Study: Smart meters could save ComEd customers $2.8bn-plus

An analysis conducted for the Illinois utility Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) has found that smart electricity meters could save customers $2.8 billion over 20 years … and that’s a savings over and above the amount they could save by using smart meters to manage their own energy use.

The study was conducted by Black & Veatch, the consultancy charged with evaluating a one-year smart meter pilot approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC).

According to the analysis, the $2.8 billion in benefits would be generated by:

• Virtual elimination of manual meter reading, more accurate bills, and fewer service visits and calls to ComEd’s customer call center.
• Improved electricity theft detection and quicker signup of new customers, minimizing energy losses.
• Enhanced disconnection and reconnection of electric service, minimizing collection costs.

The Energy Infrastructure Modernization Act, which would authorize a multi-billion investment in modernizing the state’s grid, passed both chambers of the Illinois General Assembly in May.

“As other states are building more efficient and reliable electric grids, Illinois is in danger of falling behind,” said Anne Pramaggiore, president and chief operating officer of ComEd.

If the legislation were to take effect this year, ComEd’s installation of smart meters and other grid improvements would likely begin in 2012 and run through 2021.

According to the utility, if a smart grid had been fully operational on July 11, when a severe storm struck northern Illinois, the advanced technology would have pinpointed outages, allowing quicker dispatch of crews to restore service. It added that digital automation would have rerouted power or corrected a problem before an outage occurred, meaning fewer customers would have seen outages and other outages would have been shorter in duration.

Of more than 850,000 customer interruptions reported during the July storm, ComEd estimates that a more modern grid would have avoided between 100,000 and 175,000 of them.