BT joins battle for lucrative smart metering contracts

Telecoms giant partners with Arqiva, the firm currently switching UK from analogue to digital TV

BT looking at getting into the smart meter business

BT has partnered with communications services firm Arqiva, a company heavily involved in the switch from analogue to digital TV broadcasts, and BAE-owned information management specialists Detica, to provide a dedicated long-range radio communications solution for the government’s smart metering initiative.

The group will offer a dedicated network specifically for the smart metering programme, using Arqiva’s radio spectrum and network infrastructure.

BT's remit is to provide expertise in delivering complex IT and comms projects, while Detica will provide robust, secure information and infrastructure security services.

Other partner support will come from smart meter and smart grid specialist Sensus which is providing its FlexNet fixed network utility meter reading system.

The group argues that a dedicated radio spectrum at 400MHz would have advantages over the GPRS-based radio spectrum used by mobile operators.

This is backed up by recent researchfrom analyst Ovum which stated that GPRS has some serious limitations, not least the fact that as the majority of UK meters are in cellars or part-buried, they may have difficulty connecting to a GPRS network.

The multibillion-pound government smart meter initiative plans to install smart meters in 28 million residential premises and small businesses by 2020.

The initiative aims to reduce Britain's energy costs and lower carbon dioxide emissions by 2.6 million tonnes per year.

Government guidelines will be published in the near future, according to a Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesperson. These guidelines will give further details on the UK's smart meter approach for monitoring power usage.

The partners say they will review these before formally launching their proposal in September.

Technology market research firm ABI Research recently estimated that the market value of smart grids would top $45bn (£30bn) by 2015.