The traditional electric meters at thousands of Valley homes serviced by Eversource are in the process of being replaced with “smart meters” capable of tracking electricity use daily rather than monthly, part of a statewide initiative that the utility believes will make for a more efficient and beneficial system.
Eversource reached 100,000 smart meter installations in January while its crews were working in Easthampton. Over the next two years, the utility says it will upgrade more than 1.5 million meters statewide in a project that began last summer.
For Luis Pizano, director of Smart Meter Operations at Eversource, said this initiative is going to change the way Eversource clients such as those in Easthampton, Northampton, Amherst, Hadley and other communities in the Valley view their electricity use.
“With these smart meters, we’re building infrastructure that makes it much more efficient and beneficial to the customer,” Pizano said.
Eversource is a regional electric, gas and water service with 2.2 million customers throughout Massachusetts. The company supplies electric services to approximately 1.6 million customers across 159 communities in the state.
Eversource’s installations started last year in western Massachusetts and crews have been replacing meters periodically since then. Installations in western Massachusetts are expected to conclude in the coming months before expanding to the eastern part of the state. The full initiative expects to conclude before the end of 2027.
Pizano said Eversource began installations in the western part of the state since it has less coverage than out east. With that, he said installations could be completed sooner, giving clients benefits before having to install meters in much more dense coverage areas near Boston and Worcester.
Under the existing system, Pizano said Eversource must deploy what he described as an โarmy of vehiclesโ to drive through its service area each month to collect signals from older, analog meters โ a process that becomes unnecessary with smart meters.
“They (current meters) communicate continuously but in order to get that signal we have to drive this army of vehicles that goes by a house once a month that picks up a reading and that’s what generates a customer’s bill,” Pizano explained.
Pizano said with the decreasing number of vehicles Eversource will need to drive, the rollout also has significant environmental positives.
“The vehicle maintenance cost, the fuel cost, the greenhouse cost emissions โ there’s a huge environmental and efficiency aspect to this,” Pizano said.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, as of 2022, American electric utilities installed about 119 million smart meters, roughly 73% of all residential electric meters.
With smart meters, Pizano said that the signal is transmitted through a radio system continuously to Eversource so the company can make readings daily. That allows customers to see electric output for each day of the week at any time through an Eversource account.
“It’s like transferring from an analog phone to a smart phone,” Pizano said about moving from the older-model to smart ones.
Pizano said the hope is that customers will become more aware of their electricity use, allowing them to manage when it is being used the most and how much it is contributing to their monthly bill. Pizano said the installation costs of smart meters is wrapped into a customers monthly bill over an extended period of time.
“They’re basically seeing their usage and that can be translated into how much they used, they can see it on a monthly basis, hourly basis, even like a 15-minute basis,” Pizano said. “It can be really eye-opening for customers.โ
Radiation concerns
Smart meters โ also known as advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) โ rely on radio frequency (RF) which is a type of electromagnetic field radiation. The Eversource website says the RF levels emitted by a smart meter are safe and well below national guidelines.
However, concerns have been raised by certain residents in the state over the safety of another device releasing radiation.
Legislation, bill S.2306, filed by state Sens. Michael O. Moore, DโMillbury, and Ryan Fattman, RโSutton, customers would not be charged with any additional cost to keep an analog meter or replace an existing non-transmitting type of smart meter.
Eversource customers are allowed to opt-out of smart meter installation, which is notified to homeowners 90 days before the estimated installation date. Though it costs $34 a month to opt-out.
The proposed legislation consists of other stipulations that would require utility companies to obtain a ratepayerโs written consent before installing meters and notify customers if AMI has already been installed. The measure currently sits before the Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy.
In a similar bill filed by State Rep. Estela Reyes, DโLawrence, bill H.3551, would allow ratepayers a choice in the type of utility meters installed in their homes or businesses, if passed.
Smart meter information is sent through a private network and stored in secure company servers and do not send any customer information, such as name and address. The meters are manufactured by the company Itron and do not require wireless internet (Wi-Fi).
Pizano said the smart meter rollout came after a push from the state to get AMI technology installed. The state Department of Public Utilities approved modernization plans in 2022 for several electric companies in Massachusetts, including Eversource, National Grid and Unitil.
Pizano said Eversource is actually late to the game in terms of smart meter rollouts and the technology has been around for about two decades now. According to National Grid, smart meters have been in operation in the United States since 2006 and as of 2021 there were approximately 111 million smart meter installations across the country.
He said the state along with electric partners have a responsibility to continuously upgrade electricity technology to the most modern systems. For the most recent modernization plan, Eversource was approved for a budget of $668 million for AMI installation.
“Our responsibility is to maintain a modern grid so that’s where this improvement comes from,” Pizano said. “We’re continuously replacing aging meters, so weโre replacing these meters like we would with any others.”
