Smart Meters: Customers can now monitor electricity usage online

By MARK REAGAN/Special to the Star

HARLINGEN — AEP Texas has installed about 450,000 smart meters across its 97,000-square-mile service territory as part of its Advanced Metering Infrastructure system in South and West Texas.

It’s not so much that the old meters are dumb, but the new meters use a radio signal to communicate between the electric companies and customers, and will allow customers to monitor their electric use.

In late 2011, AEP’s meter replacement program that began in 2010 to replace a million meters reached the company’s Rio Grande Valley customers.

“If a customer is served by AEP Texas wires, they will receive the meter,” spokesman Frank Espinoza said.

Once the new meters are installed, it is the only way retail electric companies will be able to read the meter, he said, adding that customers cannot “opt-out” of receiving a new meter.

Installing the new meters is a response to rising energy costs as many states, including Texas, have required utility companies to provide more energy-efficient options to customers, Espinoza said.

A Smart Meter is protected from hackers by AEP Texas.

“We’re very comfortable with the measures the company has taken to protect the information associated with the meters,” he said.

The new technology will save customers money and provide opportunities for better energy management, Espinoza said.

“Once a meter is installed, customers will be notified that they have received their first meter. Then the customer can register to a state-operated website and register their meter,” Espinoza said. “Then they can monitor their electric usage through the website, which is run by the state, not by us.”

That website is SmartMeterTexas.com.

Customers can also choose to purchase a Home Area Network device for energy information and management that can monitor individual electric usage and control appliances.

Using this device, a customer who is away from home can, for example, remotely turn up the air conditioner, or turn off lights, Espinoza said.

But installation of the Smart Meters means the end of the meter reader era.

“All the meter readers were notified that this technology was going to be deployed,” Espinoza said.

He said that AEP Texas offered to pay to retrain employees so that they could seek higher-skilled jobs within the company.

“In most cases meter readers had been given opportunities to test for better jobs than they had,” he said.

He said the ranks of meter readers also have been thinned through attrition and retirement.

“We have not had an impact of job losses as of yet,” Espinoza said. “We’re still working through all those issues.”

The technology, which costs AEP Texas $300 million for the meters and associated infrastructure, will save customers money, Espinoza said.

AEP Texas’ customers pay a $2.89 monthly surcharge for the service. The amount will eventually decrease to $2.26 per month, he said.

But the Smart Meters have raised some suspicions.

Espinoza said AEP Texas had received complaints from persons who claim that the new meters are a health hazard or that they invade customers’ privacy.

The information being transmitted is no different than the information meter readers provided to the electric companies, Espinoza said.

According to the Federal Communications Commission, the entity that regulates health standards for radio frequency exposure, the signals emitted are far below hazardous levels.

“They are approved by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and by the FCC,” Espinoza said.