Smart electricity meter penetration in North America reached 82 per cent last year and is expected to see a CAGR of 2.9% till 2030, according to market watcher Berg Insight.

This growth will lead to a total of 180.9 million units installed by the end of the 2030. Over the next five years, the penetration of smart meters in the USA will increase to 91 per cent while in the more advanced Canadian market it will reach 97 per cent.

“First-generation smart electricity meter shipments will account for an increasingly smaller share of annual shipment volumes,” said Felix Linderum, IoT analyst at Berg Insight. “In the next two years, first-generation projects by the utilities AEP, PSEG, Xcel Energy, First Energy, PPL, National Grid, Eversource, Ameren, Avangrid and AES will contribute to annual first-generation smart electricity meter shipments in the range of three-to-four million units. Meanwhile, second-generation smart meter deployments account for a growing share of annual smart meter shipment volumes and are projected to make up nearly 75 per cent of yearly shipments by the end of the forecast period.”

According to the study, yearly shipments of smart electricity meters in North America peaked at 18.4 million in 2024 and will gradually decline to 12.0 million units by 2030.

Alongside the increase in smart meter replacement projects, the development of smart metering technology in the North American market has recently shifted focus to new demands beyond smart metering. Utilities are now looking to leverage their existing network canopies for a wider array of smart city applications. They are also addressing how to integrate the rapidly increasing number of electric vehicles and distributed energy resources into the grid infrastructure.

“The leading vendors are in a race to develop and successfully market the most compelling use cases for second-generation smart metering technology,” said Linderum. “In addition to enhanced computing power, edge analytics and more frequent meter reads that offer a new range of benefits and control, utilities are increasingly seeking to combine various applications.”

While wireless RF technology remains the dominant communications technology in North American smart metering deployments, utilities increasingly consider private cellular networks.

“This interest in private cellular networks is driven by utilities seeking greater control over network resources and lifecycle management, as well as a migration path from legacy LMR networks that lack broadband capabilities,” said Linderum.

Private cellular networks are moreover seen as a response to problems such as public cellular network coverage and phase outs, which have both limited the adoption of cellular-based AMI in the past.

“These networks also hold the potential to simplify utility communications by consolidating multiple siloed systems into a unified platform,” said Linderum. “However, high deployment costs remain a significant barrier and the extent to which private cellular communications will be used for AMI will largely depend on how mission-critical smart meters are considered to be.”

Download report brochure at media.berginsight.com/2025/07/08224138/bi-smna7-ps.pdf.