CGI (TSX: GIB.A) (NYSE: GIB), one of the largest independent IT and business consulting services firms in the world, is partnering with Market Operator Services Ltd. (MOSL), the operator of England and Wales’s business water retail market, to develop a Smart Meter Read Hub. This initiative follows a request from the Strategic Panel, the market’s most senior industry group, responsible for providing strategic direction and overseeing programmes aimed at improving outcomes for business customers.
The Smart Meter Read Hub will be a secure, modular, and cloud-native platform designed to meet the evolving needs of the market. It will enable water wholesalers to upload granular smart meter data in multiple formats and allow water retailers to securely access the data. The hub will support both ad-hoc and scheduled data extraction, audit logging, and robust validation against minimum field standards.
The Smart Meter Read Hub will deliver several key outcomes, including the following:
- Enabling market-wide efficiency by replacing multiple wholesaler-retailer data exchange processes with one centralised, standardised data hub.
- Reducing market barriers for new or smaller retailers by simplifying data access and integration processes.
- Future-proofing CMOS settlement by allowing it to handle over 1 million meter reads per month, supporting more frequent read submissions and smart tariff innovation.
- Providing enhanced regulatory insight through secure, aggregated data sharing.
“The pressure to reduce water consumption is growing, and smart meters offer significant benefits for customers, companies, and the environment, from ensuring accurate billing to tackling leakage and waste,” said Simon Powell, Chief Information Officer, MOSL. “To maximise the benefits of smart metering in the business retail market, organisations must be able to share granular meter read data in a consistent and efficient way. By partnering with CGI to develop a Smart Meter Read Hub, we will unlock these opportunities and simplify processes across the industry.”
“Currently, there is no agreed specific method for sharing smart meter data between wholesalers and retailers, leading to inefficiency, delays, and increased costs,” said Paul Buxton, Senior Vice President Consulting Services, Energy & Utilities, CGI. “The Smart Meter Read Hub will address these issues by creating a common data-sharing mechanism, standardising the process and improving efficiency for both wholesalers and retailers.”
Over the next five years, water companies have ambitious plans to roll out smart metering to nearly 800,000 businesses to help effectively manage the growing demand for water and enable Defra’s target of reducing water consumption by 9 per cent before the end of 2038.
The rollout represents a significant opportunity to enhance data collection and management, with the volume of associated meter reading data expected to increase substantially. It is estimated that the introduction of smart meter reads will drive submissions into the central market operating system (CMOS) for billing and settlement to over 1,000,000 per month.
The first phase of the smart meter read hub is due to be delivered by the end of the March 2026, followed by a second phase to connect the hub to CMOS to allow retailers to submit reads directly into the market’s central system for billing and settlement purposes.
Disclaimer: The publication of AGI member press releases is a member service. The AGI neither approves or endorses the contents of a member’s press release, nor makes any assurance of their factual accuracy.