On March 11, City Council members received an e-mail with a link to a September 13, 2012 news story about a Philadelphia-based utility, PECO, halting their Smart Meter deployment pending investigation into overheating incidents with what equated to approximately 30 of the company’s 186,000 installed meters. The outdated link was misleading in that it implied PECO abandoned the project. The truth is on October 9, 2012, pending an extensive investigation by two independent consultants and Underwriters Laboratories (UL), PECO resumed Smart Meter deployment. The company did, however, replace all installed Sensus meters with those manufactured by Landis & Gyr.

See:  

• https://www.peco.com/News/NewsReleases/Pages/PECOResumesMeterInstallationWork.aspx

• http://www.smartgridnews.com/artman/publish/Technologies_Metering/Peco-to-resume-Philadelphia-smart-meter-installation---without-Sensus-meters-5182.html

• http://www.environmentalleader.com/2012/10/10/peco-ditches-sensus-smart-meters-resumes-installation-in-pa/

The safety of our customers is of utmost concern. We conducted the Smart Grid Demonstration to manage and identify any safety issues, and are pleased to report that out of the 1,200 Smart Meters, 100 percent did not catch fire. The lesson we’ve learned from peer utilities, however, is that damaged meter sockets can cause overheating.

During deployment, MLGW will ensure meter sockets are repaired or replaced (as needed) to ensure safe service before we install a Smart Meter.

For more information about MLGW's Smart Grid project, go to www.mlgw.com/smartgrid.