The chief executive officer of a global smarter utility firm can now look any potential customer in the eye and says his own home supports his company’s technology.
Peter Mainz, chief executive officer of Raleigh based Sensus, invited the media to his Wake Forest home Thursday to witness the installation of a Sensus smart meter. His electricity provider, Wake Electric Membership Corporation, is installing smart meters at the homes of its 35,000 customers at the rate of more than 500 per week.
On Thursday, the Mainz address came due. And Mainz, CEO at Sensus since April 2008, was quite proud.
“I feel very deeply to have this done at our home,” Mainz said. “When you talk about 10 million endpoints [for Sensus technology over the past three years], this one feels special.”
A $3 Million Investment
Wake Electric is investing some $3 million in the smart meter project, said Don Bowman, manager of engineering for the utility. Bowman was on hand for the installation, which took just a few minutes. Sensus is also providing related services as part of creating a so-called smart grid through which the utility can exercise quicker, better and more precise control of its network.
Some 7,000 meters, each packed with a wireless transmitter for two-way communication with Wake Electric, have been installed since October.
Wake Electric customers can more closely and accurately measure their own power use, a process Bowman called “monitor and manage.” The utility soon will offer a web portal through which consumers can see how they are using electricity and explore ways of using less – should they so choose. They are not being charged any fees up front for the meters.
The company, meanwhile, gains wireless access to data so billing can be done remotely rather than through meter readers, thus saving money. No jobs are expected to be lost, however. Bowman said that employees assigned reading meters and related tasks will be trained for other duties.
Running a Smart Grid
The deployments also are providing Wake Electric with its own smart grid through which its staff can monitor and react faster to problems such as outages, Bowman noted.
Before the utility has to “roll a truck” to correct a problem, the utility is banking that the meters will specify where a problem has occurred and just how big it is. No longer will the company have to rely on customers calling to report outages.
“We can ride a line, ride a current from the headquarters,” Bowman explained. “We’ll be able to tell the crew exactly where to go.”
While the meters are expected to deliver a positive return on investment over an estimated seven years, Bowman said some savings will occur right a way.
“We will save a lot of minutes a year by dealing faster with outages,” he said.
With smart grid technology, Bowman explained he has many advantages he did not have previously. “With sensors on my lines, I can monitor, control them. I can switch down-line controls. I can open and close devices remotely.”
If the electricity isn’t flowing and consumers aren’t using, the utility is not billing.
A Growing Firm, Sector
Sensus is a fast-growing firm that employs well over 300 people in the Triangle. It provides smart meter technology for more than 300 utilities across electricity, natural gas and water industries.
The smart industry itself is expected to report some 36 million meter installations in 2011, up from around 20 million, according to IDC. However, billings actually fell from a year earlier.
Duke Energy and Progress Energy are pursing their own smart grid programs but are not working with Sensus, a company spokesperson said.
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