UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER

July 18, 2008

Mario Mendoza began his shift at 9 a.m. Wednesday, and two hours later, the San Diego Gas & Electric service technician had completed 10 “smart meter” installations at houses along Tierrasanta's Fino Drive.

So far, so good. Only 2.3 million installations to go.

In what utility officials call “the first wave of deployment,” SDG&E began installing digital, wireless smart meters this week for about 3,500 customers in Tierrasanta. The new meters track each customer's electricity and gas usage throughout the day, and automatically transmit data at regular intervals to a computerized information center at SDG&E.

The smart meters are expected to do far more than merely eliminate the need for meter readers. By most accounts, the technology represents the biggest advance in monitoring energy consumption since 1888, when the electromechanical meter was invented.

By tracking energy use on an hourly basis, or every 15 minutes for commercial customers, SDG&E officials say they can better manage overall demand, improve energy conservation, pinpoint gas leaks and immediately identify the scope of electric power outages.

The technology also will make it possible – eventually – for customers to monitor their own gas and electricity use and to reduce their consumption to avoid higher utility rates.

“What we envision are pricing programs that are 'carrot-based,' ” so that customers can save money, said Chris Baker, SDG&E's vice president for information technology.

Customers someday will use an online account to control their home appliances and adjust their thermostats, but the necessary infrastructure for such demand-response programs is not yet available.

“We not only support the deployment of smart meters but have actively encouraged SDG&E to do it,” said San Diego consumer advocate Michael Shames, who heads the Utility Consumers' Action Network.

“In 2006, UCAN co-funded a study by San Diego-based SAIC on the potential savings achievable by smart meters, and we believe that a 10 percent reduction is entirely feasible,” Shames added.

As the smart meters are deployed, SDG&E expects to realize cost savings of roughly $78 million from operational efficiencies.

The utility currently has 230 meter readers, although SDG&E spokeswoman Stephanie Donovan said no layoffs are expected to result from the smart meters' deployment. The work-force reduction will instead come through attrition, and training and workshops will help meter readers transition to new jobs within the company.

“From a cost/benefit, economic-analysis standpoint, we'll see net benefits of about $200 million over the life of the project,” Donovan added.

After evaluating the initial installation in Tierrasanta, including the data generated by the smart meters for the rest of this year, SDG&E plans to begin full-scale deployment in early 2009.

The utility intends to replace all 1.4 million electric meters in its service area and modify 900,000 gas meters by installing add-on wireless modules.

The program, approved in 2007 by the California Public Utilities Commission, is expected to take 2½ years to complete and cost $572 million.

In Tierrasanta, SDG&E plans to replace 3,000 electric-utility meters with smart meters and install wireless modules to 2,000 natural-gas meters, giving wireless communications capabilities to the existing gas meters.

The electric smart meters include 900-megahertz, wireless mesh networking technology, which provides two-way data communications between each meter and SDG&E's data center.

Although the smart meter and its software are proprietary, SDG&E officials say the system is based on an “open architecture” design so that other hardware and technologies can be connected to provide additional information.

Each smart meter also includes “ZigBee” technology, a low-power wireless standard intended to serve as the gateway to a customer's ZigBee-enabled home area network and ZigBee-equipped appliances connected to it.

While ZigBee technology is not widely available today, the emerging technology eventually would allow customers to access an online account where they would be able to monitor their electricity use. Customers also could use their online account to adjust their home thermostat from work or turn off their swimming-pool pump during a period of peak electricity demand.

“It's all about customers' choices,” SDG&E's Baker said. “There will be in-home energy management systems for our customers. They'll get a rebate to reduce their energy consumption, based on pricing (intended) to change their behavior – if they choose to do so.”

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Bruce Bigelow: (619) 293-1314; bruce.bigelow [at] uniontrib [dot] com