JV firm to support discoms for smart meters

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SME Times News Bureau | 16 Sep, 2020
The Union government has initiated the process to set up a new joint venture company with a capital outlay of Rs 2,000 crore to provide the necessary infrastructural facilities to power distribution companies for speedy installation of smart meters in the country.

The joint venture will see the participation of four public sector undertakings -- NTPC Limited, Power Grid Corporation, REC Limited, and Power Finance Corporation (PFC).

The boards of PFC and REC have already approved an equity investment of Rs 150 crore each in the joint venture for Common Backend Infrastructure Facility (CBIF).

The NTPC and Power Grid will also put in an initial capital of Rs 150 crore each in the JV that will also mobilise another Rs 1,400 crore debt, taking the total available capital to Rs 2,000 crore.

Under the CBIF, the JV will set up necessary infrastructural facilities that will allow discoms to fast-track the rollout of smart meters as all the entities would use standardised infrastructure under the automation scheme.

The plug-and-play model with standardised back-end infrastructure will allow discoms to just hook onto the system and start rolling smart metering services in their respective areas of operation.

All the data under smart metering will be captured by the back-end system that will allow discoms to reduce maintenance costs on such a huge database of smart services. The back-end system will also generate MIS report to facilitate the discoms with metering data.