*Natural Gas - New Perspectives and Future Developments*

**Figure 3.** *Gas smart metering rollout in Europe (source: [12]).*

of supply market and need for consumer engagement, meter location, and meter ownership [11]. Currently, countries with a high density of gas customers and a significant share of gas bills such as the UK and Italy were more favorable to the smart metering rollout. Additional benefits of taking part in the rollout of gas smart meters could be derived from the higher transparency and awareness about the gas consumption and from the reduction of GHG emissions improving energy efficiency. These social benefits, together with the introduction of DR programs, should be driving factors to enlarge the number of EU countries enrolled in this program.

Germany is the largest gas consumer country in the EU. However, it does not accept the mandatory rollout due to unclear costs-benefit ratio of the smart metering gas implementation, according to the report of Wissne and Stronzik [13]. In addition, the saving costs derived from theft protection were not as high in Germany as in the other countries, as this is not a frequent problem in that country. Similarly, Sweden rejected the participation in the rollout because the low number of gas consumers (around 40.000) made it not attractive, as highlighted by Brodin et al. [14]. On the other side, Spain has a much higher amount of gas customers (over 7 million) but, despite that, the CBA had negative results. The most significant results obtained in the countries which have adopted the rollout are described in the following sections.
