Intracom Telecom has emerged as the winning bidder of a pilot tender for the installation of an initial lot of 200,000 smart meters in various parts of the country with an offer of 46 million euros. The bids made were unsealed today.

The tender’s other remaining bidder, a team comprised of OTE (Hellenic Telecommunications Organization), Intrakat and Intrasoft International, submitted a 62 million euro offer.

The procedure’s third contender, CMEC (China Machinery Engineering Corporation, withdrew on the final stretch.

As the next step, HEDNO, the Hellenic Electricity Distribution Network Operator – locally acronymed DEDDIE – will hold a board meeting in roughly 15 days to declare the winning bidder, barring unexpected developments.

The project’s contract will then need to be endorsed by a supervisory council before it is signed by the end of January.

Once this stage has been reached, an intital lot of 10,000 smart meters will be installed within a nine-month period, followed by a second round of 160,000 installations over the ensuing 15 months.

Smart meters will provide consumers a real-time picture of their consumption patterns.

It appears that there is no holding back now following considerable delays and foot-dragging in recent years. Initial talks on the project were held in 2009. If all goes well, 200,000 conventional power meters will have been replaced within 2018.

Ultimately, 7.5 million conventional power meters will be replaced around the country through a major tender. Ranking as one of Greece’s biggest investment programs of the next few years, the power meter project’s initial budget is estimated at no less than one billion euros.

HEDNO has already begun preparations for the main tender, expected to attract the world’s biggest players.