Spanish energy giant Iberdrola has awarded a €30 million (£24.4m) smart meter contract to Avantha group Company CG.

The order includes supplying Iberdrola with more than one million smart meters within a year. Spanish utilities are expected to replace 70% of analogue meters by 2016 and 100% by 2018.

Smart meter installations in Europe are expected to rise sharply by the end of the decade as large-scale deployments are expected to start in the UK, Germany and France next year.

Energy firms in Britain are expected to roll out 53 million smart meters in homes and small businesses by 2020.

Laurent Demortier, Avantha Group Company CG`s CEO and Managing Director said: “This win reinstates CG`s long term commitment to providing smart grid solutions to the European Distribution grid to monitor and manage their own networks.”