hold the potential to address some of thekey challenges that has previously held back wider adoption of cellular communications.

Among utilities which have already deployed advanced electricity metering infrastructure,interest is now growing for being able to leverage the installed RF network for applicationsbeyond smart metering and bring a wider array of devices onto the platform. Most networkplatforms are already designed to support a number of smart grid applications in addition to two-way communications with meters. With the advanced metering infrastructure in place, increasinginvestments in areas such as distribution automation, distributed energy resources (DERs),electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and smart streetlighting are however highlighting theneed for further synergies.

1 Smart Grids and Intelligent
Meters
1.1 Introduction to smart grids
1.2 Smart metering
1.2.1 Smart metering applications
1.2.2 Smart metering infrastructure
1.2.3 Benefits of smart metering
1.3 Project strategies
1.3.1 System design and sourcing
1.3.2 Rollout and integration
1.3.3 Implementation and operation
1.3.4 Communication with customers
1.4 Regulatory issues
1.4.1 Models for the introduction of smart meters
1.4.2 Standardisation
1.4.3 Individual rights issues
2 IoT Networks and
Communications Technologies
2.1 IoT network technologies
2.1.1 Network architectures
2.1.2 Unlicensed and licensed frequency bands
2.2 PLC technology and standards
2.2.1 International standards organisations
2.2.2 G3-PLC
2.2.3 PRIME
2.2.4 Meters & More
2.3 3GPP cellular and LPWA technologies
2.3.1 2G/3G/4G/5G cellular technologies and IoT
2.3.2 NB-IoT and LTE-M
2.3.3 The role of cellular networks in smart meter
communications
2.3.4 LoRa & LoRaWAN
2.3.5 Sigfox
2.4 IEEE 802.15.4-based RF
2.4.1 IEEE 802.15.4
2.4.2 Wi-SUN
2.4.3 Proprietary IPv6 connectivity stacks based on
802.15.4
3 Smart Metering Industry Players
3.1 Meter vendors
3.1.1 Itron
3.1.2 Landis+Gyr
3.1.3 Aclara (Hubbell)
3.1.4 Gridspertise
3.1.5 Honeywell
3.1.6 Nansen (Sanxing Electric)
3.1.7 Networked Energy Services (NES)
3.1.8 Pietro Fiorentini
3.1.9 Sagemcom
3.1.10 Sensus (Xylem)
3.1.11 Vision Metering
3.1.12 Wasion
3.2 Communications solution providers
3.2.1 Aviat Networks (4RF)
3.2.2 Eaton
3.2.3 Nexgrid
3.2.4 Nighthawk
3.2.5 Tantalus Systems
3.2.6 Trilliant
3.2.7 Ubiik
3.2.8 Wirepas
3.3 Software solution providers
3.3.1 Hansen Technologies
3.3.2 Harris Utilities
3.3.3 Parsons Corporation (IPKeys Power Partners)
3.3.4 Oracle
3.3.5 OSlsoft (Aveva)
3.3.6 SAP
3.3.7 Siemens
3.4 System integrators and communications
service providers
3.4.1 Accenture
3.4.2 Capgemini
3.4.3 Cisco
3.4.4 GE Vernova (Greenbird Integration Technology)
3.4.5 IBM
3.4.6 Verizon
4 Market Overview
4.1 Regional summary
4.2 United States
4.2.1 Electricity and gas utilities
4.2.2 Smart grid funding and policies
4.2.3 Regional overview: Northeast
4.2.4 Regional overview: Midwest
4.2.5 Regional overview: South
4.2.6 Regional overview: West
4.3 Canada
4.3.1 Electricity and gas utilities
4.3.2 Smart grid funding and policies
4.3.3 Ontario’s smart meter rollout
4.3.4 Smart metering initiatives in other provinces
5 Market Forecasts and Trends
5.1 Overview of the smart energy metering market
5.1.1 Market forecast
5.1.2 Technology trends
5.1.3 Industry analysis
6 Case Studies
6.1 6.1.1 Ameren
6.1.2 Consolidated Edison
6.1.3 Entergy
6.1.4 National Grid
6.1.5 NiSource
6.1.6 Hawaiian Electric
6.1.7 TXNM
6.1.8 BC Hydro
6.1.9 Hydro-Québec

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