Cooperative Utilities, Geography and Elster Get the Smart Meters Job Done Quickly for Toronto Hydro-Electric Systems

Sometimes it helps when everything works. From geography, cooperative partners and Elster, Toronto Hydro-Electric Systems (TH) has seen its way to one of the fastest, most extensive meter deployments in North America.

Meeting Ontario’s smart metering initiative goals

As part of meeting its smart metering initiative (SMI) goals, Ontario wants 4.5M meters installed by 2010 (in every home and business).  The province expects that introducing time-of-use (TOU) rates after deployment will result in a reduction of more than 5% in the province’s electrical demand. (See Ontario Ministry of Energy link below.) To date, five utilities together with Hydro One, Ontario’s largest transmission and distribution company, have installed over 1.2M meters in the province. 

Cooperative utilities

It was extremely helpful that five of Ontario’s largest utilities were able to choose just one meter vendor, and that cooperation among the utilities was one key to success.  They jointly developed a comprehensive AMI specification to meet the province’s SMI requirements and maximize buying power, which led to pricing and logistics efficiencies. The five utilities represent one-third of Ontario’s meter population.  The coalition included:

·         Enersource Hydro Mississauga

·         Horizon Utilities

·         Hydro Ottawa

·         Toronto Hydro-Electric

·         Veridian Connections

 Imagine if all the Southern California utilities had done the same thing.

Cooperative rollout

What about the cost?  Steve MacDonald, TH’s Meter Technologies Manager, who managed the AMI project, told SGN that a rate increase of pennies per month would recover costs.  TH is doing the work themselves, deploying an impressive 5,000 meters a week for more than two years.

TH has started using the meters for billing data and to model TOU rates for implementing later.  Customers can already see the results of their day-before conservation efforts. TH is now collecting operational data that reveals in detail how the city is using power -- data that will be useful in system planning, revenue protection, and validating wholesale pricing.

Cooperative geography

Steve points out that Toronto is generally flat, but has many tall buildings, though about 80% of the structures in greater Toronto are single-family homes.  TH targeted suburbs first and now is installing downtown; soon they will be installing commercial accounts.  For now, TH is using telephone lines for the backhaul, but wireless is the goal.

Cooperative vendor

The five utilities including TH chose Elster’s EnergyAxis® System, which features a meter-only architecture with no requirement for repeaters, towers, or pole-mounted devices.  Elster’s system gives utilities a small number of highly flexible components to simplify deployment and adaptability. By simply installing meters that themselves act as “repeaters”, TH has built out its controlled RF mesh network with its four utility partners to meet Ontario’s SMI deployment goals.  Elster is working proactively with TH to keep the project moving swiftly.

Lessons learned

Despite their success, Steve admits there are always lessons to be learned. Steve says the systems worked better than expected, but it took a while to realize that the project needed more information technology (IT) support.  “We should have brought IT in sooner, especially for integrating with changed business systems, web design, and customer interfaces,” he notes.

Deploying wireless collectors instead of using phone lines was another task they would like to have completed by now, according to Steve.  Elster is working with Measurement Canada (the agency that regulates trade measurement) to get the Elster RF collectors approved. That has taken longer then he had hoped.

   Ontario Ministry of Energy website

   Elster press release

   Toronto Hydro website