Billions less grid investment
The digital meter also offers many crucial advantages for Fluvius as grid operator. For example, we incur fewer costs due to remote meter readings and less confusion about meter readings, for example when moving to another house or changing suppliers. The digital meter is also a great help in detecting and combating fraud.
But the greatest benefit for all of us lies in avoiding heavy grid investments to enable the energy transition. After all, the switch from fossil fuels to renewable fuels will cause us to use considerably more electricity. Just think of the advance of electric cars. In addition, we are also seeing a sharp increase in the number of wind turbines and solar panels. These will ensure that the Flemish electricity networks will be much more heavily burdened in the near future.
The digital meters provide the necessary data to manage the grids intelligently and to make much more targeted investments. Without digital meters, we would have to make many heavy network investments in extra cables and equipment. We can now avoid these to a large extent: according to our estimates, there will even be 3 billion less by 2050. And of course this is to the advantage of every Fleming: the more efficient the grid management, the smaller the impact on our energy bill.