7. Meter Installation Waiver

7.1. Parties' Positions

Under current rules, any customer with a peak load that is greater than 50 kilowatts (kW) is required to install an approved interval meter. Interval meters allow customers better access and control to their load consumption, and are a step toward a smarter, more efficient electric grid.

CACES believes that the requirement for DA customers to install interval meters in order to receive DA service should be modified to allow a customer to choose whether or not they want to install such a meter in advance of the "Advanced Meter Initiative" deployment. CACES argues that such DA customers should not be required to pay for an interval meter that will soon be replaced by an Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) meter, particularly because they are already paying for the AMI deployment.

All customers with load greater than 200 kW already have interval meters. CACES argues that any commercial/ industrial customers whose peak load is between 50 kW and 200 kW should have the choice of whether to install an interval meter.

SCE proposes that service accounts with demand between 50 kW and 199 kW be granted a temporary waiver from the DA interval meter requirement pending the scheduled installation of an Edison SmartConnect meter, unless the meter is required by the ESP. SCE proposes that if the customer's ESP requires an interval meter, the ESP would be billed for the cost of such meter.

SCE argues that a waiver should not apply to customers with service accounts having a demand of 200 kW or greater since under SCE's tariffs, such accounts are required to have interval metering.

7.2. Discussion

A temporary waiver of each utility's DA interval meter installation requirement applicable to service accounts with demand between 50 kW and 199 kW shall be granted, pending the scheduled installation of an AMI smart meter by the utility, unless an interval meter is specifically requested by the customer's ESP. If the customer's ESP requests an interval meter, the ESP will be billed for the cost of such meter. If a DASR is submitted for a customer who does not have an interval meter in place, and an AMI smart meter is not installed before the next meter read cycle, load profiles will be used for settlement purposes, trued up by actual meter reads, as is done for customers with loads less than 50 kW, until an AMI smart meter is installed. All customers with service accounts having a demand of 200 kW or greater are required to have interval metering. Therefore, a waiver shall not apply to these accounts.

Utility Tariff Rule 22 requires that service accounts with demands greater than 50 kW have interval meters prior to being placed on DA service.¹⁷ Therefore, a revision to the Utility Tariff Rule 22 will be necessary to authorize this waiver. The utilities shall incorporate this revision in their advice letter filings implementing the requirements of this order.

¹⁷ See Utility Tariff Rule 22, Section A.2.