Idaho Power inks deal for smart meters, 

Idaho Power has entered into an agreement with international energy management firm Landis+Gyer to spend about $10 million over the next three years for 450,000 of the company’s advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) residential power meters.

The deal, announced earlier this week, follows a July announcement that the utility would spend $25 million on a similar number of two-way communication modules from ESCO Technologies subsidiary Aclara Power-Line Systems.

Together, Landis+Gyer’s meters and Aclara’s modules will enable Idaho Power to install a network of sophisticated remotely-monitored power meters throughout its 24,000-square-mile service area in Idaho and Oregon.

A pilot program of about 25,000 “smart meters” has already been under way since 2004 in the McCall and Emmett areas, enabling the utility and its customers to establish power usage levels and identify peak demand times. Access to up-to-the-minute consumption rates is intended to allow for better resource planning and energy conservation programs like time-of-use-billing, which increases rates during times of high consumption. The meters also allow for programs like net metering, which allow customers to sell power they generate themselves back to the utility.

Because they can be read remotely, smart meters do not require the utility to send workers out to read them in person, reducing gas costs, time expenses and vehicle maintenance.

The Idaho Public Utilities Commission will be taking public comment on Idaho Power’s proposed upgrade to a smart meter system until Dec. 9. If approved, the utility proposes to begin installation in January 2009 from Ontario, Ore. to Boise. In 2010 installation would continue in Canyon and Payette counties, followed by the Magic Valley and eastern Idaho in 2011, according to an IPUC release.

The commission is a supporter of advanced metering technology, having previously ordered Idaho Power to have an advanced metering system in place by 2004. When financial and technical problems made that impossible, the commission ordered the utility to carry out the McCall and Emmett pilot program to evaluate and report on the system’s effectiveness.

“The potential benefits of advanced metering to ratepayers and the company are too great to delay,” the commission said in the release.

Idaho Power estimates the system will cost more than $70 million, but won’t roll that into a rate increase at this time. Instead, “the capital costs of the project will be in base rates as the meters are placed in service,” the commission said.

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