Smart Meters – How They Will Benefit Your Home

By Kari Kylo, BC Hydro Power Smart

The electricity system supports our economy and our quality of life in BC. We are using more technology in our homes and businesses today than ever before. However, the electricity system that powers our province has not changed significantly in 50 years, and has not kept pace with the rapid growth of technology and other demands on the system. Updating BC Hydro’s meters is a key step in modernizing our entire electricity system and keeping our rates low.

By December 2012, BC Hydro will have installed 1.8 million modern and fully integrated smart meters in homes and businesses across BC.

You will receive advance notice that smart meters are coming to your community, including a letter from BC Hydro a few weeks prior to their installation date. Installation will be simple and will only take a matter of minutes, and in most cases you will not need to be home.

The new meters and a smarter system will benefit you by:

• Getting the lights back on faster and more safely during power outages. Right now, when your power is out, you need to call BC Hydro to let us know. The new meters will automatically send an alert to BC Hydro when your power goes out, so that our crews can get to the outage and restore power faster.
• Enabling new customer tools to manage energy use and save money. You will have access to new tools, such as a secure online account, that you can use to manage your energy use, and help you save money.
• Supporting innovative new uses of clean electricity. Smart meters and a smarter grid can detect and measure the electricity flow between BC Hydro and homes and businesses, enabling you and your community to generate power from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal for your own use and sell excess energy back to the grid – or draw electricity from your electric vehicle during a power outage.
• Keeping rates low. A more efficient system will reduce power loss, which will benefit you by helping to keep your rates among the lowest in North America. In fact, the new system will deliver about $70 million in rate savings over the next three years alone.

For more information about the Smart Metering Program, please visit www.bchydro.com/smartmeters.

For more information on BC Hydro Power Smart residential programs such as Team Power Smart, the Fridge Buy-Back program, ENERGY STAR® Lighting and Power Smart New Homes visit www.powersmart.ca.