Three Ohio utilities set for additional 1.4 million smart meters

A settlement has been reached on the FirstEnergy Ohio utilities’ second phase grid modernisation plan, including expanding the state smart meter rollout.

The $421 million four-year plan is aimed to extend the work of the first phase plan, which was approved in 2019, including completing the smart meter rollout to all the customers of the three FirstEnergy Ohio companies, Ohio Edison, The Illuminating Company and Toledo Edison.

The first phase included the installation of approximately 706,000 smart meters, while the second phase will allow for expansion for the remaining estimated 1.4 million smart meters, along with that for the necessary supporting communications infrastructure, the meter data management system and associated systems and processes.

The total capital cost for this AMI deployment is estimated at approximately $418 million.

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“At the heart of it all, smart meters are about empowering our customers to make informed decisions about their energy usage and costs. With accurate and detailed billing information each month, customers can now take control of their energy costs,” said Patricia Mullin, Acting President of FirstEnergy’s Ohio Operations, in a statement.

“We look forward to further modernising our electric system by building on what we completed under Grid Mod I.”

The settlement was reached after intervention around the costings and benefits by multiple parties following an initial filing in July 2022 and subsequent testimonies from the companies in that year and in 2023.

Among the settlements’ outcomes was a reduction in the total capital costs by around $205 million.

The settlement also allows for the allocation of $3 million per year for a smart thermostat rebate programme that will provide up to $100 per qualified smart thermostat to eligible residential customers and up to $150 for low-income customers.

Another outcome is the implementation of a circuit-level hosting ‘heat map’ for decentralised solar installations.

The FirstEnergy Ohio utilities’ revised plan is now subject to approval by the state Public Utilities Commission and the terms of the settlement recommend it be accepted without modification.

“The resolution of the companies’ second phase of their distribution grid modernisation plan will further the development of a reliable and resilient distribution grid, allow customers to make more informed choices about energy usage, facilitate access to customer data by authorised competitive retail electric service providers, and better enable the companies to make future electric distribution grid modernisation investments,” the filing states.