Advanced Meter FAQs

• You don’t need to be home during the installation, but we’ll knock on your door before starting work.
• If you’re home, we may ask you to keep pets inside or provide gate access.
• If you’re not home, we’ll install the new meter and leave a door hanger letting you know we’re done.
• If you’re not home and we can’t access the meter or identify another issue, we’ll leave a door hanger with more information.

Yes, for most customers, but just for a few minutes.

The contractor will be installing advanced meters in the field between 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, excluding PUD-recognized holidays.

AMI is a key building block for a more efficient electric system using the new digital advanced meters. Some of the benefits Chelan PUD customers can expect in the coming years include the ability to:

• Provide faster outage detection and restoration without having to wait for you to call. Crews can more accurately pinpoint the problem area.
• Provide greater staff efficiency, meter data reliability and accuracy helping to keep your rates low.  
• Have customers sign up for energy alerts to let them know when energy use is greater than what they budgeted. This can help you detect if there is an issue with an appliance or equipment such as a hot water heater or a heat pump.
• Use digital technology for more accurate meter reads and customer bills.
• Make electric service more reliable. New meters, plus other technology, will help find problems on the grid so crews can fix them before they cause an outage. 
• Reduce environmental impact by not sending employees to read meters saving thousands of miles of travel and carbon emissions.

An advanced meter can wirelessly transmit energy use and meter alerts to the PUD. Now Chelan PUD needs to send meter readers every month, and if there is an outage, you need to call us. By installing advanced meters, we will reduce meter truck visits and improve our carbon footprint. It also means that we will no longer need to access your home and/or business to get the monthly meter read for billing.With the advanced, two-way digital meter, can my electric service be connected or disconnected remotely if I move?

In most cases, customers will no longer need to wait for a field service technician, or leave your gates open or worry about being present for the connection/disconnection.

Once your advanced meter is installed, there will no longer be the need for meter readers to visit your meter every month for billing purposes. Until your advanced meter is installed, Chelan PUD’s meter readers will continue to read analog meters every month.

Yes. You have the option to opt-out, but to cover additional expenses for meter reading and administrative work, the PUD will charge an opt-out fee of $25 per month. Customers who opt out will not be able to access future services such as outage notification, pre-pay service, and special rate offerings. For questions, comments or to submit an opt-out form, please email us at customerhelp@chelanpud.org or call 509-661-8002.

No. The meters that Chelan PUD will use must adhere to all federal and local health and safety standards. They use a 900 MHz frequency similar to cordless phones. The RF exposure from advanced meters is much less than those from common household devices such as baby monitors, microwave ovens and cell phones. All meters will be tested by PUD crews before and after installation.

A few customers at the community meetings raised concerns about radio frequency (RF) and electro-magnetic fields (EMF) and the potential these energy fields have to cause cancer or other health impacts. There is a lot of misinformation being circulated about health effects and purported health studies claiming adverse impacts from advanced meters. Read what the American Cancer Society has to say: 

It would be nearly impossible to conduct a study to prove or disprove a link between living in a house with (advanced) meters and cancer because people have so many sources of exposure to RF and the level of exposure from this source is so small.

Another concern we heard was the potential for smart meters to interfere with pacemakers, here is what the Cancer Society website went on to say:

One concern expressed is that the RF waves produced by (advanced) meters might interfere with electronic medical devices such as a heart pacemaker. A study that examined the effect of (advanced) meters on pacemakers and implantable defibrillators found that the meters did not interfere with these devices.

No. The digital meters are designed not to interfere with home electronics.

No. Chelan PUD is committed to keeping your personal information safe and secure. With advanced, two-way digital meters, cybersecurity best practices such as isolation and encryption of customer data is used. Only meter data is transmitted wirelessly not any customer information. Here is a link to our privacy policy: www.chelanpud.org/other/privacy-policy, as well as our Customer Rights: http://www.chelanpud.org/my-pud-services/rates-and-policies/summary-of-consumer-rights.

Chelan PUD is making these some of the earlier features once the new advanced meters are installed. In the coming years, the advanced meters will let you see your electric use and even set alerts for things such as high use and outages.

No. Chelan PUD will provide the advanced meters at no additional cost. Advanced meters are more accurate and will provide more detailed energy consumption information. By monitoring and reducing your overall electric use, customers may actually be able to lower their bills with advanced metering.