Why smart meter longevity is the next competitive advantage

Tuxera's Umair Ejaz writes on the business risks of smart meter failure and how smart meter longevity is of strategic, financial, and reputational significance.

Smart meters are at the heart of the world’s energy transition, helping utilities modernise the grid, empower customers with real-time data, and meet ambitious climate goals. However, while the smart energy market moves forward, many smart meters fail to keep up.

Smart meters are expected to operate reliably for 15 to 20 years. Yet around the world, millions of smart meters are underperforming, failing to deliver the real-time data utilities rely on. In the UK alone, nearly four million smart meters did not work properly in 2024. The costs of these early failures are adding up fast, and they are hitting manufacturers and utilities’ operational budgets, sustainability metrics, customer trust, and regulatory compliance.

At a time when governments, investors, and consumers expect energy technology to be smarter, greener, and more resilient, smart meter failures represent a growing business risk.

The business risks of early smart meter failure

A technical failure in a smart meter has serious financial and operational implications. Replacing a meter is costly, not just because of the hardware itself. Other costs include sending technical support to the field, smart meter replacement costs, potential penalties per meter if they fail within the warranty period, and disruption to customers, including wrong billing. When utility companies need to scale replacement across hundreds of thousands of devices, costs quickly spiral into the millions.

Smart meter failure also causes further challenges as utility companies need reliable meter data to manage billing, grid planning, and energy programmes. When it comes to customer relationships, in particular, meter failures lead utilities to risk losing reliability and customer trust, which ultimately causes significant reputational damage.

In many countries, smart meter programmes are also tied to regulatory deadlines and climate goals. Missing service targets or having to replace meters prematurely can expose manufacturers and utilities to penalties, negative publicity, and lower ESG ratings.

Consequently, premature smart meter failures have a significant negative impact not just as far as the bottom line is concerned, but importantly, on the brand and the utility company’s business model.

Have you read:
How EDF is capitalising on India’s AMI market
How the UK’s MHHS will put the power back in the hands of customers

Why smart meters die young

Meters built a decade ago were designed for a different world, where energy data reporting was periodic and largely relied on manually accessing meters to collect readings. Today’s energy systems are dynamic. Meters are expected to collect, log, and transmit massive amounts of data constantly, as well as record events, and update firmware. All this to support real-time grid management, demand response, and customer insights.

Most of this data is stored in internal flash memory, such as NAND, a common type of flash storage used in smart meters. However, NAND flash is not designed for endless rewriting. Each block of memory can only handle a limited number of write/erase cycles before wearing out.

Every time a smart meter writes new data, it also generates what’s known as ‘garbage’, i.e., outdated or redundant data that needs to be moved and erased to free up space. Garbage collection adds extra strain to the flash memory. When standard non-flash-optimised file systems are used, new data loads stretch older device architectures beyond their original limits. Without resilient design at the software and system level, meters wear out faster than expected.

Building smart meters that deliver real ROI

Leading smart manufacturers are adopting smarter system designs that extend meter life without increasing production costs. Manufacturers can dramatically increase device lifespans by optimising how meters handle growing data workloads and building resilience into their core systems. Importantly, the solution lies with smarter and flash-optimised software that is purpose-built to handle high-frequency data recording without wearing out too quickly. This means that industry players do not need to worry about increasing hardware costs or adding costly extra flash memory.

In addition, as smart meters run on resource-constrained embedded systems and low-footprint hardware and software components, adding additional memory is typically not an option for metering companies. Instead, they can achieve better performance and longer device life simply by optimising how the existing storage is managed. In fact, the right file systems are designed with data integrity features while keeping the low footprint.

Meters that last 15–20 years as originally intended unlock the full return on investment for utilities and maintain compliance with national smart energy targets. Longer-lasting meters also reduce the carbon footprint of replacements, helping manufacturers and utilities meet sustainability commitments and bolster ESG profiles.

The business case for action

Smart energy infrastructure is front and centre. Governments are tightening compliance requirements, energy providers are demanding more from their vendors, and investors are evaluating long-term sustainability performance. Consumers also expect the technologies that manage their homes and businesses to deliver high reliability.

For smart meter manufacturers, extending device life is of strategic, financial, and reputational significance. Those who embed longevity into every meter deployed will reduce total cost of ownership, avoid expensive replacement cycles, and win supplier preference from utilities under pressure to deliver both performance and sustainability. The manufacturers that act now will be best positioned to lead in the next era of smart energy growth.

About the author:

Umair Ejaz is senior product marketing manager at Tuxera, a Finland-based provider of data storage management software and networking technologies.