Smart meters: accuracy, and anger

Phil Carson | Sep 03, 2010

 

U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu generated news last week when he announced that two million smart meters had been installed nationally, half-funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

That sparked an email to an Internet forum from Chris King, chief regulatory officer for eMeter, which reflected that ARRA-funded meters are a fraction of the 16.5 million meters installed so far nationally. According to King's data, another 34 million meter installations are in progress.

King's email, in turn, sparked a thought at my end.

Chu's announcement landed right between two related events: news out of Texas in mid-August and California last week that independent analyses found smart meters—the subject of anger and allegations—to be accurate, as are the backend systems involved. It's noteworthy that something on the order of 1,000 or so complaints each in Texas and in California—out of more than 1.3 million meters installed by Oncor in Texas and a staggering 6.3 million meters installed by Pacific Gas & Electric in California—managed to become national stories.

To be sure, occasional problems also arose when an accurate smart meter replaced an aging, inaccurate electromagnetic meter. But for the most part, weather, rate hikes and personal usage patterns were responsible for spikes in billing.

Both situations appeared to underscore the need for proactive outreach by utilities to prepare their customers for meters and for improvements in complaint handling. Once local politicians grabbed the issue and ran with it, media followed and the resulting stories got legs. That reflects the political mantra that if you don't define yourself, others will do it for you, to your detriment.

So, my grand thought—appallingly obvious, now that I write it out:

Missing in this discussion is the fact that the meter deployment numbers reflect that rollouts have progressed in most places without rancor. (Join us this Thursday for an Intelligent Utility Reality Webcast to hear about Austin Energy's success and the bigger issues.)

So I asked King for his thoughts on what's really happening out there.

"The vast majority of implementations are highly successful," King suggested. "And where we do get complaints, they're from a small percentage of customers."

Those complaints get amplified by "pure politics"—politicians seeking to make hay, he said. "Certainly with all utilities, especially big utilities, some people don't like them because they're monopolies."

What about the much-discussed gap between meter installation and tangible customer benefits? That gap has been at the heart of recent regulatory issues in Maryland and here in Colorado and seem to give critics plenty of ammunition.

King estimated that about half of residential customers receiving smart meters have access to energy usage feedback, a tool touted by many, including King, as crucial to energy management and even reduced consumption. That feedback tends to be available on utility websites where motivated customers can see typically day-old data. (King said customers prefer that such data be "pushed" to them, via email or on their bills.) 

Perhaps only 1 percent of U.S. customers with smart meters have access to dynamic pricing offers, King estimated. Instead, utilities should be ready to deliver that option as soon as meters are installed, he said.

What are the hurdles to effective smart meter rollouts?

"The barrier is an IT barrier," King said. "Utilities should have the IT system in place before the rollout. It's legacy operations with siloing—the meter shop plugs in the meters, the IT shop does IT support. They work in parallel, but each finishes when they finish. Some utilities install meters first, communication networks second. That creates the same issue as with the IT scenario, because the meter is there, you just can't do anything with it."

Does delaying customer benefits create a vulnerability for utilities, giving critics some traction?

"It's more than a potential vulnerability, it's an Achilles heel," King told me. "If I'm a consumer and I get a smart meter and there's no tangible, immediate benefit, I'm going to ask 'What's the problem here'? It leaves the forum open to those who complain, because supporters aren't able to point to the (immediate) benefits. They can only point to future benefits."

Is proactive consumer education the answer?

"There's a lot of talk about educating consumers. Consumers are very smart and they pick this stuff up very quickly. If they don't understand it, it's because they don't have the information, not because it's complicated. I say 'set appropriate expectations.' What benefits will consumers get? When will they get them? Utilities need to be specific. Most utilities use high-level, general terms—it'll improve 'reliability.' What does that really mean to a consumer? Fewer outages?"

In California, as we've seen, Marin County residents would have us believe that smart meters are potentially deadly to human health, but that over-the-top tactic is likely doomed by its own rhetoric. Instead, now that studies reflect smart meter accuracy in two major markets, the industry now can turn to the pressing task of articulating and delivering tangible value to homeowners who are voters. Or the industry will suffer withering attacks from well-organized, well-funded opponents of upgrading the grid, which I will address this week. 

Phil Carson
Editor-in-chief
Intelligent Utility Daily
pcarson@energycentral.com
303-228-4757