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W A T E R I E N E R 5 Y , L I F E RIVERSIDE PUBLIC UTILITIES P U B L I C U T I L I T I E S Board Memorandum BOARD OF PUBLIC UTILITIES DATE: July 16, 2010 ITEM NO: 20 SUBJECT: SMART METER AND RELATED CUSTOMER INFORMATION SYSTEM PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION ISSUE: Approval to move forward with installation of "Smart Meters," the related "Smart Grid" technology, and the integrated Customer Information System required to support the new grid operations and provide increased customer benefit. These projects are being brought forward for implementation several years before anticipated due to one-time savings in the electric fund. RECOMMENDATION: That the Board of Public Utilities approve the implementation of Smart Meters (Advanced Metering Infrastructure —AMI) and replacement of the Customer Information System (CIS). BACKGROUND: Two major projects to significantly benefit the Utility and its customers are able to be brought forward for implementation several years before anticipated. These projects are instrumental in helping to meet the Smart City goals for the City of Riverside and are required for future Utility operations. They are: Smart Meters Riverside Public Utilities' (RPU) use of smart meters in a grid technology will primarily be through AMI, which will replace all manually read electric meters with Ratio Frequency Meters, and installation of repeaters and collectors to transmit data to a new Meter Data Management System using the Utility's existing fiber optic network. The benefits are relatively low-cost meter reads, remote service initiation and termination at some locations, with improvements in outage detection and restoration reporting, load forecasting for cost-of—service and rate setting, grid and energy balancing, distribution system planning and asset management, operational efficiency in meter reading, detection of energy theft/diversion, and employee and customer safety. Customer satisfaction is enhanced by elimination of intrusive meter reading visits, more accurate reads, and ultimately real time energy use data for informed decision making. AMI and the smart meter installation assist with moving Riverside Public Utilities farther along the national "Smart Grid" goals which are to automate all aspects of the transmission and distribution grid for better distribution management and energy efficiency. Eventually, data from these meters will enable RPU and its customers to better and more effectively manage electricity use. It is expected that smart meters will be required for every utility and installation at this time will allow RPU to maintain its status of bringing current technology to Utility operations. RPU applied for federal funds to assist with installation of these meters, but was not successful in obtaining grant funding. The Utility anticipated installing these meters in the next several years as part of efforts to improve technology, but hoped that grant funding would help offset the costs. Revised rates and new billing structures are not being proposed at this time. Customers will not see a corresponding change in their existing bills due to use of this new technology. The data collected through these advanced meters will enable RPU to better establish future rate structures, especially in the Time-of-Use structure. Also, there are significant "green" benefits due to significant reductions in