Poland’s Stoen Operator planning 400,000 smart meter phase 2 rollout

Stoen Operator, E.ON’s network operator subsidiary in Poland, has announced its intention to soon launch a 400,000 smart meter tender.

The procurement is aimed to cover the supply and services for phase 2 of the company’s AMI programme and will require the installation of the smart meters over the period from mid-2024 to the end of 2026.

The company, which supplies electricity to one million customers in and around Warsaw, requires the continuous use of G3-PLC IDIS technology, which has been proven for use in dense urban areas in phase 1.

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However, in this phase of the project, two independent suppliers will be selected to supply the devices, in order to reduce the risk of delays in their delivery.

“AMI is a comprehensive programme that cannot be treated as a standard meter replacement. It is a multi-stage process,” says Jakub Tomczak, director of the Metering Management Division at Stoen Operator.

“Among other things, it requires the implementation of an IT system for processing large amounts of data and reading these meters on a daily basis. It also requires the redevelopment of business processes within the DSO.”

The devices to be installed in phase 2 will communicate with the proprietary head end system – new generation (HES-NG) system, the locally developed meter data acquisition system and DSO platform, which was implemented in 2021.

The solution is able to handle virtually any DLMS-compliant meter in point-to-point communication and devices in the G3-PLC IDIS technology, Stoen Operator states.

Poland’s smart meter rollout was legislated in 2021, with the requirement to meet 80% penetration at residential level by 2028.

Stoen Operator began its programme in 2022 and reports to be on track with phase 1 to reach the first milestone of 15% of end users by the end of 2023.

In this phase 1, which is being carried out by a consortium of Esmetric and Elgama Elektronica and runs to mid-2024, so far approximately 80,000 smart meters are in place with a further 150,000 units to install.

Alongside the smart meter rollout, Stoen Operator is developing a number of other initiatives, particularly around new systems and adaptations to process large volumes of smart meter data.

Following phase 2 the final phase 3 will be implemented from 2027.