Smart Metering Projections for North American Markets

According to an in-depth report from industry analyst and consulting firm Berg Insight, the smart electricity metering rate in North America reached upwards of 77% by the end of 2022. Berg Insight forecasts that this will rise at a compound annual growth rate of 5.7% by 2025, indicating the installed base of smart meters increasing from 659.3 million units in 2019 to an estimated 886.1 million over the next two years.

North America was the first global region to go beyond traditional energy metering back in the 1980s. For present-day smart cities and smart city project developments, hyper-intelligent grids are and will continue to be an integral part of improving smart cities’ reliable and resilient energy supplies. These large-scale initiatives are driven by new smart meter functionalities and smart energy use cases that are still being studied.

Interest in advanced electricity metering infrastructure is also growing when speaking about being able to leverage installed radio frequency (RF energy, or radio waves) networks for additional applications. Per Berg Insight, “Most network platforms 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, increasing investments in areas such as distribution automation, distributed energy resources (DERs), electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure and smart streetlighting are highlighting the need for further synergies.”

Smart metering in North America has become the foremost source of information in regard to ongoing transformations in the metering sector. Solutions vendors, utilities, telecom operators, investors and government agencies alike will continue to gain invaluable insights from it.