By 2020 smart meters will be almost as ubiquitous as light switches in Britain.

In a massive stride for energy efficiency, every home and small business in Great Britain will be offered a smart energy meter by the end of 2020 under an £11 billion ($20 billion) legislation passed last year.

The meters give households near real-time information on energy use expressed in dollar terms — not just to save money but to give an accurate measure of consumption.

It’s a commitment we are yet to see to the same degree in Australia – and one reason why newly listed Simble Solutions (ASX:SIS) is targeting our distant cousins as its first market for offshore expansion.

SaaS that makes energy useful

The Simble Energy Platform is an Internet of Things (IOT) enabled control and visualisation tool, designed for businesses to manage and reduce their energy consumption.

It combines a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform with smart meters and sensors that can monitor, control and monetise power use in real-time.

“Our key differentiator is that we are agnostic to Internet Of Things devices and energy meters,” CEO Fadi Geha told Stockhead.

“We offer the small-to-medium enterprise market a solution that is affordable and scalable and can be easily accessed through our channel partners,” he said.

Simble raised $7.5 million in a heavily oversubscribed IPO in February and has traded above its 20c listing price since.

The Simble Solutions Energy Visualisation & Analytics Platform
The Simble Solutions Energy Visualisation & Analytics Platform

Mr Geha said there was still hope for Australia – off the back of an increasing focus on sustainable energy spearheaded by the likes of Elon Musk and soaring electricity bills.

Across most States – besides WA and NT – all new and replacement meters for households will be smart and even more so in VIC where there has been a blanket rollout of the tech.

“There has been a renewed focus on sustainable energy in Australia and I think the debate has certainly matured significantly in the past year or so,” he told Stockhead.

“Our listing on the ASX gives us good footing to leverage both markets.”

Globally, Europe leads the pack when it comes to the uptake of smart meters, while in Japan there has been on average 1 million of the devices installed every three months.

Australia pales in comparison, with less than a quarter of the meters installed across the national electricity market being ‘smart’, that is roughly 3.3 million smart meters out of a total of 13.6 million meters.

A 2018 report from University of Melbourne found it’s not enough to have the data, consumers have to be motivated to utilise it.

“At this point in time, there are very few retailers offering smart meter enabled services to their customers,” it said.

“This shows that the installation of a smart meter does not automatically result in consumer benefits… The analysis shows the [minimum services that smart metres must legally provide] are predominantly focussed on delivering retailer benefits including reducing retailers’ operational costs.”

 

This story is brought to you by Simble Solutions.

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