January 10
PSE&G Reaches Milestone Two Million Smart Meters Installed
Top consumer smart energy news hand-selected and brought to you by the Smart Energy Consumer Collaborative.
Member News
PSE&G announced that it had reached a key milestone in its Smart Meter Program with the installation of two million smart meters. The multi-year effort saw the company replacing existing electric meters with new smart meters throughout its New Jersey market. The Smart Meter Program is aimed at enhancing business and residential customer insights and helping to restore power faster if an outage happens, officials said.
Demand growth is coming, and with it a perfect storm of constraints and uncertainties affecting both the bulk power, transmission and local distribution grids. According to ICF’s modeling, by 2028, U.S. electricity demand could increase by an average of 8.3 percent while peak demand for electricity could increase by an average of 5.1 percent. By 2050, electricity demand could rise by 57 percent or more.
ICF, a global consulting and technology services provider, recently announced the launch of PowerGuide®, a cloud-based customer engagement, education and analytics platform that provides utilities and their customers real-time insights on the costs and benefits of fleet electrification, as well as implementation services.
It’s an understatement to say that energy messages targeting consumers come from all sorts of places – manufacturers, retailers, electricity providers, government, etc. – and through a variety of media. To learn more about consumers’ awareness of these messages and what leads them from awareness to engagement, SECC recently released the “Modern Energy Messaging: Transactions to Relationships” report.
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Industry News
When it comes to the clean energy transition, there’s been plenty to be hopeful about this year: Global solar installations shattered expectations. Battery adoption went bananas in the United States. The United Kingdom phased out coal from its grid. Through June, wind and solar produced more power for the European Union than fossil fuels. EVs are set to make up one-fifth of new car sales worldwide.
In 2022, there were 119.3 million smart meters deployed in the United States, up by approximately eight million from 2021, FERC’s 2024 annual assessment records. Based on publicly available data, the assessment cites EIA data that these 119.3 million smart meters represent over 72 percent of the 165 million total meters in operation across all customer classes.
The smart panel maker Span is shifting its business strategy away from the consumer market, and toward utilities. Founder and CEO Arch Rao told Latitude Media that the company is expanding from a home electrification company “to being essentially an infrastructure company.” And to do that, utilities are key.
In a first for the country, solar and wind generated more electricity than coal over most of 2024. The two renewable energy sources provided a record 17 percent of U.S. electricity from January to November, while coal contributed 15 percent, according to data from think tank Ember.
