Buffalo, N.Y. (WBEN) - Homes across Western New York are becoming smarter thanks to the innovation of smart meters for utility customers.
Starting in January 2025, National Grid customers will have the ability to monitor and control energy use for homes and businesses, as the company kicks off its two-year deployment of smart meters across the region.
"National Grid is going to be installing the most advanced technology when it comes to meters at customer locations, and it's going to give customers the ability to become active and, hopefully, smart consumers in the marketplace," said National Grid Regional Director, Ken Kujawa in an interview with WBEN. "We like to say, 'Putting the information in the hands of our customers will give them the ability to make smart decisions.' And if customers are educated on how they're using electricity, we hope that they're going to become more efficient consumers of electricity, because that has implications for market prices. It has implications for how we invest in our infrastructure. So if we're all making smart decisions, it'll have, hopefully, a positive impact on New York's energy environment."
Following the successful deployment of more than 450,000 electric meters in Central and Eastern New York, approximately 4,100 customers will receive new meters. The company’s initiative to replace meters nearing their end of lifespan with modern smart meters provides customers additional control and near real-time insights about their energy use.
Within the next two weeks, approximately 4,100 National Grid customers in the following Western New York communities will receive a letter from the company with details about their upcoming smart meter installation:
Erie County:
- Angola
- Brant
- Eden
- Farnham
- Hamburg
Allegany County:
- Cuba
- Scio
- Wellsville
Cattaraugus County:
- Allegany
- Cattaraugus
- East Otto
- Franklinville
- Limestone
- Otto
- Portville
- Quaker Bridge
Chautauqua County:
- Beamus Point
- Chautauqua
- Dewittville
- Frewsburg
- Irving
- Jamestown
- Little Valley
- Maple Springs
- Mayville
- Ripley
- Sinclairville
- Westfield
"We've recently completed installation of our FAN network (field area network), which allows the meters to talk to our devices, that will allow the functionality and the transmission of information to flow seamlessly from the meters to National Grid. So we're going to do a limited rollout in Western New York of about 4,100 customers - Southern Erie County and then the Southern Tier," Kujawa noted. "That's going to allow National Grid to begin the testing of our network. At the same time, it's also going to give our customers the ability to start using some of the features and functions that come along with smart meters that they haven't had access to in the past when our old AMR meters were in place."
After the initial 4,100 Western New York customers receive their smart meters, the company will continue the gradual deployment in other parts of the region through 2027. It is estimated that meters in the City of Buffalo will see new smart meters being installed as soon as the Summer of 2025.
Benefits of Smart Meters Smart meters offer customers continuous access to their energy usage data, so they can make informed choices. The technology will provide information about when and how energy is being consumed, which can provide customers with insights to make decisions about managing consumption and increasing energy efficiency.
Benefits include:
- More ways to monitor and take control of energy usage and spending.
- Improved service and reliability.
- Access to up-to-date energy use data within minutes, through the My Account portal. Customers can register at ngrid.com/myaccount.
- Faster response: Smart meters will increase National Grid’s ability to monitor and respond to power outages
"Customers will log on. This shows all of your usage in 15-minute increments, and then we also have another chart that shows the weather. It'll show what the weather was that day in temperature, so that you can see how that played into your usage as well. And then we have highest usage days. So say in the summertime, you turned your pool pump on and you forgot to turn it off, or you have Thanksgiving you hosted, then you'll know, 'OK that's why things are increasing so much.' So you can see where that happened as well," detailed Kristine O’Shaughnessy, Director of Advanced Metering Infrastructure Customer, Community and Regulatory Engagement at National Grid.
Currently, National Grid customers have their meters read monthly by radio frequencies transmitted to trucks that drive past the properties where they live or work. These meters are approaching the end of their lifespan, which offers National Grid an opportunity to implement new technologies that improve customer control, support energy efficiency and provide real-time outage data. According to industry data, 80% of meters deployed across North America have smart technology capabilities.
The smart meters that National Grid is installing are compliant with Federal Communications Commission regulations and emit less radio frequency than mobile phones, laptops, baby monitors or other devices. The meters will communicate wirelessly with National Grid’s control centers through a secure network.
This encrypted data will help National Grid pinpoint locations of outages and whether the issue occurred on customer-owned equipment or on the company’s network.
"This two-way communication gives us the opportunity as a utility to now see real time outage information. When a customer loses power in the future, National Grid will get an autonomous notification and be able to start to respond to that outage early with the right crews for that type of outage," said Mike Mokey, Director of Advanced Metering Infrastructure with National Grid. "It's just another really nice benefit of AMI when we start thinking about delivering value through our AMI technology, and what kind of services it provides. Outage management is just a really exciting opportunity."
Installation Process Customers will receive information approximately 60 days in advance of when their meter is expected to be installed. Up until the installation date, National Grid will be in contact with customers via email, phone and postal mail.
Installation dates with approximate times will be provided up to two weeks in advance. Customers do not need to be on site to meet installation crews if their meter is located outside of the home or business. Customers will have the ability to reschedule if their appointed date and time is inconvenient for them. Elderly, blind and disabled customers and customers with approved life-support devices will have the ability to set appointments for their meter installation.
O’Shaughnessy says National Grid has gotten a really good reading from customers, including plenty of positive feedback.
"We have customers saying that it's kind of like a game. They like to look at it now, they like to look at their usage," she noted. "They'll play games with their kids, like this is 15 minutes, and maybe we look at the next 15 minutes in a couple of hours and see what the differences are. So we really see a lot of folks commenting that they like to have the power in their hands, they like the technology."
And this is just the beginning of innovative changes for National Grid customers, according to O’Shaughnessy.
"This is the sort of base model of what we're going to be doing, but eventually, next year, customers will have an app that will go down. It'll break things down, disaggregate to the appliance level, so they can see which appliances are on, or ones that they want to unplugged," O’Shaughnessy added. "I actually heard from one of our test customers that they pretty much never want to use their their garbage disposal ever again, because they see how much power that takes. So it's really, really interesting, because it really helps customers to to notice it and to say, 'OK, let's change the behavior.' Let's do something differently so that they can save some money."
Installation of the initial 4,100 meters will be completed by National Grid crews. Future installations will include contractors from Utility Partners of America, an industry leader in smart meter installation. Installers will be easily recognizable as employees of National Grid or UPA, who will wear photo identification that includes their name, company name and logo, with many traveling in branded vehicles.
Smart meter installation for electric customers requires a short power outage that should last only a few minutes to safely remove the old meter and install the new one.
To learn more about National Grid’s Advanced Metering Infrastructure program, visit https://nationalgridus.com/Smart-Meter