More than a million smart meters powered by Wirepas mesh technology have been installed across India.

Finland-based wireless connectivity company Wirepas says this landmark underscores its commitment to advancing smart metering and positioning RF mesh technology as the most reliable technology for smart meters.

“Unrivalled reliability, that’s our secret,” said Jani Vehkalahti, senior vice president at Wirepas. “Together with our partners, we had already achieved the highest 99.9% SLA in the demanding European smart metering market. Now exceeding one million smart meters deployed in India proves the robustness of Wirepas technology in harsh conditions. Our focus on affordable reliability positions Wirepas as the trusted wireless technology partner for any utility.”

Unlike cellular technology, RF mesh offers inherent advantages in terms of cost-effectiveness and reliability. The decentralised nature of mesh ensures a resilient and self-healing network enabling seamless communication with minimal infrastructure even in difficult environments. Despite unlimited scale, Wirepas technology can run in a minimal memory configuration compared with the traditional routing table approach, and therefore enables more cost-efficient radio chipsets.

India has one of the toughest smart metering requirements in the world, demanding features such as frequent reading intervals and a cloud-based prepayment system. Technology used must ensure immediate access to electricity upon balance top-up, emphasising consumer satisfaction.

In regions with low electricity consumption, users upload small amounts to their prepaid accounts, leading to over a tenth of smart meters receiving disconnect and connect commands daily. Additionally, many smart meters in India are situated in secured metering rooms where cellular coverage is severely restricted. Wirepas mesh technology has demonstrated reliability in linking smart meters within these enclosed spaces. Essentially, only a single smart meter is required to establish a route to the rest of the network.

These requirements highlight the need for a very robust connectivity. Wirepas (www.wirepas.com) technology, through its partnerships, has demonstrated its ability to meet the rigorous requirements of the Indian IS-16444 standard and standard bidding document in advanced metering infrastructure (AMI).

“As the market evolves, we are steadfast in our mission to help the Indian government to succeed in the world’s most ambitious electricity smart metering roll-out,” said Vehkalahti. “Wirepas has heavily invested in core technology but also on a complete AMI reference enabling its partners to accelerate their projects execution while ensuring performance and reliability at scale. Wirepas is also increasing its local investments to bring more high-quality partners into the mission of deploying 250 million meters in India. Our strong partnerships, which are already delivering and building solutions in India, stand as testament to our capabilities. The first million is a great start but less than one per cent of our target. We are determined to help the ecosystem to meet the challenge that the India government has set.”