RG&E to install 700,000 smart meters

New York state utility Rochester Gas & Electric (RG&E) is to install 700,000 smart electricity and gas meters over the next three years.

RG&E, a subsidiary of Avangrid, is planning to install the meters across its Rochester division service area, which includes parts of Monroe, Orleans, Wayne, Livingston and Genesee counties.

The announcement follows an earlier announcement of a 26,000 smart meter deployment in its Sodus division, which includes Wayne and Cayuga counties.

The Rochester division rollout is set to start this month, while the Sodus division rollout was started in March and is due for completion in July.

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The rollouts follow a pilot smart meter programme Avangrid has underway in Ithaca, where installation of smart meters started in the Autumn of 2022.

Patricia Nilsen, President and CEO of RG&E and NYSEG, another Avangrid subsidiary, says that smart metering is one of the areas where the company is making investments to build a stronger and more resilient grid.

“Smart meters provide many benefits and enable new products and services [for customers] to better understand and manage energy use while improving the service we deliver. This includes automated meter reading, faster responses to outages and access top detailed energy use.”

The rollout will see new smart meters replace existing electricity meters while a communication module will be added to smarten the existing natural gas meters.

Approximately 111 million smart meters were installed in the US by the end of 2021, according to the latest figures available from the EIA. This corresponds to approximately 69% penetration.

RG&E serves approximately 388,740 electricity customers and 321,650 natural gas customers in a nine-county region centred on the City of Rochester.

Avangrid is an affiliate of Iberdrola.