Replacing electric meters with advanced, two-way digital meters offers multiple benefits. It will help us get your lights on faster after an outage, and give you information to help you make decisions about your power use.
In December 2017, PUD commissioners authorized staff to move forward with advanced, two-way metering as a preferred alternative for future customer meters and as part of a new customer technology program. Commissioners reviewed extensive outreach (including 18 community meetings) and research done since 2005.
After careful consideration, and input from customer-owners, in January 2020 the PUD Commission adopted an opt-out fee of $25 per month for customers who choose not to have an advanced meter installed. The fee covers additional PUD costs for meter reading and additional administrative work.
Benefits include:
- Faster and more accurate outage notification and faster service restoration
- Faster response on billing questions
- Ability to manage a PUD account from anywhere
- More accurate billing and fewer estimated bills
- Less need for a PUD employee to enter customer property
- Easier energy use management
- Better information on customers' potential conservation savings
We are committed to providing our customer-owners with industry-leading service and reliability. We want to give you the tools to manage your own energy use, as well as being notified about outages or upcoming system repairs – all through technology.
During our community meetings, some questions and concerns have centered around radio frequency (RF), electro-magnetic fields (EMF), and the potential these energy fields have to cause cancer or other health impacts.
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