Pacific Gas & Electric, based in San Francisco, CA, serves about 5.2 million electric and 4.8 million natural gas consumers in the state of California [1, 2].
In summer 2006, the Commission approved PG&E’s AMI project with a budget of $1.74 billion [3]. Power Line Carrier technology is selected for providing communications between the utility and its electric meter network (5.1 million meters); and fixed radio frequency network is selected for its 4.2 million gas meters. The company expects to take 5 years until it reaches the full AMI deployment (fall 2006 through end of 2011).
In December 2007 [3], "PG&E filed a request for an additional $624 million in funding to upgrade its metering technology. PG&E proposes to install new advanced meter technology with the following added functionality: an integrated load limiting connect/disconnect switch toremotely connect and disconnect customers’ electricity, and also limit the amount of power that can be used at any given time; a Home Area Network (HAN) gateway device to link PG&E’s AMI network to the customer’s HAN; and solid state meters with advanced micro-processing capabilities and memory to support the above functionality, and remote software and firmware upgradeability."
As of June 2010, there have been 5.9 million smart electric and gas meters installed [4].
According to the California Government’s report in March 2010, PG&E’s Smart metering program helps implement dynamic electricity prices for all California consumers enrolled [5]. PG&E has bought advanced meters from General Electric and Landis+Gyr to be installed as part of the smart grid project [6]. PG&E started the project in 2006 with plans to complete the installation by 2011 [7].
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