Smart Metering in Europe - 19th Edition

Close to 60 percent of the electricity customers in EU27+3 had a smart meter at the end of 2023 - a figure that is forecasted to increase to as much as 80 percent in 2029. In terms of shipments, smart meters accounted for around 85 percent of total EU27+3 electricity meter shipments in 2023. Italy, which is currently in the midst of its second-generation rollout, was the largest market in terms of shipments with around 5.0 million units installed during the year. The United Kingdom was the second largest market by volume with yearly shipments of more than 2.2 million units, a number that should have been higher if the British utilities met their installation targets for the year.

The third largest market was Sweden, which is in the midst of its second-generation deployment, with yearly shipments of around 1.5 million units. Poland and France were also in the top five in terms of shipment volumes. Other markets with large installation volumes during the year included Austria, Portugal and Belgium. The smart metering market in Europe remains promising and is set for robust growth in the coming years with a total of close to 127 million smart electricity meters forecasted to be deployed across the region during 2023-2029.

The installed base of smart energy meters to reach 335 million across Europe by 2029

In addition to major first-generation deployments in countries such as the UK, France, Austria, Belgium and Portugal, second-generation rollouts in countries such as Italy and Sweden will contribute with substantial shipment volumes up until the end of 2024. Poland, which is currently ramping up smart meter installations will meanwhile account for a substantial and increasing share of smart meter shipments throughout the entire forecast period. From 2025 and forward, the ramp-up of second-generation installations in markets such as Spain as well as first generation deployments in Germany and Greece are also expected to be important contributors to yearly shipment volumes. In total, replacements of first-generation smart meters are expected to be in the range of 20-40 percent of total smart meter shipments in Europe throughout the next five years, or 3.5-7.0 million units annually.

As the rollouts in many countries in Western Europe and the Nordics are now either well advanced or largely completed, the focus is increasingly shifting to Central, East and Southeast Europe. The outlook for the region has improved significantly over the past years with multiple major rollouts now planned or already under way. Overall, the CEE and Southeast European region is expected to account for as much as 52 percent of annual EU27+3 smart meter shipments in 2029, up from 28 percent in 2023. Looking only at the growth in annual shipment volumes of first-generation smart meter projects, 9 of the 10 fastest growing markets can be found in CEE and Southeast Europe.

The rapid development of new wireless technologies for IoT communications has a major impact on the smart metering market in Europe. DSOs planning for new smart grid projects and rollouts in the mid-2020s have a wide range of increasingly sophisticated wireless technologies to choose from for their networking platforms. Wireless technologies have a number of advantages compared to PLC technologies which dominated the first wave of smart electricity deployments in Europe. Supported by massive R&D investments in the mobile communications industry in combination with decreasing mobile subscription costs, 3GPP-based LPWA technologies such as NB-IoT and LTE-M are now rapidly gaining traction in the electricity, gas and water utilities space.

Several major deployments utilising these technologies are now either underway or about to begin in the Benelux, the Nordics and the Baltics. 3GPP-based LPWA will close to triple its smart meter connectivity market share throughout the forecast period. At the moment, various forms of PLC will remain the dominant technology group in terms of installed base although purely wireless communications options are forecasted to account for over 50 percent of shipment volumes during most of the forecast period - peaking at around 64 percent in 2025-2026. Adoption of smart metering is also growing fast in the European gas distribution market. At the end of 2023, around 44 percent of the natural gas customers in EU27+3 had been equipped with a smart gas meter.

The analyzer estimates that the number of natural gas customers with a smart gas meter will increase to 76.8 million in 2029, equal to a penetration rate of about 61 percent. Annual shipments of smart gas meters in the EU27+3 amounted to 2.9 million units in 2023. This represented a decrease of 1.8 million units in comparison to 2022, which was largely due to France having completed the mass-deployment phase of its nationwide rollout in 2022, in combination with a slower than anticipated pace of installations in the UK.

Nevertheless, the UK was the most active market in 2023 with yearly shipment volumes of 1.3 million units while Italy and Belgium accounted for 0.7 million and 0.4 million units respectively. Apart from an expected peak of 6.5 million units in 2027, annual shipment volumes of smart gas meters will remain stable at around 5-6 million units throughout the forecast period. Shipment volumes are expected to decrease in Italy until 2025 and then increase until the end of the forecast period while yearly shipments in France will stay at around 0.1 million from 2024 onwards.

After multiple delays, the UK market is expected to gradually ramp up smart gas meter installations and reach a peak of 3.6 million units in 2025. A significant volume of smart gas meter installations is also anticipated in additional countries over the coming years, particularly Spain, Belgium, Greece and the Netherlands, where the former will account for 19 percent of yearly shipment volumes in Europe by 2029.