India is undertaking one of the world’s largest smart metering programmes under the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS), replacing roughly 250 million conventional electricity meters with connected smart meters. Beyond improving billing efficiency and providing greater visibility into electricity consumption, this nationwide rollout marks one of the most significant technology upgrades the power sector has undertaken in recent years.
As deployment gathers pace, the focus is shifting beyond meter installations to the connectivity, interoperability, cybersecurity, grid resilience, and AI capabilities needed to support modern energy infrastructure. The true value of this rollout emerges when it becomes part of a broader digital ecosystem where devices communicate reliably, share operational intelligence, and enable utilities to make faster, better-informed decisions.
Connectivity is the invisible infrastructure
As the power grid becomes increasingly connected, every smart meter, grid sensor, transformer monitor, and distribution automation device must communicate reliably to keep operations running smoothly. Utility networks face unique challenges, from covering vast geographic areas and operating in harsh environments to supporting long device lifecycles with minimal maintenance. Addressing these demands requires resilient, secure, and purpose-built connectivity that can scale with the growing complexity of modern energy infrastructure.
This is where standards-based wireless technologies are becoming increasingly important. Open networking technologies such as Wi-SUN, built on globally recognised standards, have been designed specifically for large-scale utility and critical infrastructure deployments. By enabling secure, self-healing mesh networks, Wi-SUN allows devices to communicate with one another and dynamically reroute data if individual communication paths become unavailable. This improves network resilience while extending coverage across geographically dispersed infrastructure.
Bringing intelligence closer to the edge
As connected infrastructure grows, so too does the volume of operational data generated across the grid. Transmitting every piece of information to centralized systems for analysis is not always the most efficient or practical approach.
Edge intelligence offers a complementary approach, giving meters, sensors, and grid devices enough local processing capability to detect anomalies, flag potential outages, or recognize patterns in voltage and load without waiting for a round trip to a central server. This shortens the time between a problem developing and a utility knowing about it. Edge processing also reduces unnecessary data transmission by filtering and prioritizing only the information that requires central analysis. For a grid the size of India’s, reducing that load has real operational value.
Artificial intelligence will increasingly enhance these capabilities, particularly in areas such as predictive maintenance, demand forecasting, and asset optimization. However, AI is only as useful as the data it receives, making reliable connectivity and intelligent edge processing fundamental to every AI driven application.
Security and interoperability
None of these capabilities matter unless the underlying infrastructure is secure and systems can exchange data reliably, securely, and in ways that preserve its integrity. Energy infrastructure sits near the top of any country’s list of essential systems, making authenticated devices, secure communications, and resilient network architecture critical considerations throughout the technology lifecycle.
Two factors will be critical: security and interoperability. With utilities managing both consumer billing information and grid operations, connected devices must be protected through strong encryption, secure device provisioning, and safeguards against tampering. At the same time, the technology choices DISCOMs make today while deploying Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) will shape the grid for years to come. Adopting standards-based, interoperable solutions ensures that smart meters, communication modules, head-end systems, and analytics platforms from different vendors can work together seamlessly. This not only avoids vendor lock-in but also gives utilities the flexibility to integrate future technologies, such as distributed energy resources (DERs) and electric vehicle (EV) load management, without the need for costly infrastructure replacement.
Building for the Future
India’s smart meter rollout has laid the foundation for a more connected electricity network, but the real opportunity now lies in building an intelligent energy infrastructure that can adapt to changing demand, integrate diverse energy resources, and support increasingly digital utility operations. The success of this next phase will depend on the quality of connectivity, the intelligence embedded at the edge, and the interoperability of the ecosystem. India’s smart meter programme has created the digital foundation. The next phase will be defined not only by the number of connected devices, but mainly by how intelligently they communicate, collaborate, and enable a more resilient, efficient, and future-ready power system.
By Ashish Bajaj, Vice President, Edge AI and Wireless, Silicon Labs
