Missing technical details and a lack of specifications, as previously reported by energypress, have been cited as the main reason behind a submissions deadline delay for an international tender concerning the supply and installation of Greece’s first 200,000 digital electricity meters, mainly on islands and in Athens. The project’s budget amounts to 82 million euro.

The tender’s organizer, HEDNO, the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator, locally referred to as DEDDIE, has announced that the tender’s deadline, originally planned for September 22, will be reset for the end of October.

Various companies are believed to be interested in the tender, including Intrakat with Intralot as a sub-contractor, OTE, Ericsson, GEK-Terna, as well as a number of Chinese enterprises. IBM and Siemens have also been mentioned as possible bidders.

Installation firms will be accompanied by digital electricity meter manufacturers for the project. Based on older associations, GEK-Terna has worked with Actaris, while Intrakat was the winning bidder of a HEDNO tender last year for the installation of large-consumer meters with a Singapore manufacturer as its partner. As for Ericsson, it could join forces with Swiss-based multinational Landis+Gyr, which runs a branch in Corinth, west of Athens. Just weeks ago, Ericsson and Landis+Gyr announced they would join forces for a Finnish project entailing the installation of 700,000 power meters.

A number of failed attempts have been made over the past decade for the Greek digital power meters project, a pilot program. The country faces an EU deadline to replace 80%, or seven million, of its old power meters by 2020.

Assuming the tender obstacles are swiftly overcome, work could begin within 2015. The tender’s terms require that the first 10,000 digital power meters be installed within nine months of the contract’s commencement, to be followed by a further 160,000 installations over the ensuing 15-month period.