After extensive safety testing and successfully installing 35,000 commercial and industrial smart meters, SaskPower is now piloting its process for residential smart meters.

“We’re looking forward to providing our customers with the many benefits of smart meters,” said Shawn Schmidt, Vice-President of Distribution and Customer Services at SaskPower. “For those who sign up, smart meters eliminate the need for estimated meter readings, provide detailed information on how an individual is using power in their home and over time, will improve SaskPower’s response to outages.”

Customers in a number of communities are being selected to assist with establishing a solid concentration of meters in a geographical location to help gather outage information, and to ultimately improve reliability. Also, customers participating in SaskPower’s Net Metering program and all customers who’ve received a notice that their meter is due for replacement are encouraged to sign up. All residential customers are welcome to apply. Both the meter and installation are at no additional cost to customers.

The meters have been thoroughly tested for safety and quality according to SaskPower’s own standards. Now, SaskPower is looking to validate meter deployment, communication, scheduling and procurement procedures. SaskPower is also looking to assess how concentrated groups of meters within a community communicate and provide additional visibility into what’s happening on the power grid.

More than 1,500 SaskPower employees and over 2,200 customers who had requested one over the past year will receive a meter as part of this pilot.

Customers can visit saskpower.com/smartsignup to volunteer for a meter. At this time, only volunteers who have signed up for a smart meter will receive one.

Since 2017, SaskPower has developed its own rigorous safety standard for these smart meters. To date, the company has successfully installed more than 35,000 smart meters on businesses throughout the province, with no issues.

Over the last seven years, SaskPower has worked hard to find meters that meet its new standard, develop additional process improvements and complete thorough meter testing. A third-party testing facility, MET Labs, has also verified that the meters the company is using meet this new standard. MET Labs is a North American global service leader for product safety approvals and regulatory certification of electrical products.

SaskPower is working towards a modernized power grid, and smart meters play an integral role to this. Learn more at SaskPower’s plans to modernize the power grid at saskpower.com/smartgrid.

At a glance...

• SaskPower has launched a pilot program for residential customers to receive smart meters
• Over 35,000 smart meters have already been installed for commercial and industrial customers
• Meter installations are scheduled to occur between May and August 2021