Capita's selection as a preferred supplier for a £175m, 12-year deal by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to provide Smart Meter Infrastructure Management came as a surprise. "Smart metering will be the biggest step change in the retail energy sector since the industry was privatized, more than 25 years ago” Capita’s chief executive, commented Paul Pindar. That goes for Capita's presence in the utility sector too.

The company did not have a presence in the utility sector until it acquired Northgate Managed Services (NMS) in February 2013. Furthermore, Capita is not known for large scale IT infrastructure services. Capita talked to NelsonHall about Northgate Managed Services (NMS) having clients in the utility sector at the time of the acquisition and no doubt NMS has enhanced Capita’s ability to manage the infrastructure. Capita is still very likely to work with partners extensively to manage the national scale of requirements.

Preferred suppliers for DECC's other smart metering supporting contracts were also announced today:

• CGI (formerly Logica) for the Data Service Provider (DSP) contract to manage the volumes of transactional data, in an 8-years deal worth ~£75 million.
• Telefonica for the Communications Service Provider (CSP) for the central and southern regions, in a contract worth ~ £1.5bn over 15 years.
• Arqiva for CSP the northern region, a contract worth ~ £625m over 15 years.

NelsonHall will cover the awards in more detail when the contracts have been finalized.

NelsonHall's analysis of NMS' acquisition published in February 2013: http://www.nelson-hall.com/research-programs/tracking-service/industry-insight-database/?avpage-views=article&id=77391&fv=2