The URL can be used to link to this page

Home My WebLink About14 Electric Meter Replacement Projectenda Item # To: Board of Directors From: Joe Horvath Date: February 07, 2018 Subject: Electric Meter Replacement Project - Consideration of Policy Changes 14 1. WHY THIS MATTER IS BEFORE THE BOARD This workshop item provides the Board with an update on the implementation of the District -wide electric meter replacement project and a discussion of the potential policy changes related to the new meters. 2. HISTORY On April 5, 2017 the Board approved a Phase 1 project agreement with Tantalus Systems (Tantalus) using their RF mesh technology Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system. The scope of the Phase 1 project included about 300 meters. The Phase 1 project was very successful and on November 15, 2017 the Board approved the Phase 2 project agreements with Tantalus and General Pacific for a District -wide deployment of electric meters using the Tantalus system and Itron meters. The transition to a new metering system also presents a great opportunity for the District to update policy issues related to meters including customer service fees, deposits, and billing options. The District must ensure that its listed fees are aligned with costs, and that offered services have corresponding uo-to-date policv provisions. 3. NEW INFORMATION The District signed a purchase order with General Pacific in December for the procurement of Itron meters with deliveries beginning in March, 2018. The District executed the agreement with Tantalus in January for the provision of services and equipment for the District -wide deployment of the new metering system. Tantalus has assigned a senior member of their team to be the project manager to the District for this work. The District will hold regular meetings with Tantalus throughout the life of this project to ensure a successful implementation of the new metering system. The equipment provided by Tantalus includes 32 data collector units to be installed throughout the District at locations such as electric substations and water facilities. The installation of the data collection system will begin ahead of meter installation to ensure all areas of the District are ready to receive the new meters. Trisha Ruby has been assigned as project manager to oversee the installation of the data collector system with completion scheduled for October, 2018. Installation of the new meters will begin in April, 2018 and continue for approximately 21 months until the end of 2019 to fully implement the new system. Approximately 600 single phase meters and 30 commercial meters must be installed each month to achieve this goal. Meetings have been held with key personnel from administrative services, electric operations and information technology to assign staff and resources to ensure coordination and timely completion of this project. In addition, the District will start a public outreach program with its customers in the mid -March timeframe to inform them of the meter replacement project and associated benefits. Regarding District policy issues, staff has been carefully reviewing District Code with the goal of updating and revising District policies to reflect the changes and enhanced capabilities available with the new metering system. Some of these new capabilities include the ability for the District to offer customers prepaid utility service, and enable operations such as on -demand meter reads and remote disconnect and reconnect. These new capabilities will greatly benefit the District and its customer base by reducing costs and increasing efficiencies. The new metering system will enable the District to explore new consumer -facing programs and service offerings which will require some revision of District Code along with the development of an appropriate fee schedule to cover service costs. District staff will evaluate the existing fee structure and recommend changes based on the cost of service to provide these new capabilities. It is anticipated that District Code updates and changes will occur primarily in Title 5 - Customer Relations. A list of affected chapters requiring modification and a preliminary discussion of the anticipated changes is as follows: Chapter 5.02 - Deposits This chapter will not change significantly other than to add a section that customers who are on the prepay billing option will not be required to make a deposit. • Chapter 5.04 - Credit A section will be added to clarify that new customers who have good credit can choose any of the billing options including traditional monthly billing, automatic billing, average billing or the prepay system. New customers who do not meet the District's credit requirements will have the option of enrolling in the prepay system if their service type can accommodate a meter with a remote disconnect switch. Alternately, they will be subject to additional deposit amounts according to the existing policy. • Chapter 5.08 - Billing This chapter is subject to the largest amount of proposed changes. Proposed modifications include adding sections to describe existing billing options such as automatic billing, average billing, and the new prepay system. We also need to describe processes associated with billing including estimated bills, under/over billing, and late fees. In addition, we will list payment requirements including acceptable forms of payment, payment locations, and returned payment procedures. • Chapter 5.12 - Disconnection and Reconnection of Service Additions to this chapter will include a section to describe the Miscellaneous Fee Schedule including the cost of items such as trip charges, notices, late fees, and new fees for remote disconnect and remote reconnect services. A section will also be added to explicitly exempt prepay customers from remote disconnect and remote reconnect charges since this is how the prepay service is designed to normally operate. In addition, the Miscellaneous Fee Schedule costs will be updated to accurately reflect the actual cost for the District to provide these services. • Chapter 5.20 - Electric Fees and Charges This chapter describes electric service connection fees with reference to District Code Appendix E, Electric Connection Fee Schedule. However, this chapter only makes explicit reference to the "flat fees" listed in the Schedule. The language will be modified to also include reference to the actual costs as listed on the Schedule. In addition, the Electric Connection Fee Schedule costs will be updated to more accurately reflect the current cost for the District to provide these services. It should be noted that some of the proposed policy changes require the new metering system for implementation. Since the meter replacement work will take about 1.5 years to complete, we may not be able to offer some services including prepay billing, remote disconnect and reconnect services to all who may request such services in the immediate future. We also seek the Board's direction on whether or not to offer customers an opt -out option as we consider other policy changes. The concept of "opting out" from the new metering system refers to those customers who would choose not to receive an electric meter capable of two-way radio communication. Many other public utilities, but not all, have an opt -out program. These programs generally consist of a one-time fee and an ongoing monthly charge to manually read the meter. Based on the experience of other utilities who offer an opt -out program, only a small fraction of customers choose this option (typically much less than 1 %). However, these programs consume a disproportionate amount of staff time and resources to administer. There are several compelling reasons to not offer an opt -out program to customers. The foremost reason is that we do not currently offer, nor have we ever offered in the last 20 years, an opt -out program for our existing electric meters capable of two-way radio communication. The new Itron meters that will communicate to the Tantalus system are an advancement in meter technology compared to our existing meters, but they are both essentially a radio -equipped meter. A key difference is that the new meters actually transmit radio signals much less often than our existing meters, which should serve to alleviate concerns about radio transmissions. Also mitioatina against the 4. FISCAL IMPACT Recommended policy changes will be accompanied by a revised fee schedule to account for changes in service offerings and business processes. Fees will be based on actual cost to effect a revenue net neutral impact. 5. RECOMMEN®ATlull Receive this report and provide comments. Stephen Hollabaugh Assistant General Manager Michael D. Holley General Manager