Analyst Insight: Emerging Smart Meter Business Models

For the purposes of this report, advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) encompasses smart meter hardware, software, and communications technologies. In the ~20 years since the inception of AMI, the market has witnessed an evolution in traditional business models under the umbrella of innovation and future-proofed business strategies. This report details these transformations in the context of each AMI functional area.

In terms of cross-cutting business model evolutions, the proliferation of managed services and software as a service (SaaS) models has been rapid and pronounced. Utilities’ willingness to adopt cloud- and service-based solutions for behind-the-meter (BTM) applications has been extremely lucrative for perceptive solution providers (i.e., services-first sales strategies) throughout the space.

New business models have also emerged at the technology level, driven by a combination of performance enhancements, network constraints, and partner-based development and sales strategies. For example, smart meter manufacturers have teamed up with open ecosystems of analytics providers to enable localized use cases powered by next-generation smart meters. Meanwhile, analytics providers are simultaneously moving upstream in their support for grid-based applications that tap into the value of real-time, multi-pronged data streams, such as voltage, current, and waveform. These examples offer a glimpse into the business model transformations highlighted throughout the report.