Snake River Dams   Advanced Meters  

Advanced meters are becoming the standard across the country.   In fact, almost 87 million advanced meters have now been deployed in the US. The majority - 88% - are residential customer installations.
 
All of Benton PUD meters are automated.   The system we utilize offers significant benefits to our customers and has increased Benton PUD’s operating efficiencies, which help lower costs.   Benefits of the advanced meters are as follows:
 

Customer-facing

  • Enhanced use of SmartHub by allowing customers to:
    • Access hourly, daily and monthly electric usage data using an app or via the web to monitor consumption and improve energy management
    • Create text and/or emailed alerts at customer-established usage thresholds to keep track of hourly and/or daily consumption and proactively manage energy usage
    • Sign up for outage notifications and outage restoration alerts
    • Improve management of customer-owned distributed energy resources (i.e. rooftop solar)
  • Improved customer privacy due to the reduced need for Benton PUD staff to access customer property
  • Consistent billing periods, since meter reads are obtained on weekends and holidays
  • Timely processing of customer-requested service starts and stops using actual meter reads from the start/stop date, and real-time service disconnects and reconnects using remote disconnect meters
  • Near-elimination of estimated meter reads, which occurred on an occasional basis when meters were manually read
  • The ability for customers to select their bill due date
  • The ability for customers to enroll in Pay As You Go and avoid deposits and fees
  • Increased meter accuracy, as advanced meters are designed by the manufacturer to be within a +/- .2% accuracy in comparison to the old electromechanical meters which had an accuracy range of +/- 2%
 

Operational Efficiencies

  • Improved automatic outage detection enabling a more proactive dispatch of crews and faster restoration
  • Enhanced employee safety
  • Hot socket detection in customer-owned meter bases for prompt dispatch of crews
  • Energy theft protection
  • Improved electrical distribution system operations, including high and low voltage alarms and enhanced customer power investigations
  • Higher level of automated electrical distribution system operations (enhanced SCADA, automated meter alarms)
  • Improved electrical system planning and analysis through the use of meter interval data, coupled with a meter data management system