(Kevin Martel/980 CJME)

By Britton Gray

SaskPower accepting volunteers for early smart meter installation

Jan 16, 2020 | 3:29 PM

SaskPower is giving people a chance to volunteer to get a new commercial smart meter installed early this year.

Since 2017, SaskPower has installed 8,000 commercial and industrial smart meters across the province and expects nearly 30,000 to be installed by the end of 2020.

Residential smart meters are still being tested but a person can get a commercial one installed on their home if they wish. The main difference is that the commercial meters are designed to work with higher loads of electricity.

Smart meters were first introduced in 2014 but were abandoned after the meters caused fires due to a malfunctioning part.

SaskPower’s Joel Cherry said the current meters have been tested and are performing above the industry standard.

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“We had these meters out in the elements, exposing them to everything that Saskatchewan can throw at them, whether that’s heat or cold or any other environment,” Cherry said. “None of them failed in a way that’s unacceptable.”

Cherry said the only issues SaskPower ran into with the smart meters were ones that would also have been seen in the current ones.

“If there’s extreme weather or physical damage to the meter, it’s just like any other one,” he said. “There haven’t been any failures of the types that we saw last time.”

There were concerns when the meters were first installed years ago that they could lead to a jump in people’s bills but Cherry said that’s not the case.

“In some cases when the meter went on and we’re able to immediately see how much power the customer is using, the next bill that they got was a true-up on the power that they used before the meter was installed,” Cherry said. “That’s power that they used and money they would’ve had to pay anyway and that would be a one-time thing.”

Cherry said there are advantages for customers who get a smart meter.

“With a standard meter, or a legacy meter, it records the amount of power that’s being used but in order for SaskPower to get that information, we have to send a meter reader to your house to go look at it physically,” Cherry said. “With a smart meter, we’re able to track the amount of power being used by a residence or a business in real time.

“For the customer this means that you’re going to be billed on exactly the amount of power that you use every month so there won’t be any estimated bills. Sometimes if you only get a meter read every three or four months and we’re estimating the cost, you might end up getting a true-up bill that’s a little bit higher and this will avoid that.”

He said the smart meter information can be accessed by the owner, who can then change their power consumption if needed.

Cherry said SaskPower is taking its time with the rollout to ensure everything goes smoothly.

Only 2,000 commercial smart meters are being installed as a part of this early volunteer process. Applications can be made here.