Grant PUD to consider contract for advanced electric meters

EPHRATA — Installation of new, advanced electric meters is projected to begin in September. Grant County PUD commissioners reviewed the proposed plan to buy and start installing the meters at the regular commission meeting Tuesday.

Approval of the proposal will be on the April 25 commission agenda. If commissioners approve it, the PUD will start buying the equipment in May. Trung Tran, a supervisor for the PUD's telecommunications engineering department, said “there's roughly a four-month lead time on the equipment.”

Projected cost to install all the meters is $14.5 million, Tran said, and installation should take about two years. In answer to a question from commissioner Larry Schaapman, Tran said all existing meters will be replaced.

The advanced meters can be read remotely, and can be turned on and off remotely, said Terry McKenzie, senior manager for customer service. That will save money, both for the PUD and its customers, she said.

The contract includes $1.3 million to provide support services to the PUD for four years after installation is complete, Tran said. The new meters are expected to pay for themselves in savings, he said, with the payback by 2022.

In answer to a question from Schaapman, public information officer Chuck Allen said customers will have the option to keep their existing manually-read meters. “If you're sending a meter reader out, are we going to charge (the customer) for that?”

“It will actually cost the district money to go out and manually read meters,” said Jeff Shupe of the PUD's accounting department. Customers who opt for a manual-read meter will be asked to pay the extra cost, Shupe said.

Allen said customers who opt to keep their manual-read meters would be asked to pay an initial fee, along with a monthly fee as long as they kept the meter. Shupe said the fee would depend on how many customers opted to keep the current meters.

“Is this (the metering system) hackable?” Schaapman asked.

“They (the contractor) have done everything that they can to protect against known attacks,” Tran said. “Is the system hackable today? Not that we're aware of. Will there be something that develops in the future that can compromise the protections in place today? Likely. But it's a cat-and-mouse game. The threat actors will continually find ways to compromise our system, and the vendors will continually develop ways to protect their customers.”

In addition, the contractor will analyze the system each year to check for new security threats, Tran said.

Allen said the PUD plans a substantial public information campaign as the meter installation program comes to each town. A model of the meters will be available for customers to look at in each PUD office.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at education@columbiabasinherald.com.