Smart meters make UO move-in easier
It’s fall in Eugene and that means the local population will once again swell with the arrival of University of Oregon students. With a total enrollment of almost 24,000, students come from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to make Eugene their temporary home.
One aspect of this population shift that many people may not think about is the significant demand for utility services at the beginning of the school year. Each fall, EWEB processes a surge in utility service requests as students move into their rentals, and again when students move out in the spring. At the height of these seasons, it’s not unusual to process 1,200 service requests in a single day. To manage the workload, EWEB sometimes capped service orders at 500 per day, creating delays for customers who needed immediate service.
Recently, EWEB has made major strides to meet this demand for services more efficiently through the deployment of smart meter technology. Across Eugene’s urban territory, smart meters have reduced the number of times that service trucks must roll out to customers by 90% since 2015.
“Smart meters have completely transformed how we handle utility service changes,” said Jason Stuart, who supervises EWEB's smart meter operations. “We can now start or stop service remotely, without needing to send technicians into the field. This not only reduces labor costs but also speeds up the process for our customers.”
Jason Stuart has worked for EWEB for more than 20 years, starting as a meter reader. He remembers the time-consuming process of managing service requests manually. “Before this technology, it was all hands on deck for several weeks, often requiring additional staff and overtime,” he said. “We would have stacks and stacks of paper orders that all needed to be processed and sorted by neighborhood so that we could dispatch field technicians to take meter readings and physically connect or disconnect the service.”
In addition to labor challenges, the manual process resulted in high operational costs and air quality impacts. During busy move-in and move-out periods, EWEB trucks could travel hundreds of miles each day, contributing to fuel costs and carbon emissions. Smart meters have eliminated the need for manual meter readings, streamlining the entire process.
Smart meters measure energy and water usage in real time and transmit that data wirelessly back to EWEB. This two-way communication enables EWEB to remotely manage services like starting or stopping electricity, without any need for an on-site visit. In the near future, smart meter technology will enable more benefits such as advanced rate design and demand response programs. These programs will give customers more control over their utility bills and will improve grid operations, helping EWEB maintain a more efficient, reliable, and resilient system.
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