OPPD shares benefits of new smart meters for customers
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) — OPPD is set to install the first 10,000 of 400,000 new smart meters, being developed at their advanced meter infrastructure farm, this fall.
Shorter restoration times, lower bills, and less customer reporting, OPPD says, are all potential benefits to their new smart meter technology.
“Right now, there’s a lot of communication that has to happen between OPPD and the customer to know when there’s an outage. Now, once AMI is in, we’ll have visibility to the edge of our systems to say, that customer’s still out and still having issues, let’s roll a truck. We might not even have to call the customer or talk to that customer to get that figured out,” said Manager of AMI Transformation, Mike Iwanski.
Once installed, the smart meters will be able to send back date about power usage in each home, business or building. The utility stresses the meters are a safe technology, saying they will not collect any personal information, only power information.
“We are not getting into any of your personal information, not your banking information, your internet information, or any of that type of stuff. It’s completely separate from OPPD,” assured Iwanski.
The new meters will give OPPD, and you, immediate access to outage information. Once installed, the utility says they could speed up restoration time as well.
“We’re just going to have to build a better process behind to make sure that they’re getting there, but having that visibility will help take those times and bring them down,” explained Iwanski.
You’ll also be able to see detailed usage trends, collected multiple times daily, so you have the potential to change energy habits for a lower bill.
“Customers can log in and look at their usage history to see if there’s anything that kind of stands out like, ‘Oh yeah, I did X-Y-Z, or I did my laundry in the middle of the day when it was 103 degrees. Maybe I should wait later in the day to do that,’” Austin Martinez, the Business Enablement Lead told us.
Almost every power district across the country has their own version of these meters. OPPD says they waited to switch over for cost reasons. According the the utility, the last installation of new meters happened less than 20 years ago.
“We want to be good stewards of our customers — of the money our customers put in right? It is a big expense to exchange all of those meters out. There’s 420,000 meters that are going to be out there and so it’s not something that we can just do every five years and so it’s something that we want to plan and make sure we’re doing it correctly,” said Iwanski.
Installations will begin in October and last through 2028. You’ll receive a 90, 60 and 30 day notice before they install yours. OPPD says the technician installing your meter should have clear identification, and it will only take around 15 minutes.
They also suggested all customers still report outages themselves until all meters have been installed.
There is a fee if you choose to opt out of a new smart meter. OPPD says it’s $220 initially, and another $50 per month, to cover the cost of them coming to check your meter.
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