Elektrodistribucija Srbije: 900,000 Smart Meters by 2026

More than 900,000 smart electricity meters are currently in service across Elektrodistribucija Srbije’s network, meaning one in four meters in the country is already smart. The figure was given to RTS by Sasa Marceta of the company, who also said the total should reach a million by the end of 2026.

Serbia has roughly 3.9 million meters in total, and Elektrodistribucija’s goal is to cover 80 percent of metering points with modern equipment. The European Union (EU) has set itself a higher bar, 92 percent of the electricity market by the end of the decade, so the domestic plan still trails the European one.

Where the first devices came from

Part of the network was already built through borrowing and European Union assistance. Marceta described to RTS how that project was completed:

We finished a major project built with a loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 200,000 meters for Nis, Kraljevo and Cacak. We also received a European Union grant of 7.8 million euros for that. That project is complete. We are currently finishing the installation of smart meters using our own funds. Elektrodistribucija Srbije has purchased 150,000 meters over the past two years, and we expect a million smart meters to be reached on the network by the end of 2026.

So the 200,000 meters funded through the loan and grant scheme with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the EU were followed by another 150,000 meters the company paid for itself, without outside financing.

The next tender is already in the works

The end of 2026 deadline is not the final stop. Marceta also announced a second round of procurement, this time funded by the European Investment Bank (EIB):

In that tender we are planning 400,000 meters. It should be implemented during 2027, so that by the end of next year roughly a million and a half meters would be on the network.

The EIB has set aside 80 million euros for that part of the project. If it goes ahead on the announced schedule, the number of smart meters in Serbia would grow by another 500,000 units over two years, from the end of 2026 to the end of 2027.

What users get from the portal

Besides counting devices, Elektrodistribucija is also announcing a new tool for consumers themselves, a consumption tracking portal, currently in testing and expected to launch by the end of the year. According to Marceta, registered users with a smart meter will get insight into their own consumption the same way the distribution company sees it.

“Users will get all the energy data, the same way the distribution company sees it,” Marceta told RTS, explaining that the portal will display monthly, daily and hourly readings. Using the hourly data, households will be able to identify which appliances in the home consume the most electricity, instead of relying on guesswork.

For the distribution company itself, that same data serves a different purpose. Beyond consumption, smart meters also transmit data on voltage conditions and equipment integrity, letting the company address network problems before they turn into outages and inspect metering points in a targeted way instead of doing so in the field without notice.

Who still doesn’t have a smart meter

For households that have not yet received a smart meter, Elektrodistribucija has offered a different but still remote option since last year: self-reporting meter readings through the company’s app, its website or a free call center. According to figures Marceta gave, more than 500,000 users take advantage of that option every month, using nothing more than the metering point code from their bill and a photo of the meter. Readings can be submitted from the first to the sixth of each month.

While the country waits for a million smart meters by the end of the year and the announced tender for another 400,000, the remaining close to three million households in Serbia will, for now, keep relying on that older, manual way of reporting consumption.