Gas Meter Market Trends

Growth Drivers

• Growing Government Initiatives Towards Energy Efficiency- Governments around the world are setting high energy efficiency goals in order to reduce waste and greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas meters, notably smart meters, are critical to achieving these goals because they give accurate information in real-time that enables customers and utilities to measure and monitor gas usage. Furthermore, safety rules demand that gas distribution systems satisfy severe requirements, highlighting the importance of dependable and licensed gas meters. Government incentive programs and subsidies to encourage the use of digital petrol meters also help to drive industry expansion. Because of these incentives, utilities, and customers can afford to invest in sophisticated metering equipment.
• Growing Popularity of Prepaid Gas Meters- The installation of pre-paid gas meters is expected to have many critical uses. It minimized system losses by lowering gas wastage and alerting consumers of the proper use of the gas. It also improves the financial health of gas distribution companies by generating pre-paid revenues and reducing billing, collection, and monitoring costs.
• Growing Development of Smart Cities- With increased urbanization, numerous smart cities have sprouted up. Increased integration of smart petrol meters has accelerated market growth as smart grid network, smart gas,  smart homes, and towns with real-time monitoring, remote management, and data analysis become more popular. As urbanization rises, so will the development of many businesses such as construction, automotive, and healthcare, which will eventually provide growth chances for various uses of petrol meters in such industries. The World Bank recently released data. With cities accounting for more than 80% of global GDP, urbanization has a chance to drive long-term growth through increased productivity and innovation, if properly managed. Cities now house about half of the world's population which is 4.4 billion people, and this figure is anticipated to rise further. The urban population is predicted to more than double by 2050, with cities housing approximately 7 out of 10 people.

Challenges

• Hesitancy Among People to Switch to Pre-Payment Meters- The disadvantage of smart prepayment meters is that they do not let customers simply switch suppliers. It restricts the payment of cutting off the energy supply if a prepayment customer with a first-generation SMETS1 smart meter switches to different providers. Smart prepayment requires credit to be loaded onto the customer's gas and electricity meters by the customer's provider, who must be able to connect with them electronically. If the consumer does so while using an SMETS1 meter, the meter may become dead and fail to communicate with any other provider, preventing the consumer from topping up. This means that until the smart meter is upgraded or transferred to the new data network, the consumer may be obliged to stay with his present supplier. Such a flaw could be an impediment to the proliferation of petrol meters in the next years.
• Unavailability of smart gas meters in rural regions
• Smart meters can be fairly expensive