Part of Atlantic City Electric’s Smart Energy Network
OCEAN CITY — Atlantic City Electric has installed more than 121,000 smart meters — mostly in Cape May County but soon moving into Atlantic County — that will give consumers more tools to manage their energy usage.
It is part of the company’s efforts to build its Smart Energy Network, which includes replacing the traditional electricity meters of some 565,000 residential and business customers across southern New Jersey.
According to Frank Tedesco, senior communications specialist with Atlantic City Electric, the Smart Energy Network is designed to improve the reliability and resiliency of energy service. Installation began in the fall and should be complete by the middle of 2024.
Meter replacement began at the southern tip of Cape May County on Cape Island and in Lower Township and progressed north. The work now is centered in Ocean City, with expectations of 13,000 smart meters being installed on the island by this spring, and then heading into Atlantic County in the next few weeks.
Tedesco said part of the process is improving the customer experience and giving them more tools to manage their usage or, in other words, find ways to save money. To be clear, those tools won’t be available until sometime this summer as all the features of the smart meters will come online with the revamped Atlantic City Electric website.
When customers log onto their A.C. Electric app or My Account at atlanticcityelectric.com, they’ll be able to check their bill to date to help stay on budget, see when they are using the most electricity during the day and track daily and hourly usage, as well as get high-bill alerts when their electricity usage hits a selected level. The website and app will provide tips to save energy and reduce customers’ carbon footprint.
“There are features now,” he said, “but they will be much more enhanced. You will be able to see the trends and energy consumed to take steps to be more efficient with energy use so you use less energy and save money.”
The upgraded technology, Tedesco pointed out, also will nearly eliminate estimate billing.
The new meters also will help customers integrate their “clean technologies” such as solar energy, battery storage and transportation.
He explained that the new meters will be able to provide net electricity usage for customers with solar energy, allowing the meters to “roll backward” to account for the solar energy that is produced, thereby cutting bills.
To use all of the features, customers will have to be signed up on their A.C. Electric accounts online.
The smart meters and Smart Energy Network are going to help the company operate more efficiently as well. It should improve the reliability by more quickly restoring power during more frequent severe weather events driven by climate change and cutting down on the need to send workers out to read meters.
The new technology in the network with help the company pinpoint outages, Tedesco said, noting that will eliminate unnecessary trucks rolls — terminology meaning the times they have to actually send out trucks with repair crews. By not having to send out trucks where they’re not needed, “those trucks can be redirected where they’re needed more.”
“The Smart Meter will ping our operations center to really pinpoint where these outages are,” he said.
Tedesco said customers will still be urged to call in if they’ve lost power in case there are issues specific to one or two who didn’t get their power back when, say, the company is fixing a distribution feeder line for an entire block.
As an example, he said there could be a specific equipment issue on a property where a tree fell and knocked something off of a single home.
“We necessarily wouldn’t have that information,” he said.
Building the Smart Energy Network and installing the smart meters as part of that does come with a cost, though not one that is up front.
Tedesco said for the typical residential customer who uses 679 kilowatt hours per month, it would amount to an increase of about $4.27 on their monthly bill. The cost, approved by the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, is being spread over the entire customer base over a period of years.
Don’t want a smart meter?
Customers who haven’t yet had their meters upgraded, or want to have their standard meter back, do have the option of sticking with a standard meter. They need to contact Atlantic City Electric at (833) 504-8612. However, customers with the standard meters will be charged a $15 monthly fee and if a smart meter is already installed, there would be a one-time $45 fee to have it changed back.
That monthly charge is in place to cover the cost of reading and maintaining those meters, Tedesco said.
Customers are going to get more information about the enhanced functionality that hasn’t been activated yet. That will come when the smart meters are activated, which is tentatively this summer.
To learn more about the Smart Energy Network, visit atlanticcityelectric.com/SEN.
By DAVID NAHAN/Sentinel staff