Magnolia Electric Power Association is making the switch from traditional meters to digital SmartMeters, and officials hope to have the conversion complete by May 2012.
Magnolia Electric General Manager Darrel Smith said the equipment swap will be mutually beneficial to the company and its customers.
“The premise of the SmartMeter would be that it would allow us to gather data on a daily basis, concerning our members’ usage,” Smith said. “It would allow us to send signals to the members to show them how much electricity they’re using daily. It will allow us to help our members save money on their power bill.”
Smith also said the daily monitoring will allow customers to shift their usage to cheaper periods of the day.
Magnolia Electric’s automatic meter structure will be funded through its share of a $30 million U.S. Department of Energy grant split between the company and the Southwest Mississippi, Coast, Southern Pine and Pearl River Valley electric power associations, which all are members of the South Mississippi Electric Cooperative.
Magnolia Electric’s $5 million portion is part of its 50 percent matching grant to cover the equipment swap for 30,000-plus meters.
According to a company statement, the project also is a means to meet guidelines mandated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005, which amended the Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act.
The amendment requires companies with sales exceeding 500 million kilowatt hours per year to implement new standards, including time-based metering and communications. This requires the company to offer “a times-based rate schedule ... that shall enable the electric consumer to manage energy use and cost through advanced metering.”
When the project is completed, the company’s contracted meter readers will not be needed, and Magnolia Electric employees who had worked with the old meters will transition to other positions in the company.
“That’ll probably migrate over to doing a better job with our service work that we need to be doing,” Smith said. “There will be no truck, no gasoline burned to go out to this location, and we will be able to give the member data that will be useful to them.”
Customers of other electric companies have expressed concerns regarding the new meter’s effects on household appliances.
According to a Sept. 6 article in the San Jose, Calif.-based Silicon Valley Mercury News, several Pacific Gas & Electric customers had issues with the company’s SmartMeter installation.
The complaints detailed“erratic” behavior in the form of static, pops and crackles in cordless phones, baby monitors, patio speakers, wireless headsets, security systems and remote controlled garage doors.
The problem, it appears, stems from a conflict between the appliances and the SmartMeters’ frequency when the meters transfer information to the power company. The reports also have raised concerns that the meters will impact satellite Internet reception in rural areas.
Smith said Magnolia Electric does not anticipate similar problems.
“The SmartMeters are not new. They’ve been out 10 to 15 years,” he said. “We’re on the very end of this technology. We waited until it developed. I don’t know of any instances where what Magnolia plans to install would interfere with any other devices.”
Smith also said interference is unlikely because the signal transmitted across powerlines, as opposed to a wireless connection.
“I’ve heard of no cases where the feedback’s been negative. This is doing nothing to hurt anyone. it’s to help,” Smith said. “This is something we were planning to do. It’s the right thing.
“This is going to be a great benefit to our membership, and it’s going to help us all control power costs in the future.”
Magnolia Electric isn’t the only local utility operator making the switch to automated metering.
The city of McComb in February approved a $4.5 million lease agreement with Siemens Public to provide 100 percent financing for new automated meters. Siemens will back a the financing through a 10-year, 4.42 percent interest loan.
The project will replace up to 6,900 aging water meters with digital meters that transmit information on water use and possible leaks to the billing department.
