Technology Corridor

Utilities are finding strategic benefits in demand-based metering technologies.

It's been years since utilities regarded customers as mere check-writing extensions of their meters. In fact, utilities' information technology focus during the past decade has centered on gaining greater control over customer information. The objective: Focus on-and fill-customer needs. The results are everywhere:

• Consolidated and converged bills;
• Call centers that answer questions immediately;
• Internet-based self-service; and
• Billing options.

Now a new era is emerging. Customers of all sizes are starting to control energy consumption in response to market signals. The vehicle for this change is the sophisticated metering technology now being pushed down from larger to smaller customers.

Time-of-use meters once reserved for large commercial sites are finding their way to the home. Office buildings and other businesses, in turn, are installing interval meters that were previously reserved for large industrial sites.

States and utilities have long permitted residential time-of-use meters. It took California's deregulatory woes, however, to bring time-of-use metering to the general public's attention. Time-of-use metering promised financial rewards to consumers trying to alleviate the crisis by switching consumption to off-peak hours-and penalties for neighbors who let their pool heaters run during the daytime. Today, California is one of a number of states in various stages of pushing sophisticated meters into the home to empower consumers.