Technology Players Preparing for Battle over Smart Meter Contracts

Climate change secretary Ed Miliband met with the "big six" energy companies this week to discuss how a £7bn national smart meter roll out can be achieved between 2010 and 2020. One proposal is that a "central communications" supplier will be responsible for collecting and processing information from the meters. Energy regulator Ofgem would run the tender for such a contract, which would operate from 2010 to 2020. According to reports Vodafone, O2, BT, Logica, Accenture, IBM and Capgemini have all already expressed an interest in bidding for the contract. It is most likely these companies will develop a bidding consortium, in a similar way to other significant government IT contracts.

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