PSE&G Receives Approval for $700 Million Smart Meter Rollout in New Jersey
Public Service Electric and Gas Company (PSE&G), the largest utility in New Jersey, received state approval in January 2021 on a 4-year, $700 million plan to rollout smart meters for its 2.3 million customers.
PSE&G is the second utility in the state to deploy smart meters (Rockland Electric was the first), although two other NJ utilities – Jersey Central Power & Light and Atlantic City Electric – have submitted proposals to the state and are awaiting approvals.
Pros and Cons of the PSE&G Smart Meter Rollout Plan
PSE&G plans to deploy 80,000 smart meters in 2021, 300k in 2022, 900k in 2023, and another 900k in 2024. The utility will be able to recover its costs through a rate increase, but as with many things in life, this particular initiative has both pros and cons.
Pros:
- The initiative should improve outage response times
- The meters will provide real-time readings
- The meters should help integrate renewable energy sources into the grid
- The meters will provide extra information so that customers can make better-informed decisions around their electricity usage
- Customers will be able to take advantage of time-of-use billing to receive discounts for off-peak electricity usage
Cons
- Customers may be opposed to the fact that the smart meters will allow PSE&G to remotely turn on or turn off the power to their home
- Some customers believe that the devices emit radio frequencies that can lead to illness (NOTE: unsubstantiated at this point)
- Although customers can opt-out, doing so will result in a $12 monthly fee
- Over 300 full-time positions (mainly meter readers) will be eliminated once the rollout is complete
By all accounts, it seems like the pros outweigh the cons, but I suppose it depends on who you ask. In my opinion, smart meters can only help from an emergency preparedness perspective, and therefore I applaud the PSE&G initiative.
