Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Minister of Energy Prince Abdul Aziz Bin Salman on Sunday oversaw signing of an agreement aimed at enhancing the role of local content in the manufacturing of smart electric meters, scheduled to start in the near future.

The agreement was signed by Dr. Ghassan Al-Shebl, chairman of the Local Content and Government Procurement Authority; Dr. Khalid Al-Sultan, chairman of the board of Saudi Electricity Company; Dr. Saad Al-Qasabi, governor of the Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization; Dr. Yasser Al-Turki, assistant deputy minister of electricity; and Dr. Abdulrahman Al-Muhanna, acting governor of Electricity and Cogeneration Regulatory Authority, the Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

Under the agreement, the winner of the Smart Meters Project will manufacture at least 35 percent of the smart meters in the Kingdom, representing 3.5 million smart meters of the total project of 10 million meters.

Speaking on the occasion, Prince Abdul Aziz affirmed that this landmark agreement confirms the state’s commitment to empower and maximize local content and enhance the role of Saudi industries to effectively upgrade the electricity industry in the country in accordance with the Kingdom's Vision 2030. The smart meters project will be a qualitative leap in serving the consumers and upgrading the electricity sector to better levels.

SEC chief Al-Sultan said that SEC, through Smart Meters Project, aims to achieve high electrical service reliability and also a reliable and easy-to-read billing system for its subscribers. It complies with all the World Bank’s guaranteed standards applicable in the Kingdom. “SEC will continue to promote the local content of industries related to the electricity sector, and enable local manufacturers to compete globally as well as to raise the proportion of local factories registered with the company,” he said.

Dr. Ghassan Al-Shebl said that procurement authority has worked with its partners to benefit from this great project to raise the efficiency and capacity of local production of smart meters. “As the volume of supply to local factories is concentrated in the production of digital meters, the project will contribute to strengthen the capabilities of local factories to produce smart meters by at least 3.5 million during the project period,” he added.