New Delhi: Polaris Smart Metering Pvt. Ltd is looking at capturing about 50% share of the smart gas metering market in a few years and is considering the possibility of exporting its products, according to its top executive.
The company, which commissions, provides and maintains smart electricity meters, forayed into gas metering with field trials starting September last year. Polaris recently signed an agreement for its first commercial order to supply one million smart gas meters to city gas distributor Think Gas, with an order value of over ₹500 crore, Gaurav Semwal, chief executive officer of the company’s gas business, told Mint in an interview.
“This is the biggest contract for gas meters in the country. This will become an example for the market going forward. India currently has 1.31 crore domestic connections and…companies have committed 12.56 crore of new connections by 2032,” Semwal said. “Even if we go by a conservative number of 5 crore installed smart meters a few years down the line…there are limited players. We are gunning for market leadership on this. So we will be targeting at least 50% of the share.”
Some of the key players in India’s gas metering business include Raychem RPG, Genus Power Infrastructures Ltd and IntelliSmart.
On the plans to export smart gas meters, Semwal said the company is evaluating several market opportunities abroad.
“A lot of markets will either adopt smart meters as new connections or convert the existing meters into new connections. We are targeting some of those countries. The low-hanging fruit would be the ones which already using conventional meters. Let’s say Japan. There’s a huge market there and they are using conventional meters. There are many countries in Europe; [besides the] UK. There are countries like Egypt where gas adoption is increasing,” he said.
“It will take some time. You have to customize the product as per the foreign market. We are looking at least six months from now to actually cracking something,” Semwal said.
Semwal said the company would supply advanced smart gas meters to Think Gas and support for comprehensive head-end and meter data management systems, which would help in AI-enabled gas consumption analysis and create real-time dashboards.
The company is in talks with several other players to supply smart meters and services, he said. Polaris’s smart gas meters are based on Narrowband Internet of Things (NB-IoT), a wireless technology that allows devices to communicate over long distances with low power consumption. The chief executive officer said the company is also evaluating other technologies.
The global gas meter market was valued at $3.7 billion in 2023 and is projected to grow at around 4.7% between 2024 and 2032, according to market research and management consultant Global Market Insights.
With the government focusing on increasing gas’s share of India’s energy basket to 15% from the current 6%, there is a growing market for piped and compressed natural gas and smart meters.
