With the penetration rate of smart meters now exceeding 50%, the European energy sector has reached a historic milestone.
This can be concluded in the latest research European smart meter market From Berg Insight, a leading IoT analytics company, which has been tracking market developments since 2004.
By the end of 2020, the EU 27+3 region will have nearly 150 million smart meters, The corresponding permeability is 49%. With a strong compound annual growth rate of 7.2%, the installed base is expected to exceed 227 million units in 2026. At the same time, the installed base of equipment in the European smart gas metering market will increase from 39 million units in 2020 to slightly more than 70 million units in 2026.
With the deployment of many markets in Western Europe and Northern Europe now progressing smoothly or basically completed, it is expected that the composition of annual smart power shipments will undergo major changes in the next few years. One major growth area that will spread throughout Europe in the next few years is the deployment of second-generation smart metering.
“In fact, by 2026, the replacement of the first generation of smart metering devices is expected to account for nearly one-third of the cumulative device shipments.”, Said Levi Ostling, senior analyst at Berg Insight.
In terms of first-generation projects, the 10 fastest-growing markets from 2020 to 2026 will be located in both Central and Southeast Europe-this trend shows that the focus has begun to shift from the large Western European market that has always been dominant . The focus of the European smart meter market in the past decade.
Another major change in progress is related to the communication technology used to exchange data with the back office of the utility. The share of wireless connectivity options in annual smart meter shipments is expected to increase from 25% in 2020 to 57% in 2026. A large part of the growth will be attributed to the rise of 3GPP-based LPWA connection services, which have been available in most European markets in the past few years.
Mr. Osterlin concluded:
“NB-IoT and LTE-M communications have now achieved commercial breakthroughs in the European metering market, and are considering the number of fast-growing projects.”
