525,000 smart meter rollout planned for Rhode Island

Rhode Island Energy has got the go ahead for an almost 525,000 smart electricity meter rollout in the New England state.

Rhode Island Energy, a subsidiary of PPL and the largest energy company in the state, plans to implement the ‘advanced metering functionality’ as it styles it over the next three years, following the approval from the Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission.

The initiative includes the design and building of an RF mesh network that includes support for future requirements including electric vehicle charging, distributed energy resources, time-varying rate designs and gas network automation, as well as implementation of the back-office IT systems and other functionality to utilise the data from the smart meters.

“The Commission’s approval to implement our advanced metering plan is an important step in modernising the state’s energy infrastructure for the benefit of all Rhode Islanders,” said Dave Bonenberger, president of Rhode Island Energy.

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“We’ve seen the success of these new technologies across other PPL service territories, and customers should be excited about the advantages they’ll bring to their homes and businesses.”

A key driver for the rollout is that approximately 60% of Rhode Island Energy’s electricity meters across the state are nearing the end of their design life and need to be replaced.

In addition, there are climate and other clean energy considerations that will see distributed energy resources and electrification on the grid increasing.

Rhode Island needs an advanced metering platform to provide enhanced customer awareness, the wherewithal for dynamic rate offerings and system visibility for grid operators to manage increased system complexity from intermittent distributed energy resources and emerging variable load from electric vehicle charging, the company stated in its filing.

As part of its decision, the Commission capped the potential capital cost of installing the new meters at approximately $153 million – somewhat scaled back from the requested investment of $188 million.

The benefits estimated in the filing amount to approximately $729 million over 20 years.

Rhode Island Energy plans to draw on PPL’s experiences of smart metering in Pennsylvania where the second generation infrastructure is in use, and Kentucky where a rollout is under way and expects the first of its new smart meters to be rolled out in late 2024.