Tauron invests in 600,000 smart meters and grid modernisation

June 28, 2023 Editor

Tauron smart meters investment — Image courtesy Tauron

Polish DSO Tauron has announced an increased investment of PLN3 billion ($743 million) for the country’s network development and installation of 600,000 smart meters.

The investment will be made in 2024 and will be used to connect new customers, including Renewable Energy Sources (RES), to the grid and will modernise and reconstruct the power grid.

Specifically, it will translate into the modernisation of 1,220km of power lines, the expansion of 345 transformer stations and the installation of smart meters.

In the last eight years, Tauron has invested PLN16 billion ($4 billion) in distribution networks.

Completed projects, state Tauron, which consists of almost 60,000 investment tasks per year, allow for the development of grids at all voltage levels.

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Commenting on the increased funds was Paweł Szczeszek, the Tauron Group’s president, who called distribution the Group’s “most important investment direction”, adding how the increased funds represent their response to the growing needs “of connecting new customers and new energy sources to the grid.

“Without the reconstruction of the grid, regardless of how much energy we produce from RES, the power system will not function effectively. The success of the energy transformation is therefore conditioned by the development and modernisation of distribution networks in the direction of the so-called smart grids.”

– Przebudowa sieci to nie tylko inwestycje w infrastrukturę, ale również budowa segmentu usług elastyczności oraz masowa instalacja inteligentnych liczników. Dziś już ponad milion naszych klientów dysponuje takimi licznikami – @WarzochaArtur podczas debaty @GPtygodnik pic.twitter.com/YGAxspsPov

— TAURON (@TauronPE) June 27, 2023

Translation: “The reconstruction of the network is not only investments in infrastructure, but also the construction of the flexibility services segment and the mass installation of smart meters. Today, over a million of our customers have such meters,” states Artur Warzocha, Tauron’s vice president of the management board for corporate affairs.

Added Szczeszek: “Thanks to the actions of the government in the era of the energy crisis, Poles have stable access to energy at socially acceptable prices. The Polish government has frozen energy prices at the level of those in 2022 and introduced a maximum price.

“These actions stabilised the situation and saved us from the drama of energy poverty. If not for these actions, the bills of a [an average] Polish family would be higher by an average of PLN5,000 ($1,2368) a year.”

Currently, Tauron customers have over a million modern remote reading meters; by 2030, the replacement of meters is hoped to cover the entire area of the company’s operation.