Landis+Gyr - Country Energy Australia

Country Energy Australia
Advanced Metering deployed to access Customer Demand Management

In December 2004, Ampy Email Metering partnered with electricity utility Country Energy to launch Australia’s first advanced metering project. The project, called the “Home Energy Efficiency Trial” (HEET), is aimed at harnessing the potential for customer demand management in the residential sector.

The purpose of the 18-month project is to understand better customers’ propensity to change their electricity consumption patterns if provided with more information about their consumption and its relative cost at different times of the day and year.

Results from the first 12 months are promising, with significant power demand reductions occurring during peak periods and the majority of customers experiencing overall savings in their energy bills on the new time-of-use rates.

Country Energy has purchased an end-to-end advanced metering system from Ampy Email Metering that features state-of-the-art interval meters, in-home displays that can be plugged into power outlets anywhere in the home, two-way communications modules that use GSM/GPRS to both collect and send data between customers and the utility, and a sophisticated back-office software system.

Until the project’s commencement, the 150 participating households were on a mix of tariffs, including flat, year-round pricing. The new advanced metering equipment has allowed customers to be now on a rate schedule that more closely reflects the cost to the utility of purchasing electricity and running the network at different times of the day and year. In addition, the system provides for “critical peak pricing” (CPP) – that is, the ability for the utility to put dynamically and remotely in place a special peak price to reflect periods of particularly high electricity demand on the system.

Country Energy has an agreement with its customers that it can use such critical peak pricing up to a dozen times per year and for periods not greater than six hours at a time. The critical peak price is twice the value of the regular peak price.

Customer notification changes behavior

Customers are notified of critical price events via the in-home display, as well as e-mails and/or SMS text messages, depending on their personal preferences.

During the past 12 months, Country Energy sent customers two CPPs: one in summer and one in winter. On both occasions customers reduced their peak consumption by around 30 per cent.

High customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction with the project is high. The in-house display has become an important resource for them, with many customers citing that they refer to it at least once each day. Country Energy has routinely surveyed customers and typical responses include:

“I am sold on the product and it should be kept. I think it is something everyone would benefit from.”

“I note from the March account last year (2004) our average daily usage was 14.88 units. This March (2005) it is 10.92 units. This has been achieved through our ability to plan usage as a result of having the info available on the monitor.”

“We’d all be better off if a similar market based system was used for water as well.”

Further, while shifting from a flat tariff to time-of-use rates with a variable CPP-component may have appeared daunting to some customers at the outset, most participants’ bills have declined. Detailed analysis of trial participants’ energy accounts shows that customers are using the in-home displays to make informed judgments about their energy consumption, and are shifting consumption away from peak periods to take advantage of cheaper prices.