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Imagine, as an APS customer, being able use your cell phone to manage appliances like your air conditioning or your pool pump. Or rather than arriving home to a dark apartment due to an outage — receiving an automated text message from APS letting you know ahead of time the power is off so you can make other plans. Or, even receiving a follow-up text message letting you know your power is back on.
It is this kind of convenience APS hopes to bring to its customers through smart meters, new electric meters that operate on a two-way, wireless network. With these special devices, consumers can expect improved reliability, better control of energy usage and a level of customer service never imagined by prior generations. In the future, the technology will allow customers to manage their account via aps.com and cell phones.
“Our job is to anticipate what our customers will demand in the future, and put ourselves in a position to provide it,” said Tammy McLeod, vice president and chief customer officer. “We are committed to investing in technologies that benefit our customers. Advanced metering technology holds the potential of providing customers with a quantum leap in service in the future.”
Traditional meters only measure customer energy usage, while smart meters — which look no different than their predecessors — have the ability to offer real-time communication between the customer and APS.
Smart meters also provide benefit to APS and to our environment. They allow APS to remotely obtain reads and reprogram the meter, and to turn a meter on or off remotely, eliminating the need for visits by APS field personnel. In fact, because of the smart meters, there were more then 57,600 avoided orders and trips out in the field for APS employees in 2007, saving significant time, money and car emissions. Smart meters can also be deployed at remote locations, resulting in even more savings.
The perks of technology
It also will mean for consumers the benefits of monitoring energy consumption, easy selection and comparison of energy plans, control of appliances from remote locations and potentially fewer outages. A pilot program for smart meters began with 500 and has grown from there. Currently 100,000 smart meters have been installed around the state and the company is currently replacing 7,000 meters per month. Within five years, APS expects to deploy about 800,000 smart meters.
And according to Michael Goguen, director, Operations Support, and the project leader, the technology has reached a maturity level where it provides significant benefits to our customers. “In fact, the company already is seeing benefits from these special meters with wireless meter reads that eliminate the need for APS personnel to go out in the field", Goguen said. The meters even can be remotely reprogrammed should a customer change service plans. This ability comes in handy, especially in some of the places the meters are being initially installed such as apartment complexes. Typically, these complexes see customer turnover as high as 100 percent per year.
The ability to remotely obtain reads and reprogram the meter eliminates the need for visits by APS field personnel. Fewer field trips have the added benefits of reducing carbon emissions from vehicles. And fewer vehicle miles increase the safety of APS employees.
How it works and what the future holds
The meters work by networking among each other using a wireless signal — similar to that of a cordless phone. All the meters in a certain area will send their information through a hub meter. The hub meter has a radio similar to a Blackberry through which it sends and receives data to and from APS. The data is updated each night.
The meters can convey when they’re being tampered with and even send a notification to APS when the power goes out. The meters are able to update their operating software remotely as well. They’ll also offer a solution to an issue very specific to Arizona. During summer months, for customers who are delinquent in paying their bills, APS would be able to limit their usage without turning off power. These new meters also would allow those same customers to prepay their electricity. So if a customer is on a budget and only has a certain amount available for electricity, they can prepay and monitor their usage down to the penny to stay within their allotted budget.
Additionally, because smart meters update energy usage information hourly as opposed to monthly, APS and the customer both are better able to predict the customer’s final bill and plan accordingly. This regularly updated information also provides better data on customer usage patterns. This helps APS and the customer to make more informed decisions in finding the best rate plan for each customer’s lifestyle.
The new devices improve reliability, increase control of energy usage and allow for a level of customer service never imagined by prior generations. Metering technology takes a quantum leap.
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