Smart gas metering in Europe – what are the prospects?

Smart gas metering is in a good stage of deployment in Europe, Charles van Dyck, Smart Metering product manager at Apator, said in a conversation with Jonathan Spencer Jones at Enlit Europe.

Commenting on the near completion of smart gas metering rollouts in several Western European countries and the starting up of mass deployments in Germany and Spain, Van Dyck said that the cost-benefit analysis is not so important as it was in deciding on a rollout.

“It’s now more of a question when to do it than making the cost-benefit analysis,” he said, noting the difficulty in making the business case, particularly in recognising the often unknown benefits.

The negative press around the use of gas as a fossil fuel also is an issue but into the future the system won’t be only natural gas but will include biomethane and hydrogen.

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“We cant consider a situation without the distribution of gas … but the CO2 footprint will decrease while maintaining the network.”

Referring to smart gas meter challenges, van Dyck says the main one is the lifetime of the battery in the field, which can be expected to be as long as 20 years.

“You have to be very careful with the use cases and choice of communication standard to deliver this long lifetime,” he comments, saying these will then depend on whether the rollout is multi-utility or stand-alone.

And looking ahead he believes that hydrogen blending up to a level of 23% should be feasible.

“That might be a first step but 100% hydrogen in residential networks would be very difficult” – not to mention the challenge of producing sufficient volumes of hydrogen: “But that is another aspect of hydrogen distribution.”