ITI Ltd emerges lowest bidder for EESL’s tender for 5 mn smart meters

ITI Limited has emerged as the lowest (L1) bidder with the lowest quote of Rs2,503 per unit for the tender for 5 million smart meters floated by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), EESL has thus achieved a further reduction in smart meter price through the reverse auction conducted through last week's tender.

The latest bid price is 8 per cent lower per unit than in the previous tender which saw L&T emerge as the lowest bidder quoting Rs2,722 per  unit while the total procurement cost of 5 million smart meters now stands reduced by Rs132 crore.

ITI Limited has emerged as the lowest bidder (L1 bidder) in this reverse auction, followed by Genus Power and KEONICS. ITI Limited quoted the lowest price of Rs2,503, per single phase smart meter.

L&T had emerged as the lowest bidder in the first round of bids conducted last week, where the company had quoted Rs2,722. Through the reverse auction, the price of the single phase smart meter has come down from Rs2,722 to Rs2,503, which is a reduction of 8 per cent from the previous tender quote.

The lower price discovered through reverse auction will further benefit the end consumers. Seven companies, including L&T, were invited for the reverse auction, as per tender terms and conditions where L&T has been outbid by ITI Limited, Genus Power and KEONICS.

As per government guidelines, EESL will invite Genus Power and KEONICS, who have emerged as the L2 and L3 bidders respectively, to match the L1 price.  Should the parties match the L1 price, EESL will split the procurement of the single phase smart meter between three parties in a ratio of 50:30:20.

The meters will be installed over a period of 3 years in a phased manner in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana.

The procurement conducted by EESL, a company under the administrative control of the ministry of power, is the world's largest single smart meter procurement. About 4 million smart meters will be deployed in UP and the remaining 1 million in Haryana.

Smart meters are a part of the overall Advanced Metering Infrastructure Solutions (AMI) aimed at better demand response designed to reduce energy consumption during peak hours. The overall AMI solution will also have a system integrator who will be responsible for meter installation, data storage on cloud, preparing dashboards, etc. The bids for the system integrator is expected to open on 31 October 2017.

EESL is procuring the smart meters and services of the system integrator with 100 per cent investment and power utilities will make zero-investment. The repayment to EESL will be through savings resulting from enhanced billing efficiency, avoided meter reading costs, etc. It is said that the average cost of meter reading is Rs40 per meter, which will be completely avoided.