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Many Upper Peninsula Power Company customers will soon have smart meters installed to monitor energy usage in their homes.
The company says UPPCO’s advanced metering solution utilizes new infrastructure, state-of-the-art technology and smart meters to modernize the power grid. The primary benefit of this new system is the ability to read and control the customer’s meter remotely. This allows for quick and accurate meter reads and the ability to start and stop service without having to send a truck to the customer’s premises.
“UPPCO currently reads its meters on a bimonthly basis and estimates usage on the off-months,” according to Brett French, UPPCO’s Vice President of Business Development and Communications. “By implementing the advanced metering solution, we will be able to read meters every month, greatly reducing our reliance on estimated values.”
Smart meters also record critical information during a power outage and send a signal to UPPCO’s System Operation Center in Ishpeming, whenever an outage is detected. This will allow for quicker detection and restoration of service. “The advanced metering solution will improve upon reliability by providing the means for determining when and where unplanned outages occur, resulting in improved restoration efforts,” according to French. “Installation of the new meters will begin during the spring of 2019. The project will take more than one year to complete. An opt-out option will be offered for customers that don’t want to participate in the UPPCO Smart Energy™ program.”
Additional information is available at www.uppco.com/smartenergy.
