METROPOLITAN EDISON COMPANY - Pennsylvania Public Utility ...

Companies would submit a supplement to the Plan (“Deployment Plan”) to theCommission that sets forth in detail the FE-PA Companies’ plan for full scaledeployment of smart meters. The FE-PA Companies’ anticipated that the AMI vendorand technology selection process would start in September 2010 and continue foralmost 10 months. The FE-PA Companies indicated that they would conduct anevaluation of the current legacy systems to assess network design. The network designtask was expected to be commenced in January 2011, and be completed before theend of 2013.In summary, the FE-PA Companies should continue to reduce the cost of readingmeters through rerouting and the implementation of smart meter technology. From2007 to 2009, FirstEnergy has rerouted many of its residential customer meters in theFE-PA Companies’ service areas and continued rerouting is planned for 2010. Suchrerouting, along with the implementation of smart meter technology, should help bringthe FE-PA Companies’ costs more in line with those of other EDCs. From 2005 to2009, the residential customer cost per meter read decreased by $0.04 for Met-Ed and$0.12 for Penn Power, but increased by $0.12 for Penelec. Therefore, based on485,668, 505,564, and 139,979 residential meters in use at December 31, 2009,respectively, for Met-Ed, Penelec and Penn Power, changes in annual meter readingcosts experienced from 2005 to 2009 was a $223,121 decrease for Met-Ed, a $728,012increase for Penelec, and a $201,570 decrease for Penn Power. Further improvementefforts should be under taken at Penelec to achieve a similar realized reduction in costper read as experienced at Met-Ed from 2005 to 2009 (a decrease of $0.04 per read). IfPenelec were to experience a realized improvement of a $0.04 decrease per read fromits 2005 performance level (i.e., $0.82 per read), Penelec would realize a performanceof $0.78 per read, which compared to Penelec’s 2009 performance of $0.94 per readwould be a potential improvement of $0.16 per read from the 2009 level orapproximately $971,000 annually ($0.16 x 505,564 meters x 12 months). In addition, asdiscussed in Follow-up Finding and Conclusion No. XI-4, implementation of AMItechnology would also enhance the revenue protection strategy of the FE-PACompanies.Staff’s Follow-up Recommendation – Complete the rerouting of the FE-PACompanies’ meter reading routes and explore the benefits of expediting largescale deployment of smart meter technology.- 85 -