The Cookeville Energy Department nearing the completion of a citywide transition to automated meters for water, gas and electric services.
Energy Department Director Carl Haney said the electric division is almost done replacing the 20,000 electric meters in Cookeville. Haney said the gas division has reached the 75 percent completion milestone, though those installations require more time to change out than the electric units. Haney said the project is currently running a year ahead of its original three-year schedule.
“There’s a lot of benefits that we’re seeing both for us and our customer,” Haney said. “We see a reduction in meter readers, eventually, you know, a complete reduction in them because we’ll be able to read all those remotely.”
In addition to energy utilities, Haney said the newer readers allow the city to turn water meters on and off remotely when new resident move into the neighborhood. Haney said eliminating these house calls save the city time and money.
“So that’s more immediate for them instead of them having to wait for us to get a truck and personnel out there,” Haney said.
Haney said the department is currently integrating the new meters into an outage management system that provides a public map for customers to track power restoration. Haney said the automated system allows the department to handle service connections and disconnections remotely, and respond to them quicker.
“It’s been a really smooth process for us,” Haney said. “It’s been going really a lot faster than what we expected.”
Haney said the department has utilized cell towers located on Pilot Knob, 15th Street and Buck Mountain to ensure redundant communication coverage for the meters. Haney said the department has experienced no significant technological issues or communication failures during the implementation process.
“Obviously a big thing on electric side is outages,” Haney said. “This will tell us when the meters are out instantaneously, even before the customers can call.”
Haney said the department expects to reach total completion for electric meters within the next two months. Haney said the gas division is on track to finish its installations before the end of the year.
Haney said the department will begin exploring additional service options, such as the pre-pay system, once the full implementation is finalized.