Preventing Outages Before They Start

By Erin Madison

Our advanced meter infrastructure upgrade allows us to detect problems in our electrical system before they cause a power outage.

On a recent day in Wecota, South Dakota, several electric meters reported low voltage. The alerts popped up across a wide area, in and outside of town. Left unchecked, these incidents of low voltage could have turned into a widespread outage. However, we were able to map where these alerts were occurring and realized they were all downstream of a voltage regulator bank. We replaced the failed voltage regulator, and voltage levels returned to normal.

All of this was done without any interruption to our customers. It’s unlikely any of our customers noticed any kind of a problem, nor did they know work was going on behind the scenes to keep their lights on.

The prevention of an outage in Wecota was thanks to our advanced meter upgrade that was completed in South Dakota in 2021 and is currently underway in Montana.

Our new advanced meters alert us of problems long before we would otherwise be aware of them and allow us to potentially fix problems before they cause service interruptions.

“Advanced meters allow us to find problems before customers are aware of them,” said John Thurmond, Director of Digital Customer Experience Success at NorthWestern.

In another recent incident in South Dakota, multiple meters reported high voltage situations. All of these meters were serviced off the same transformers. A NorthWestern Energy technician was dispatched and discovered two bad transformers that were replaced, and voltage was restored to normal.

Again, all of this was done before customers noticed any issues. With our old meters, those transformers would have failed eventually, and a technician would have been dispatched to replace them. However, the customers served by those transformers would have been out of power from the time the transformers failed to when they were replaced – possibly a few hours.

“Events and alarms generated by the advanced meter system can be used as a diagnostic tool to proactively identify and mitigate system-level and even premise-specific issues,” John said.

Recently, a single meter generated a low-voltage alarm showing the customer’s voltage was about half of what it should be. A technician was able to respond and repair a broken phase wire to the customer’s meter before the customer realized there was a problem. I

n addition to identifying and preventing power outages, advanced meters are an important step in moving toward a sustainable energy future. The energy grid is evolving, driven by the need to support more renewable resources as we transition to an even cleaner energy future. Advanced metering provides more data on grid operations, which will allow opportunities for new customer programs and technology that will help balance the energy grid with renewable resources.

Advanced meters also provide near-real-time data for customers installing solar panels, wind turbines or other clean energy generation. Advanced meters can capture and display the energy delivered by NorthWestern Energy, the energy received from the customer’s system and calculate the net difference.

While advanced meters can measure total energy use on an interval basis, these meters are not configured to differentiate energy use at the appliance level or to identify customer activities within a home or business.

Eventually customers will be able to track their energy use on an hourly basis. (The advanced meters communicate energy usage information three times daily.) The information obtained can help customers better understand how they use energy and help them make informed decisions as a customer.

NorthWestern Energy's technology upgrade also opens the door for innovations customers and communities are asking for today. This new infrastructure could be the backbone of future services, such as remote streetlight control, time of use, prepaid metering and more. NorthWestern Energy can work with customers and communities to offer services that are not possible with our old metering technology. M

ontana law allows customers to opt-out of the use of advanced metering devices according to terms and conditions set by the Montana Public Service Commission. No utility company can require the use of an advance metering device. If you have questions about your opt-out rights, please contact the Montana Public Service Commission at 1-800-646-6150.

Montana Advanced Meter Upgrade

590,000

Approximately 590,000 meters and modules will be replaced over four years, from 2021 to 2024.

South Dakota Advanced Meter Upgrade

95,500

Approximately 95,500 new electric meters and gas modules were replaced in South Dakota between 2018 and 2020.

Nebraska Advanced Meter Upgrade

In Nebraska, where we only provide natural gas service, we replaced the erts on all our gas meters. Our Nebraska meters are currently being read by a meter-reading truck that is able to collect data from the meters as it drives past them. We’re evaluating solutions to make this a fully automated process.