The Slovenian Ministry of Infrastructure published a tender for the co-financing of smart electricity meters for the 2017-2022 period. The aim of the tender is to secure financing for grants to purchase and install smart power meters as part of the Operational Program for the Implementation of the European Cohesion Policy for the period 2014-2020.
Under that program another EUR 13,897,800 million will be available for the co-financing from a European Cohesion Policy grant between 2017 and 2020.
The total amount of the financial incentive for the implementation of each project is a maximum of 33 percent of the value of the investment, the ministry said in its statement.
The aim of the project is to replace old electricity meters with smart meters which allow power companies to read and control them remotely. The ministry said that the meters have to be procured along with the required software and hardware which enables remote control, including remote communication equipment and data collection devices.
Marketing and training activities to raise awareness are also one of the aims of the tender, the Ministry of Infrastructure statement said.
The tender does not specify who will be eligible to receive the grants for the new electricity meters. Slovenia has launched a smart grids project with Croatia to connect the two power grids of the two countries.
The Slovenian company Iskraemeco produces, installs and services smart electricity meters. That company signed a contract to deliver 1.6 million smart power meters to the Netherlands in 2015.
The European Union adopted its Third Energy Package for the internal electricity and gas market in 2009, giving the smart metering market a significant boost. The EU expects there to be about 200 million smart meters for electricity (which covers about 72% of all EU consumers) and 45 million meters for gas installed in EU member states by the year 2020 at a total investment of some EUR 45 billion.
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