Connecticut Light & Power is on track to test 3,000 newfangled meters this summer, which hold promise to cut bills by alerting customers of their electricity usage hourly, allowing them to conserve energy at optimal times to reap savings on their monthly bill.
CL&P and United Illuminating Co. hope such advanced meters, while relatively expensive to install, will ultimately save ratepayers and by extension the company money in the long haul.
CL&P is a subsidiary of Hartford-based Northeast Utilities and provides power in much of Fairfield County save parts of the Bridgeport area, where the United Illuminating division of New Haven-based UIL Holdings Corp. provides service.
In December 2008, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission released a 140-page assessment of advanced metering and so-called demand response programs that allow customers to grab rebates in exchange for lowering electric use. FERC defines advanced metering as a system that records customer consumption hourly, and is able to transmit the information over a network to a central location.
FERC researchers estimated that about 4.7 percent of all electricity meters in use nationally last year were of the advanced variety that allow for ongoing adjustments to electric consumption, compared to less than 1 percent just two years earlier.
Pennsylvania has made by far the biggest gains, with nearly a quarter of the state”™s meters classified as advanced as of last year, according to FERC.
By comparison, Connecticut had just a 0.4 percent rate of advanced meter use, a figure CL&P and UI hope to improve upon beginning this summer. The Connecticut pilot project grew out of a 2008 CL&P study after the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control rejected a $275 million request for CL&P to immediately launch a widespread upgrade of meters in its territory.
In New York, which has half Connecticut”™s meager use of advanced meters, regulators took a major step last month by establishing a baseline for the functional requirements of any advanced metering infrastructure that might be installed by Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc. or other Empire State utilities.
According to the New York State Public Service Commission, more than half the costs of installing such meters can be offset by corresponding reductions in operating costs, such as faster outage detection and fewer visits by field technicians for manual tasks like reading meters.
Even as CL&P and UI move ahead on conservation initiatives like advanced metering, they are working to increase the energy supply to Southwest Connecticut. Even as the companies finalized work on a $1.6 billion high-voltage transmission line connecting Norwalk and Middletown, in December Northeast Utilities and Massachusetts-based NStar filed plans with FERC for a high-voltage transmission line in New Hampshire that would allow southern New England to tap power from Hydro-Quebec.
In the fourth quarter, Northeast Utilities reported a $72 million profit on just under $1.5 billion in revenue, with sales up 14 percent from a year earlier. For the year, NU earned $261 million on $5.8 billion in revenue, with earnings up 6 percent despite a slight decrease in sales.
The company recorded a $3.5 million charge against earnings in the fourth quarter, to account for a January decision by the Connecticut Department of Public Utility Control to reverse a promised incentive CL&P used to purchase electricity in 2004.
