Houston, August 3, 2009 ? CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric reached a milestone August 1 with the installation of 45,000 smart meters and the delivery of 15-minute interval energy usage data.
Smart meters will be read remotely virtually eliminating the need to go house to house. The smart meter functionality also enables remote connection and disconnection of electric service, which should reduce the time it takes to process service orders for most homes and some small businesses.
With this functionality, REPs can also view their customers' historical 15-minute interval usage over an interim CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric Web portal and next year a portal will be available to consumers as well.
In addition to providing enhanced functions that increase consumer awareness of their energy usage, the new smart meter functionality will make it easier and more cost-efficient to create Home Area Networks to monitor electric usage with in-home devices and remotely control Zigbee-enabled appliances and thermostats. Consumers should contact their REPs for more information.
CenterPoint Energy Houston Electric's five-year smart meter deployment began in March 2009. By the end of the year, 145,000 smart meters will be installed along with the necessary communications infrastructure and computing systems. 2.4 million meters are expected to be installed system-wide by the project's completion in 2014.
