Smart Meters Could Help Reduce Electricity Use

The discussion about resolving Alberta's overheated electricity grid has mostly centred on the need to build big transmission lines and generating plants.  But there's also a role to play for something that's attached to every home and business - the electricity meter.

So-called smart, or advanced, meters, can provide instant, automated information on electricity consumption to both users and transmission and distribution companies.  These advanced meters are being rapidly installed in many jurisdictions throughout North America and Europe.

FortisAlberta - Installations of AMI meters

Electricity distribution company FortisAlberta, for example, is in the midst of installing advanced meters for all its more than 450,000 Alberta customers.  The company's primary objective is to replace manual meter reading with an automated system.

"Advanced meters are expensive to install, but the cost should be offset by not having to send out people (often in trucks) to do manual readings and trample on people's property," says Nguyen Tran, FortisAlberta's director of customer operations. "We think it's the responsible thing to do."

For now, it doesn't intend to follow Ontario's goal of providing real-time, in-home displays on the smart meters it is installing throughout the province.  In a pilot project undertaken by Ontario utility Hydro One, participating homeowners with such real-time use displays decreased their electricity use by nearly 10 per cent.

Eventually, Ontario intends to replace flat electricity rates with time-of-use pricing for its residential customers.  The idea is that if homeowners, equipped with real-time meter displays, see that they are paying considerably more to run their dishwasher or washing machine during peak evening hours, they will have a financial incentive to shift that usage to cheaper, off-peak hours.  The long-term goal is that by reducing overall peak electricity demand, less generating capacity will be needed.

Large Alberta industrial and commercial companies already have sophisticated, hourly metering systems that allow them to somewhat shift their electricity loads in response to variable pricing.  Alberta is not currently contemplating time-of-use pricing for residential and farm consumers, who account for about 20 per cent of the province's total electricity consumption.

"Alberta is a winter peaking region, with a relatively small residential air conditioning component, little electric heating and few residential swimming pool systems," a recent government discussion paper noted.  "As a result of this mix, shifting loads through various hours of a day appears to provide reduced benefit to residential users when compared to other regions.  Overall load reductions, however, through strategies such as price incentives or direct immediate usage feedback in support of altruistically driven consumption, appear to present real opportunities."