Smart Meter Rollout: Hundreds of Operators Apparently Miss Legal Target
Smart meter rollout: Germany reached 20% target on average. Hundreds of municipal utilities face fines for missing legal targets.
(Image: PPC)
The smart meter rollout in Germany is progressing, but the numbers remain at a low level. According to the latest figures from the Federal Network Agency, a total of two million "intelligent metering systems" had been installed nationwide by the end of September, representing 3.8 percent of all "metering locations". At the end of June, there were 1.6 million, or 3 percent.
Furthermore, according to the official figures, 20.2 percent of the so-called mandatory installation cases had been completed nationwide by the end of September. This means the legal installation target of 20 percent of mandatory cases by the end of the year was reached on average three months earlier. This applies to households and companies with high electricity consumption or a "controllable consumption device" such as a wallbox.
Hundreds of Operators Apparently Miss Legal Target
However, the progress is mainly due to large metering point operators. Hundreds of small municipal utilities are far behind: among the 600 operators with fewer than 30,000 metering locations, the installation rate on September 30 was only 8.2 percent of mandatory cases on average, as calculated by the Federal Network Agency.
Hundreds of operators have therefore likely missed the legal target of 20 percent of mandatory cases in their network area by the end of the year. 188 operators had not even installed a single smart meter by the end of September, as Federal Network Agency President Klaus MĂĽller wrote on the LinkedIn platform before Christmas. In total, there are 814 responsible metering point operators.
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The Federal Network Agency threatens defaulting operators with penalties: "We will prepare appropriate supervisory measures after the plausibility check of the data for December 31, 2025," MĂĽller announced. His agency can impose coercive fines. "Coercive fines can be repeated and increased to enforce and implement legal behavior," the Federal Network Agency writes on its website.
The figures from the Federal Network Agency do not fully cover the smart meter rollout in Germany, as so-called competitive metering point operators are not obliged to report their data. Some experts assume higher numbers. From the perspective of many companies, for example, providers of dynamic electricity tariffs, the rollout is still proceeding far too slowly.
(cwo)
