Areti surpasses 1 million smart meter milestone in Rome

Acea distribution company Areti announced that as of 31 January 2024, one million smart meters were installed on Rome’s electricity grid.

The rollout of the Rometrix 2G smart meters was launched in October 2020, with the goal to replace the approximately 1.7 million meters in Rome and neighbouring municipality Formello by the end of 2025.

Since the end of January, as of the day of writing a further almost 21,000 smart meters have been deployed.

In a statement from Acea, the Rometrix 2G smart meters are stated to represent a significant turning point in the way energy consumption is managed and monitored, allowing greater transparency in consumption, as well as the possibility of optimising energy efficiency and reducing waste.

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Through the installation of these smart meters, Rome is moving towards becoming a sustainable and intelligent city, in line with the vision of the Acea Group which considers the use of energy in a responsible manner as essential.

The Rometrix 2G smart meters provide reads on a 15-minute basis, which are transmitted to Areti’s central system and from there delivered to suppliers for invoicing.

The primary communication is PLC in the Cenelec A band (9-95kHz).

Customers with smart meters are then able to activate the ‘Chain 2’ service to access their consumption data and start enabling home automation services.

Towards the delivery of new consumption models Areti was a participant in the PlatOne Horizon 2020 project, coordinating the Italian pilot to investigate blockchain-based flexibility mechanisms with smart meter customers.

Findings from that project have now been incorporated into the newly launched RomeFlex project also using a blockchain model focussed on the delivery of flexibility in congestion and voltage management.