Smart Metering is being installed worldwide.

Here's a map that shows many of the projects currently underway.

Once the meters are in place they can send and receive information in real-time, or more commonly every 15 minutes. So 1 million Smart Meters will generate almost 100 million records per day.

Most utility company's back-office systems will not be able to crunch all of that data. Instead you're going to need systems like those used in the communication industry that are used to processing billions of transactions per day - something like this.