China electricity meter market ranks high for Echelon joint venture

The mainland's advanced electricity meter market is the world's largest and most attractive, as austerity-induced delays plague tenders in many parts of the world, according to the chief of Echelon, a Silicon Valley-based developer of communication equipment for the power distribution sector.

But it was also highly competitive, with aggressive quarterly bidding for contracts, said Ron Sege, chairman of the San Diego-based firm, and a former president of United States-based network equipment maker 3Com.

"[The mainland] is the most attractive market in the world right now in terms of commitment to save energy and cut carbon footprint via the deployment of smart meters," he said.

"Not many nations have the combination of power shortages, power theft, and desire to improve grid reliability."

According to market researcher IMS Research, at the end of 2011, just under 18 per cent of the world's roughly 1.43 billion installed power meters were "smart", or communicating ones. This is forecast to double to 35 per cent by the end of 2016.

Smart-meter features include the detection of electricity theft, automated calculation of power bills based on time-of-day pricing, and the real-time monitoring of power supply to fix supply problems.