Smart grid deployment on deck for the U.K.
The smart grid is ramping up in England where 53 million smart meters will be installed at every UK home between 2015 and 2020. The program will cost 11.7 billion pounds in an effort to modernize the grid there.
The government announced suppliers last week with Capita, Telefonica and CGI walking away as big winners in a 2.8 billion pound contract award. The contracts govern everything from systems tthat manage messaging between smart meters and utilities to software companies that will write code for the energy industry.
What’s interesting about the U.K. deployment is how quickly the government thinks it can do it. Five years is a very short period for such a deployment but the U.S. has a similar target date of full deployment—2020. Although the U.S. deployment has been well underway for years now. Once all these meters are deployed the true software opportunities should arise as utilities further explore software platforms that could drive energy efficiency and reliability on the grid.
