Electricity Metering Options for Ordinary Consumers in Competitive Electricity Markets

Author

Tom Adams, Allen Stanbury

Organization

Energy Probe

Published

2002

Summary

As Canadian jurisdictions move toward customer choice, de-regulating the price of commodity electricity, and unbundling of their electricity supply, ordinary consumers must chose between being billed on new electronic interval meters or their existing electromechanical meters. The meter is the cash register of the power system. The type of meter chosen will affect the electricity bill paid by the consumer. Using older electromechanical meters means the actual consumption in each hour must be inferred from an reference profile assumed to be correct for all customers without interval meters. In Ontario, the reference profile is called the net system load shape (NSLS). With interval metering, the customer is billed on actual consumption in each hour. The consumer's bill will accurately reflect the actual consumption pattern even if consumption varies from the NSLS, perhaps because the consumer works a night shift that results in unusual usage patterns, takes a vacation that happens to coincide with an electricity price spike, or has installed special load control equipment. This paper reviews the potential benefits of interval meters as they might be used by ordinary consumers in the future. This report identifies qualitatively the benefits and costs of interval metering.

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OCA Funded Research
This research received funding support through the Office of Consumer Affairs' Contributions Program.

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Source: Consumer Policy Research Database