Volume 8
Issue 8
Updated February 22, 2012

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Customers begin to see ‘smart’ meters

 

By Steve Landry
Gazette Reporter
info@acadianagazette.com

 

Lafayette Utilities System workers are now in neighborhoods and at businesses installing “smart” meters which will, without wires, transmit information to the LUS offices.

Officials say the new meters should help pinpoint where power is going and make it easier for LUS to determine where power outages are occurring.

LUS worker Josh Briggs worked on a Northside-area home last week and said it takes “maybe 4 to 5 seconds to insta

ll” the new meters. The power snaps off for a few seconds, he said, so customers should expect to see blinking microwave clocks or other signs of brief outages as LUS installs the meters.

To alert customers that LUS was present at their homes, Briggs and other crew members leave a black tag on doors.

Things were going smoothly last week as Briggs, a contract worker out of Abbeville, worked with his partner, who was installing the new meters on the other side of the block.

“With these,” he said while snipping away the lock off the old meter, “they can tell you where you need to cut back (on electricity usage).”

Don’t expect all of Lafayette Parish to have the new meters right away, Briggs warned.

“They only have four of us, actually, doing this,” he said. “And it might not be ready until next July, for the whole city.”

If Briggs or another LUS workers visits a house to install the new meter, expect immediate results.

“These are turned on right now,” Briggs explained. “They’re ready when we leave.”

The project will cost about $33 million, $11 million of which is being funded by a grant with the other $22 million coming from a bond issue paid by taxpayers.

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