Smart meter rollout to begin next year
Regulator says approval of new meters won’t increase power rates
The president of Nova Scotia Power says she’s confident the smart meter technology the utility will roll out to its customers across the province will work in rural areas of Nova Scotia.
The Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board has approved the private utility’s $133-million plan to install smart meters throughout the province. The provincial regulator said the approval of new meters won’t increase power rates because the cost of the program is expected to be offset by savings over its 20-year life.
While smart meters are not new — they’ve been used in some jurisdictions for years and nearly 70 per cent of Canadians already have them — there have been issues reported with wireless signals for the meters in some rural areas. Installation of the new meters is expected to begin in January and be completed by the end of 2020.
While there have been connectivity issues reported in parts of Cape Breton related to everything from telephone landlines to broadband Internet, Karen Hutt said those issues have been considered as NSP set about planning its deployment of the new meters.
“The team has certainly assessed those circumstances and that’s part of our scoping that has already occurred, so depending on whatever the interface is, we’re equipped to be able to adapt that so it won’t be exactly the same throughout all parts of the province but the team has reflected that in the planning,” she said.
Current meters require manual readings in person, but the new smart meters will send data several times a day to the utility through what it describes as a safe, secure, and private wireless network that will be built as part of the project.
As far as those concerned with the security of the data transmitted by the meters, Hutt said it is encrypted and won’t contain personal details such as a customer’s name or address.
NSP has noted that once customers are switched to smart meters they will be able to access data about their electricity usage and make adjustments to their consumption.
Some people have also expressed concerns about potential health impacts associated with the meters. Customers who don’t want the new meters installed will be able to opt out although they may have to pay a fee to do so. NSP must also provide information on health and safety standards to any customer who asks. As for when the meters may begin to arrive in Cape Breton, Hutt said those details aren’t finalized yet.
“Now that we have guidance and a decision from our regulator, we’ll really dig into the detailed planning, we’ll spend the balance of this year working through that, from the technology, the customer interface, all of those different components and then we will begin to deploy meters into the field next year,” Hutt said. “You can expect to see us do it on a staged basis. We’ll be looking at different geographies, different customers, those kinds of things because we will want to test and learn and adapt where we need to and our expectation would be that in 2020 we’ll have completed the deployment.”