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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowDuke Energy Corp. has struck a settlement with customer groups as part of a regulatory request to upgrade its electric grid, including the use of “smart” electric meters, the company announced today.
If approved by the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission, Duke would begin installing the meters within six months. The Charlotte, N.C.-based utility eventually plans to install more than 800,000 of the meters in its 69-county Indiana territory.
Smart meters allow time-of-use pricing that rewards customers for using appliances during off-peak hours. Better management of the electric grid allows utilities to delay construction of expensive new baseload-generation plants.
It wasn’t immediately clear how much the grid plan will cost Duke ratepayers under the settlement reached with customer groups.
Signing on were Citizens Action Coalition, industrial customers and the Indiana Office of Utility Consumer Counselor.
The settlement also requires Duke to conduct a “distributed generation” pilot. Photovoltaic panels, solar thermal heaters and wind turbines would be installed at a number of homes and businesses. Duke also plans to test advanced pricing options for customers, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles and residential home energy-management systems.
“The energy future demands an intelligent power grid to handle distributed generation, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles, and provide our customers with more energy-efficient options and control,” Todd Arnold, Duke’s senior vice president of smart grid and customer systems, said in a statement.
Locally, Indianapolis Power & Light also has asked the commission to approve the first phases of grid improvements that include a wider deployment of smart meters.
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