Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Thursday filed with the California Public Utilities Commission for approval of its five-year, $1.46 billion effort to install 9.3 million advanced meters for its gas and electric customers, one of the largest combination distribution utility networks in the nation. The so-called “smart” meters can be read remotely and allow customers to pre-program energy-saving features.

To fund the program, the utility said it will ask the CPUC for a “slight” rate increase that for the typical combination gas and electric utility customers would be 69 cents/month. The capital cost of the system will be about $1.25 billion, with $213 million in expenses for completing the five-year transition effort.

With encouragement from California energy regulators, PG&E’s utility and the state’s other major investor-owned utilities are being encouraged to install “advanced metering infrastructure” (AMI) systems to enhance peak-shaving and provide customers with more control over their energy use, and provide utilities faster outage information. As part of the advanced meter switch, the CPUC is expected to eventually institute various time-of-use pricing options for retail power customers.

“Doing so can reduce the cost of energy procurement and perhaps even help lessen California’s growing need for more electric power and power [delivery] infrastructure,” said a PG&E utility spokesperson. The spokesperson noted that a number of utility operating cost-savings are expected, including the elimination of the need for a large meter-reading staff, speeding up responses to customer outages and virtually eliminating the need for estimating customer bills because of lack of physical access to the current old-style meters.

The utility’s proposed application of AMI is tied to the 2002 CPUC order for the state’s major energy utilities, mandating that they consider programs and tools that improve customers options to reduce their electric usage during peak-demand times. The action kicked off a two-year statewide pilot program designed to determine the level of customer interest in what is called “dynamic pricing.”

As a result, PG&E utility has accumulated 18 months of data on AMI technology and its deployment at other utilities, along with evaluating various vendor proposals. At a joint energy action plan meeting last Wednesday, the California Energy Commission’s senior commissioner and an internationally recognized expert in the energy efficiency/technology area, Arthur Rosenfeld lauded the CPUC and PG&E for the work done so far, and said “it is time for a high-technology state like California to have a high-technology electricity metering system.”

PG&E stressed that AMI now is a well-documented technology with more than 30 million meters operating in homes and businesses. Kansas City Power & Light in 1994 became one of the first utilities to switch to advanced metering.

“AMI technology will help us do our job better and more efficiently, and will help our customers conserve energy and even save money,” said Tom Bottorff, PG&E’s utility senior vice president, customer services. “During summer peaks, customers who wait until after 7 p.m. to run dishwashers, clothes driers, and other appliances, have the potential to lower their bills.”

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