Dive Brief:

• Power company Enel now has smart electric meters installed in more than 90% of Italian households, leading the pace of deployments in Europe. The meters save Enel about 500 million euros each year, the company said.
• France plans to install 35 million smart meters by 2020, Spain 13 million by 2018 and the UK 30 million by 2020.
• A report by Sweden's Berg Insight estimates 110 million meters will be installed in Europe by 2017, with a large share of the business going to Landis+Gyr, Itron and Echelon.

Dive Insight: 

European consumers share a lot of the same concerns in the US about smart meters, such as their cost and risk to personal privacy. But support from the European Union and a more centralized approach to managing electricity supply in most European nations, where power prices are high, has made smart meters an easier sell to ratepayers.