PPL Electric Utilities--Advanced Meter Project Returns Customer, Electric Company Benefits

Advanced Meter Project Returns Customer, Electric Company Benefits
PPL Electric Utilities Corporation, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation that provides electricity delivery services to about 1.4 million customers in Pennsylvania, has earned the Utility Planning Network's 2007 award for Best Metering Data Integration Initiative, which recognizes the use of electric meter data to benefit consumers.   The company's efforts to install advanced metering technology will help homes and businesses better manage their electricity use, allow PPL Electric Utilities to provide new rate options to customers by 2010 and enable competitive suppliers to offer unique pricing options to our customers.

The key to those improvements is PPL Electric Utilities' addition of a meter data management system that enables the company to track, store and manage hourly electricity-use information from all of its automated meters. The new system, developed by Nexus Energy Software, was added in late 2006 and is the largest operational system of its kind in North America.

The company's customer service representatives are already using the detailed usage information to help customers better understand how they use energy and to answer questions or concerns about electricity bills.  The company is also taking steps to give customers access to this detailed information through its Energy Analyzer on the Web. Today, customers can view daily usage information and up to two years of monthly usage history.  The company's next steps are to provide hourly information in 2009.

The information will enable PPL Electric Utilities' customers to understand, like never before, how and when they use energy in their home.  This knowledge will help them make better decisions about how to save energy and money.  The information also will support new pricing initiatives, such as time-of-use rate options and energy conservation programs.  The company's advanced metering system will also help it pinpoint outages so that its crews can restore power more quickly. And it enables the company to confirm when service has been restored.

The advanced metering project is part of PPL Electric Utilities' "e-power" initiative to help customers use electricity more wisely. The company is also evaluating a range of programs, including compact fluorescent light bulbs and programmable thermostats, to help customers save.

For more information about PPL Electric Utilities' energy efficiency activities, please visit www.pplelectric.com.

© 2008 Edison Electric Institute