According to new a research report from the IoT analyst firm Berg Insight, the installed base of smart electricity meters in North America will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.0 percent between 2018 and 2024 to reach 142.8 million at the end of the period. Over the next five years, smart meter penetration among electricity customers in the US and Canada is projected to increase from around 60 percent in 2018 to more than 80 percent by the end of 2024.

“North America has long been at the forefront of smart grid technology adoption and a large share of the major utilities in the region are now either fully deployed or in the implementation or planning stages of full-scale rollouts. The market is however highly heterogenous in terms of penetration. Some states or provinces remain skeptical towards the business case for advanced metering investments whereas others are soon to begin a second wave of deployments”, said Levi Östling, IoT Analyst, Berg Insight and author of the report.

Canada has reached a high penetration of smart meters through ambitious initiatives in its most populous provinces. Continued growth in North America the next few years will largely be driven by the large investor-owned utilities in the US that are yet to roll out smart meters for their customers. In addition, the large number of smaller cooperative and municipal utilities will also be playing an increasingly central role for penetration growth.

According to the report, yearly shipments of smart electricity meters in North America will grow from 8.8 million units in 2018 to 19.9 million units in 2024. Over the next few years, first-wave deployments by utilities such as Consolidated Edison, Duke Energy, Ameren, Entergy, PSEG, National Grid and Xcel Energy will boost shipments. Second wave deployments will gradually make their way into the shipment numbers at the end of the forecast period.

“While increasingly powerful meters with edge intelligence capabilities coupled with advanced data analytics software will drive second wave deployments, the utilities are now also looking to leverage their existing RF mesh networks for a wider array of applications beyond metering, bringing an increasingly diverse set of devices onto their networking platforms”, concluded Mr. Östling.