The Smart Metering Program was part of BC Hydro’s multi-year plan for improving and modernizing the electricity grid. BC Hydro is replacing 1.8 million electromechanical customer meters with new digital smart electricity meters. These meters enabled two-way communication between the customer and the utility, giving customers more information about their consumption than ever before. In addition, the new metering system will reduce operating costs and help to keep BC Hydro’s rates among the lowest in North America.
Infrastructure BC is providing procurement management and/or advisory services to BC Hydro for the following program components:
- Smart Metering System: a single contractor to provide the full end-to-end metering system which includes smart meters for residential and commercial customers, collectors to start consolidating meter reading data in the field, telecommunications cards in the meter to enable meter reading data to be transmitted to a customer’s home as well as back to BC Hydro, and the automated data collection system software application.
- Meter Deployment Services: a single contractor to complete in-field deployment of meters. This contractor will also help support BC Hydro’s customer engagement plan during deployment.
- Meter Data Management System: a packaged software application that stores the large volumes of meter reading data and ensures that data is accurate, complete, and useable before sending the data into BC Hydro’s corporate systems.
- Professional Services: a solutions integrator services company to provide experienced resources to support the project management, IT and integration and custom software development tasks.
- Distribution System Metering Devices: Feeder and Transformer meters – new meters will be installed at key points on the grid to measure electricity supplied to localized areas.
