Residential Meters Now Read Remotely
PIERRE, S.D. – The City of Pierre now reads all residential electric meters remotely.
For a little over a year, the city has been working to migrate its electric metering system from an antiquated manual-read system, to the current digital system. Last month, the city completed installation of the new electric meters for all of its residential customers.
“This is an exciting evolution of our electric utility,” said Brad Palmer, Utility Director. “Previously, staff had to manually visit every residence in town to determine electric usage and billing. The new digital meters allow us to manage all of that data collection remotely while removing some of the room for human error.”
Aside from the improved efficiencies, the system also allows the city to better react to power outages. The digital meters provide the ability to more quickly identify the source of the problem, allowing staff to repair the problem faster.
The transition from the manual-read meters to the digital system requires the city to replace all electrical meters. While all residential customers are now transitioned to the new system, about 25% of the commercial users remain on the old system.
“We expect to have all of our commercial customers on the digital system by the end of the year,” said Palmer. “Once this process is complete, we will have laid the groundwork to evolve Pierre into a more modern, energy-efficient community. The better the utility use data, the more efficiently we can manage it.”
The city is in the process of upgrading its water meters to a digital system as well, and expects to have that transition complete by early next year.
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