Contact’s smart meters equipped for the future

26 June 2009

Contact’s smart meters equipped for the future

Contact Energy’s smart meters are designed to allow households to benefit from the introduction of smart appliances and from pricing plans which enable customers to choose to use electricity when it is most cost effective.

Before embarking on its smart meter installation programme, Contact reviewed the global market to ensure it was deploying the most capable smart meters available.

“There are a range of smart meters available, but Contact’s have the capability to support in-home displays and will be able to communicate with smart appliances in the future with the use of a simple plug in module,” Contact General Manager of Retail, Jason Delamore said.

“Automated communication between our smart meters and smart home appliances is just one of the benefits we will see through the rollout of this technology,” said Mr Delamore.

“We are also working on new ‘time of use’ retail pricing structures to enable customers to take full advantage of the superior information from smart meters and benefit from lower electricity prices at non peak times,” he said.

“We have also been talking with appliance manufacturers on how we can work together towards an automated solution where, for example, the smart meter will alert the dishwasher when national electricity demand – and price - is low.”

Already Contact has made estimated bills and manual meter readings a thing of the past for 42,000 Christchurch customers for whom smart meters have been installed. Contact plans to deploy smart meters into all of its customers’ properties across the country over the coming years.

Market research undertaken by Contact to measure the impact of its smart meters in Christchurch has been overwhelmingly positive, with increased convenience, bill certainty and remote reading among the benefits welcomed by customers.

ENDS

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