Enabling a Consumer- centric Smart Metering Transition in India - Insights from a Survey of Six States

Bihar reports the accurate billing without manual intervention, remote most awareness and uptake of the smart meter app, disconnection following the non-payment of bills, or the partly because of the intensive consumer engagement supply of electricity in the prepaid mode (Box 1). [...] Our study The scheme aims to improve the overall financial suggests that the success of the smart meter rollout is sustainability of discoms and to bring their aggregate closely linked to the involvement of discom officials commercial and technical losses (AT&C) below 15 per across the hierarchy with smart metering service cent by 2025 (Ministry of Power 2022). [...] We aim to fill this gap by delving into consumers’ 2.1 Multistage stratified strategy to perceptions and experiences of using smart meters (in sample smart meter consumers both the postpaid and prepaid modes), with the help of a primary survey, and to answer the following questions: In order to capture the diversity of consumer experiences, we employed a multistage stratified strategy to sample •. [...] 33 per cent of the prepaid and 41 per cent of postpaid The variation in prepaid and postpaid consumers in consumers reported having perceived a reduction in reporting the co-benefits is provided in Figure 14. [...] This difference can be attributed installations in the country, has the highest awareness to the higher usage of smart meter apps by prepaid and uptake of the smart meter app, partly linked to the consumers to check their bills and consumption along intensive consumer engagement efforts by the discoms, with the flexibility to make payments.