Value creation and value capture of advanced electricity meter information

Abstract

Advanced or smart metering has been a hot topic in the electricity community for several years. Despite the excitement about the technology, few business cases are actually able to justify the investment cost. One reason for the gap between costs and benefits is that major benefits such as avoided investments have long payback times and are difficult to monetize. However, another aspect which is largely overlooked is the value creation through nonelectricity market related business models. These business models range from advertising over customer profiling up to insurance or juridical usage of data gathered from advanced meters. This paper summarizes the finding of a number of studies on the value of smart meter information on electricity market related benefit and gives an overview of non-electricity market related business models. The paper gives quantitative estimates of the value for electricity related activities such as energy efficiency, avoided investment and dynamic pricing. In additional it provides a qualitative analysis of the value and barriers of nonelectricity market business activities. In addition to this the study also gives a short outlook on how this value might be captured and which players are best positioned to capture significant shares of the total created value.