As Europe moves decisively towards a more sustainable energy landscape, the deployment of smart metering systems has become a key pillar of this transformation. The EU directive on common rules for the internal electricity market - part of the broader Clean Energy for All Europeans package - sets a clear path: member states are required to develop implementation roadmaps with a 10-year horizon for the rollout of smart metering systems. For countries where a positive cost-benefit assessment has been made, at least 80% of end-users must be equipped with smart meters within 7 years of the assessment or by 2024 if systematic deployment began earlier.
In Poland, the national response took shape in October 2018, when the Ministry of Energy published a draft amendment to the Energy Law. Among its provisions, the bill outlines a mandatory timeline for the installation of remote-reading meters. According to the proposal, electricity distribution system operators must equip no less than 80% of end-users connected to low-voltage networks (≤1kV) with smart meters by December 31, 2028.
A key milestone in this undergoing significant digital transformation is the implementation of the Central Energy Market Information System (CSIRE) - a nationwide platform for managing energy data. It is a modern database that encompasses all relevant technical and commercial data related to the Polish electricity market. It supports key processes such as switching energy suppliers, settling electricity consumption, managing information about energy consumption points, and handling measurement data - including data collected from smart meters.
Smart meters enable automated and high-frequency collection of consumption and generation data - typically every 15 minutes - which CSIRE uses to continuously update energy usage profiles, support dynamic billing, and facilitate accurate and timely supplier switching. Without smart metering infrastructure, the central system would not be able to deliver reliable real-time data to market participants. Smart meters serve as the data backbone of a digital, consumer-centric, and flexible energy market.
All these means that DSOs need to not only deploy smart meters, but also ensure seamless communication with energy smart meters, so that all market processes - from billing to switching - can function reliably and transparently.
Smart energy meters are far more than just digital upgrades to traditional analog devices - they represent a leap forward in how energy consumption is measured, managed, and optimized. Their implementation brings a suite of technological advancements designed to benefit both consumers and grid operators:
Smart meters eliminate the need for manual meter readings. DSOs can access consumption and generation data remotely and in near real-time. This reduces operational costs, improves billing accuracy, and ensures timely data availability for market processes like supplier switching and settlements.
Instead of monthly or quarterly reads, smart meters record electricity usage in intervals (typically every 15 minutes). This granularity allows DSOs to better understand consumption patterns, manage load forecasting and detect anomalies or energy losses more precisely.
DSOs can monitor grid health in real time and quickly pinpoint the exact location and extent of an outage. This significantly enhances fault localization without the need for manual inspection, improves the accuracy of customer communication and real-time outage maps, and enables more efficient crew dispatch and prioritization of restoration efforts.
Smart meters using Anjay IoT LwM2M client can expose diagnostic resources that reflect connection uptime, failed message counters, reconnection attempts, and packet loss statistics. DSOs can set thresholds or alerts to flag meters that are repeatedly failing to reach the backend, silently degrading in performance, or switching to fallback transmission modes. This allows for early fault detection - before outages impact billing, remote disconnects, or customer service processes.
Smart meters ensure secure, GDPR-compliant handling of consumer data, enable seamless integration with CSIRE and other market platforms, and support accurate, reliable data exchange across the energy ecosystem with DLMS/COSEM.
Under the amended Energy Law, aligned with EU Directive 2019/944, Poland has committed to a nationwide rollout of remote-reading smart meters for all electricity consumers by July 4, 2031. This transformation is being managed in phases to ensure a smooth and scalable deployment.
The responsibility for meter installation lies with the Distribution System Operators (DSOs), who are legally mandated to adhere to this timeline and ensure that the rollout is carried out efficiently and uniformly across the country.
This ongoing shift to smart metering isn’t just a matter of energy efficiency - it’s a necessity for security, flexibility and long-term growth. But behind the promise of digital transformation lies a hard truth: rolling out IoT at utility scale is incredibly complex.
👉 Stay tuned for Part 2: "Enabling the Future of Energy – How AVSystem Solves the Biggest Smart Metering Challenges". In this next part, we explore how AVSystem is helping DSOs not only meet these regulatory milestones but also transform smart metering operations with advanced IoT technologies. Discover the tools that turn vision into reality.