Filenews 31 January 2023 - by Chrysanthos Manoli
It is final that there will be further delays in the launch and implementation of EAC's plan for the installation of 400,000 smart meters, as the Authority is not ready to start the program even in the first months of 2023, as it had informed the Parliament, through its budget approved in December 2022.
From the answer given to us yesterday by EAC, after a relevant question, it follows that under the best conditions the installation of smart meters will be able to start in the second half of 2023. Provided that there will be no third cancellation, by the Tenders Revision Authority, of the expected new decision to award the tender to one of the bidders.
We remind you that the installation of 400,000 meters, so that the vast majority of EAC's customers have state-of-the-art meters, is provided for by a regulatory decision of CERA in 2018, based on which EAC should start the tenders for securing the equipment in January 2019 and repeat them every year, so that by January 2023 it will have in its hands the 400,000 smart meters. Based on the same decision, the first installation of the new meters (57,143 meters) was supposed to be completed in January 2021 and by January this year almost 180,000 smart meters should have been installed! However, the implementation of this programme has not even begun.
Smart meters and photovoltaics
The issue of smart meters is back in the news after the letter of the Transmission and Distribution Operators to the Ministry of Energy (20/1/2023), in which they asked to stop the approval of new licenses for residential photovoltaics, until a new grant scheme is announced, with new upgraded technical requirements. Primarily, to establish an obligation for residential consumers to install along with the photovoltaic system a ripple control mechanism, with which the Transmission Operator will be able to intervene in the operation of the photovoltaic system and put it off the grid when this is necessary for the stability and safety of the electrical system. As technocrats in the sector claim (but also as recorded in the 2018 decision of CERA), if smart meters were installed today, the necessary control over residential photovoltaics could be exercised, without the need to install ripple control and without the Operators being so worried about the risks lurking in the system, due to the increase in the power of uncontrolled photovoltaics to about 145 megawatts, that is, as much as the safety limit previously set by CERA.
EAC's response
We asked yesterday for an official update from EAC on the location of the issue of the award of the tender for the installation of smart meters.
We were given the answer that "the tender for the installation of smart meters was awarded in March 2022 and since then two appeals have been filed (s.p. by an equal number of bidders) before the Tenders Revision Authority (IQR). We are at the stage of examining the second appeal (since the contract was awarded on the basis of the results of the first appeal), on which there was a new annulling decision on January 4, 2023 (eg. after a successful appeal by another bidder).
We are", continues EAC spokesperson Christina Papadopoulou, "in the process of reviewing the tender, as a result of the annulment decision of the AAP, dated January 4, 2023, in the second hierarchical appeal. At the end of the review (expected in March 2023) the competition will be resubmitted to the Authority's Management Board for a decision. It is not excluded that the possibility of submitting a new appeal (eg for annulment of the decision), which you understand if it is made, will add further delays to the project".
A painful story
Submitting last November its budget for 2023 to the Parliament, EAC informed MPs that it planned to start in 2023 a three-year program for the installation of 400,000 smart meters, for the implementation of CERA's regulatory decision in 2018. As EAC informed, if the problems with the competition were fully overcome by the end of 2022, it would start installing the new meters from the beginning of 2023... The planning provides for about 130,000 meters per year. An amount of €2023 million was budgeted for 2017 for this purpose, which, however, is expected to cover the cost for the installation of cash in new customers' premises.
From EAC's answer to the question of "F", it follows that we will have a new one in March (by decision of the EAC Board of Directors with which bidder it will continue) and from then on, if there is a new appeal against the decision, there will be a new delay of a few months. It should be noted that... The same and worse happened when EAC attempted about 10 years ago (!) to launch a pilot program for the installation of smart meters, which collapsed through successive (at least four) cancellations of EAC decisions by the Tenders Revision Authority. In the end, the Electricity Authority decided not to proceed with the pilot program and instead it was decided, by CERA, to start implementing a plan for the installation, by 2027, of 400,000 smart meters. That hasn't started yet.
What they will offer to the electrical system
As the issue of controlling and potentially limiting the operation of rooftop photovoltaic systems is in the news, we draw from the 2018 regulatory decision the point that smart meters will allow, among other things, "intervention in photovoltaic systems (remote control and retrieval of data and measurements of generated power and energy)". That is, what the two operators state today that they absolutely need and which - in the absence of smart meters - they want to achieve even with an old technology equipment (ripple control), which, however, does not provide any flexibility to the Transmission Operator: Simply, when it deems it appropriate, it will use it to completely disconnect from the grid the residential photovoltaics of an area, without ease of reconnection, which will be left to the owners.
CERA's 2018 decision records many other benefits from the use of smart meters:
1. Observability, monitoring, retrieval of data and measurements of electricity and power, 2. Forecasting electricity and load demand, 3. Network analysis using the recovered data, 4. Electricity load and demand management, 5. Optimization of operation in the distribution network, 6. Support for network studies, 7. Electric Charging Management, 8. Optimization of the forecast of the power produced by RES, per half hour of the next day, 9. Maximizing RES penetration, 10. Alternative/management for the Remote Control System (ripple control), 11. Needs for energy storage, 12.Reduction of losses in the network, 13. Facilitating fault detection and thus faster reset, 14. Preventing theft, 15. Remote interruption of supply to bad payers, 16. Reading measurement in inaccessible and remote spaces, 17. Saving resources from remote reading, 18. Remote connection/disconnection support, 19. Support import/export metrics.
