NOTL Hydro will soon start replacing the smart meters that were originally installed in 2009. Around 7,000 meters will be replaced over the next 3-4 years so most customers will be affected. 2,000 meter replacements are planned for this year.
The impact on each customer will be an outage of less than a minute. To swap the meters, NOTL Hydro staff simply pull the existing meter, creating a brief power outage, then install the new meter to restore power. The hard work is not in the removing and installing of the meters but in the organization beforehand to ensure our records will have the correct meters at the correct customer premises. A lot of work has gone into ensuring these records will be accurate.
Due to the large number of meter replacements, it will not be possible to schedule them individually with customers. The only ones being scheduled are the limited number of customers we have on file who have a medical alert. Please do not call to try to schedule. The outage will be very short.
The existing meters are now 16 years old. Smart meters were a fairly new technology at that time so no one knows how long they will last. To hedge against known experience with other electronic based equipment in the industry, NOTL Hydro is replacing the meters now to guard against there being a large number of failures at one time. Going early also helps get ahead of potential supply chain issues as other utilities start their replacement program since smart meters were mandated and deployed Ontario wide all at the same time.
By failure, I am referring to the meter ceasing to function in a useful manner. I am not referring to the meters slowing down and not correctly measuring power consumption. That was an issue with the old mechanical meters the smart meters replaced, but is not an issue with these digital meters. Measurement Canada requires that all these meters be tested on a sample basis after ten years. This was done in 2019 with no issues noted. This testing will be required again after 8 years or 2027. The goal is to have them all replaced instead.
The Ontario Provincial Government required that the smart meters be installed so that customers could be billed on a time-of-use basis. These meters allow the measurement of the use of electricity by the hour. The old mechanical meters only measured how much electricity had been consumed between readings with no measurement of the timing.
Installing smart meters across all of Ontario at one time was expensive, estimates of around $2 billion. Whether this was money well spent can still be a matter of debate.
Some arguments in favour of the decision:
- Smart meters are more accurate than mechanical meters since there are no moving parts that can “slow down” and they measure actual time, providing true Watt-hour data.
- The installation of smart meters allowed time-of-use rates which enabled customers to choose when to use electricity for larger loads like ovens, dryers, air conditioners, hot tubs, pool pumps, etc.
- The smart meters allow for the new time-of-use rates such as the Ultra-Low Overnight (ULO) Rate. ULO rates are currently only 2.8¢ per kwh at night but are a very high 28.4¢ per kwh at peak times. This rate is aimed at EV car owners who have a high demand when charging.
- Utilities have come up with a number of valuable uses for smart meters. These are discussed below.
- Electric utilities in other jurisdictions have made the business decision to install smart meters without there being a government requirement.
Arguments against the decision to install smart meters include:
- The Government never set time-of-use rates with enough of a difference between the low and peak rates to truly change behaviour. Thus, the potential benefits of the smart meters were not realized.
- The Government of Ontario has now allowed the choice of tiered rates which do not require a smart meter.
- A number of other jurisdictions have chosen not to require smart meters.
- There has not been a proper after-the-fact analysis of the smart meter program to test the assumptions and the actual results.
As noted, smart meters provide some very useful capabilities that are of a big benefit to customers.
- Smart meters provide what is known as a last-gasp signal that indicates that a customer is losing power. Utilities build this into their outage management systems to provide outage alerts, determine the location and potentially the cause of the outage. At NOTL Hydro we get an e-mail alert triggered by the smart meter. Our staff can also access maps of all the meters showing an outage.
- Smart meters can also signal when a customer is not getting full power. The customer may not notice this performance impact but it can be an indicator of underlying problems in the connection to the customer that need to be addressed.
- Smart meters can be used to estimate the loading on transformers. NOTL Hydro has used this information to help determine what transformers need to be upgraded to a larger size due to load growth.
- Smart meters can measure the voltage variations at a customer site. This can be helpful when a customer is having concerns with their power quality. It can help indicate if the issue is with the service to the customer or within the customer’s premise.
- The data collected by smart meters is accessed remotely making the preparation of customer bills more efficient and thereby contributing to keep rates low.