Workers with Festival Hydro began installing new smart meters on homes and small businesses across the utility’s distribution area earlier this month.
The undertaking is part of Ontario’s new smart metering system, under which every home and small business in the province will have a new meter installed by the end of the year.
The utility is responsible for installing some 19,000 meters across St. Marys, Stratford, Brussels and communities through the Seaforth area.
“Our goal is to have the smart meters put on all houses hopefully by the end of September,” notes Festival Hydro president Bill Zehr, who calls the new meters the next step in raising consumer awareness.
“Over the last five years we’ve been promoting energy conservation, and this is just another means to achieve that,” he adds.
The old-style meters can only measure the total amount of electricity used over an entire billing period because they have to be read manually. Rates are based on averaging out the more expensive and cheaper prices of electricity.
The new smart meters, meanwhile, can automatically record when electricity is used. This allows for time-of-use pricing, which the province plans to introduce in 2011.
Zehr says each household is different, so there’s no guarantee time-of-use pricing will lead to savings for everyone, but it will allow consumers to shift their electricity consumption off of the more expensive peak hours.
According to a pamphlet from Festival Hydro, peak hours during the summer are from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and during the winter from 7- 11 a.m. and 5-9 p.m.
Zehr says while the new meters are being installed, they will continue to be read manually until additional communication devices are installed to transfer information  from the  meters.
The rollout of smart meters does not include the province’s larger manufacturers, which are already equipped with interval meters which are read by the hour.