Latvia smart meter rollout completed

Latvian distribution system operator Sadales tīkls AS has reported completing the smart meter rollout to 1.1 million metering points throughout the country.

The company has reported that almost all of its approximately 790,000 customers now have smart meters, except for a small number, less than 1%, that have not been able to be accessed so far.

The majority of the smart meters are based on PLC, both G3-PLC and Prime, with about 20% point-to-point – the PLC meters supplied by Sanxing and ADD Grup and the point-to-point by Elgama and Hexing.

Sadales tīkls states in a statement that the smart meters are improving the customer experience both with the elimination of manual meter reading but also with the provision of the data on line on the customer portals, with more than half of the customers already using this data on a daily basis to become more energy efficient.

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“The programme for the introduction of smart electricity meters is one of the most ambitious digitisation projects of recent years in Latvia – a targeted investment in the company’s own digital transformation as well as a significant increase in operational efficiency,” says Baiba Priedīte, Customer Director of Sadales tīkls.

“Data is a springboard for innovation and growth, an important prerequisite for the development of the electricity market. Even after the full implementation of smart metering, Sadales tīkls continues to develop new services – activities that are important for the entire energy sector.”

Smart grid and customer service measures

Alongside the smart metering programme, Sadales tīkls reports implementing over the past five years a range of other new initiatives to digitalise and automate the management of the grid, to streamline and improve the efficiency of operations and to deliver new digital self-service solutions to customers.

Among these are the introduction of FLISR (fault location, isolation and service restoration) technology on the MV grid and the ‘Utility to go’ app for field workers to access data on the state of the grid and the activities of colleagues and to share information between them.

In order to improve logistics, Sadales tīkls has renovated its logistics centre, digitalising and centralising processes and procurement and combining six warehouses that were previously located in different cities in Latvia. This alone is estimated at delivering savings of €1 million per year.

The company also has created a special brigade of electricians for the performance of voltage-active work on the MV network so they can carry out work without the need for disconnections.

Sadales tīkls believes that with these improvements, Latvia has achieved approximately 20% lower electricity grid maintenance costs per kilometre compared to neighbouring countries, lower losses and higher power quality indicators.

In 2022, SAIDI in Latvia was 220 minutes and losses were 3.67%.

To improve customer service, a virtual assistant ‘Valts’ has been introduced to provide 24/7 answers to frequently asked questions alongside other new customer tools such as power outage reporting.

With these measures Sadales tīkls reports also being able to reduce its workforce by about one-third – 900 people, its vehicle fleet by about 400 units and its buildings by about 40.

Overall, Sadales tīkls estimates the impact of all the efficiencies implemented at around €40 million (US$43 million) in savings annually.