Public Power - November/December 2007 - (Page 19)

to home, visiting the AMR system at Providence, R.I. “We were skeptical at first and wanted to make sure we could get a system that would work for us,” said North Attleborough’s Dean. But after talking with people at Providence about the accuracy of the system and any problems they had encountered, the town was convinced it had found the right system. Kansas City Power & Light Co., an investor-owned utility, did a lot of investigation before deciding on a system- wide deployment of AMR, but at the time, there were not a lot of other utilities to look at, said Bill Herdegen, vice president of customer operations. However, KCP&L was the utility that PECO looked to when it was exploring AMR technology. For utilities interested in cutting-edge technology, it definitely pays to find out what others are doing. Two-way wireless network systems are pretty new, so Seattle City Light talked with utilities that were testing them. That led the utility to Southern California Edison, where a pilot of 2,000 commercial meters was under way. “We wanted to see an actual installation,” said Linda Lockwood, energy planning supervisor and AMR project manager. “We considered it essential.” It would be hard to beat the Holland Board of Public Works for thoroughness, however. The utility began looking at AMR in 1999. A couple of unsuccessful pilots helped it define what it wanted from a system and understand some of the limitations of the tested systems. Holland was then able to define a set of standards, which it used to screen up to 30 technology vendors. “We then made some phone calls, and shortened the list to about half a dozen candidates,” said Theis. “We got demonstrations from the vendors, and contacted the utilities they gave as references.” After that, the city made its choice. Where Have All the Meter Readers Gone? As utilities across the country move to automate meter reading, they need fewer meter readers. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District in California employed 90 meter readers before it began installing its automated meter reading system. Today, it has 73. And that number will shrink as it deploys its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) system. That’s why the utility is developing a work force plan as part of the AMI project development, said Erik Krause, SMUD’s AMI project manager. Various areas—billing, call center, field services—will be affected by the AMI system. “We recognize that this technology change will not be successful without thoughtful planning to manage the impacts on our people and their work processes. We must be proactive on the people side to effectively manage the complexity we foresee,” he said. Krause expects complexity in the form of managing the emergence of new jobs at the same time the meter reading jobs dwindle. “We know some meter readers will leave the utility and some will retire. But many others will stay and take advantage of opportunities in the new roles that emerge as back office processes change and our business shifts based on the increased data available. We have to identify now the skills that will be needed in the future and how our people will need to be deployed, and build training plans now to assure our people have the skills that will be needed for those future roles. The aim is to ensure a smooth transition for everyone involved, and the trick will be to pull this off at just the right moment in time.” Seattle City Light has about 45 meter readers, said Linda Lockwood, energy planning supervisor and AMR project manager. “We will not go forward on AMI deployment without having a work force transition plan in place to make sure people won’t lose their jobs,” she said. “We have an aging work force, and many affected workers will be retiring. But the others will be retrained and reassigned within City Light or the city government.” When the North Attleborough Electric Department in Massachusetts implements its AMI system, it will redeploy its two meter readers to handle the data and reports generated by the system, said Brad Dean, meter supervisor. Two of Holland, Mich., Board of Public Works’ meter readers have moved to other positions in the city; the third is reading the utility’s three-phase meters. Clark Public Utilities in Washington state relied on its meter readers throughout the utility’s AMR deployment, said Richard Dyer, director of finance and treasurer. “We did our cutover route by route.” The meters on each route were read manually, then converted to AMR, read manually again and finally read with the mobile AMR service. “To deploy the system successfully, we needed to involve the meter reading and relay teams,” he said. The utility has now integrated those meter readers it did not lose to attrition, said Dyer. PPL, which had 175 meter readers, worked with the union and was able to place in other positions those readers who wanted to stay with the utility, said Ryan Hill, a PPL spokesman. Seven percent of public power utilities that responded to a 2006 APPA survey said they contract out meter reading. For those utilities, such as JEA in Jacksonville, Fla., meter reader reassignment is not an issue. ❚ www.APPAnet.org NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2007 19 http://www.APPAnet.org

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Public Power - November/December 2007

Public Power - November/December 2007 Contents Washington Focus 10 Questions Connecting with the Customer Through Automation AMR or AMI? The High Court’s Antitrust Thunderbolts California’s Push for Demand-Response Plug-In Partners Get Plugged In Wiring Up for Double-Digit Growth For Engineers Safety Community Broadband For Governing Boards DEED Customer Service Hometown Connections Index to Advertisers Parting shot

Public Power - November/December 2007

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