Just how clever are the new electrical and gas meters that DTE is installing on homes and businesses throughout Ann Arbor? They’ll tell the utility when a customer suffers a power outage. In the future, they’ll communicate with “smart” appliances to tell them the cheapest time of day to turn on, among other things. And for customers who install photovoltaic systems, they can provide “net metering,” giving them credit for the power they produce.
By March, DTE had replaced 7,000 out of 150,000 electrical meters in the Ann Arbor area—gas meters get an add-on module—at no cost to the customer, says company engineer John Jamerson. DTE notifies customers by snail mail three weeks in advance, and the switch takes just five minutes, but during that time, there’s no electricity. So Jamerson recommends that customers who own super sensitive equipment or—here’s the big one—happen to be on a life support system give a heads-up to the power company before they arrive.
