This summer, Edison is set to begin field tests at 3,000 to 5,000 sites. If it wins approval from the state Public Utilities Commission next year, the utility would install 5.3 million smart meters to cover all its residential and business customers who use less than 200 kilowatts of power at any given moment.
Other utilities in California, including Pacific Gas & Electric Co. in the Bay Area and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., are embarking on similar advanced metering projects.
Edison's plan doesn't contemplate any changes to the existing rate structure, so customers wouldn't be obligated to participate in any time-based pricing plans that might be offered. But regulators in California and elsewhere have expressed support for overhauling rates to incorporate time-of-day pricing in all bills.
Looking toward the future, Edison and others see the new meters being able to communicate with other household appliances and determining when energy hogs such as air conditioners should be powered down and then restarted.
Edison's meters would have additional features. The devices would be in constant communication with the utility, providing data on power usage and notifying officials of service interruptions. They could also be controlled remotely, giving Edison service representatives the ability to start or stop electricity service immediately, instead of forcing customers to wait for crews to do the work.
Another attraction: Edison would be able to cut costs by doing away with meter readers who roam the utility's 50,000-square-mile territory, manually recording customers' electricity use.
Ted Geilen, a senior utilities engineer and policy analyst at the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, an independent arm of the state utilities commission, said it was too soon to judge Edison's plan because the final application was filed Tuesday.
The division has "been pretty happy with the way they've approached the problem. . . . We'll have to see if the numbers work out," he said.
--
elizabeth.douglass@latimes.com
