As we roll out more renewables and storage across our system and as customer expectations about choice and control continue to grow, we need to find ways to understand and manage the increasingly complex energy grid. Enter grid intelligence – technologies that help our companies capture information from multiple points across the grid in real-time, helping us respond to demand and system issues more quickly than ever before. And for customers, grid intelligence means the ability to track their energy use and make decisions about when it’s a good time to use energy.
Emera companies are collaborating across our operating regions to take advantage of combined purchasing power and to share best practices. Through grid intelligence technology, including Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI, or smart meters), customers are gaining more visibility into their energy usage, allowing them to manage consumption and to see firsthand how renewable energy is part of our fuel mix.
Rolling out AMI: Barbados
The team at Barbados Light & Power is rolling out a four-year AMI deployment, which will play a key role in integrating renewables and balancing energy sources, while responding to changes in peak demand and ensuring reliable supply for customers. This is another important step in the process of achieving a Barbados that is 100 per cent powered by clean electricity by 2045.
Rolling out AMI: Florida
The team at Tampa Electric rolled out an initial AMI pilot in April 2016, deploying 2,500 smart meters in Hillsborough County. This was just the first step towards a goal of providing every customer in Tampa Electric’s service territory with a smart meter by 2020. A second phase of the pilot is currently underway, as the team works to install more than 20,000 smart meters in 2017. These pilots are helping the Tampa Electric team explore how AMI can pinpoint outages more quickly, speed up connection times, and enable information to be shared with customers about usage.
Rolling out AMI: Nova Scotia
Like their colleagues at Tampa Electric, the Nova Scotia Power team is in the process of planning a roll-out of AMI to customers in Nova Scotia. In addition to bringing immediate benefits, AMI will also modernize the grid and support future innovation. The Nova Scotia Power team is drawing on best practices from AMI deployments elsewhere in Canada, where approximately 70 per cent of homes have smart meters.
Rolling out AMI: Florida
