No. of smart-metered US homes to more than double by 2015

Some 27 million smart electricity meters have been installed at households across the US so far, and 65 million — more than half of the country’s residences — will have advanced metering systems in place by 2015.

That’s according to a new report from the Edison Foundation’s Institute for Electric Efficiency, which summarizes completed, ongoing and planned deployments of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) across the US.

A map published in the summary report shows an interesting feature of smart-meter deployments so far: of the states where more than half of households now have smart meters, most are along the outer edges of the US. These states include Alabama, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Texas, Vermont and Wisconsin, along with the District of Columbia.

Fewer than half of all households have smart meters in a vast swath of the country’s middle section — from Montana to Utah, Louisiana to West Virginia.

However, some of those regions expect to see a rapid rollout of smart meters over the next few years. AEP, for example, plans to deploy 5.2 million meters across its service area, which includes parts of Indiana, Kentucky, Virginia and West Virginia. And by mid-decade, Hawaii Electric Company is set to have installed 451,000 smart meters, up from the 71,700 deployed today.