Jay Morrison: Ownership is a mater of Law and Precidence

This posted to smartgrid@ostp.gov by Jay Morrison, NRECA

Q1-2: Ownership of the data is likely to turn on state law. In most circumstances, the utility that owns the meter and collects the data to bill for electricity, monitor the reliability of the system, and offer additional energy-related services will own the data. Under state law, most utilities will have a significant obligation to protect the data from unauthorized disclosure to third parties. Many utilities likely will provide some of that meter data to consumers voluntarily or under direction of state regulators. In some cases, utilities will be providing consumers more than just the data collected by the meter at their premises. For example, some utilities will offer consumers the opportunity to benchmark their energy usage against other equivalent customers in their neighborhood. At the same time, utilities are unlikely to provide consumers all of the data collected by the meters on their premises. For example, utilities are unlikely to show data reflecting frequency, voltage, power factor, and momentary blips that the utilities need to identify and manage outages, perform predictive maintenance, and enhance distribution system efficiency.

The question raises the additional issue of whether consumers or third parties will have a right to access data “directly from the meter.” That question assumes that the meters will be designed to enable such access. It is not clear at this time that all meters will/or should have that capability. That additional functionality would likely add to the cost of meters and may not be the best means of communicating data to consumers. At this early stage in the development of the smart grid, the Administration and NIST should maintain flexibility to allow utilities, vendors, and others in the industry to continue to experiment with different means of collecting and disseminating information.

In some situations, yes. In many others, no. The capabilities of the meters, the communications networks through which they communicate information, and the meter data management and other back-office systems adopted by different utilities will likely vary widely. For example, a utility may find that the meter that provides the best functionality for an acceptable cost cannot provide data more frequently than daily or hourly. Or, a utility may opt to install a meter with much greater functionality but may be unable technically or economically given the available communications resources to provide data more frequently than daily or hourly. Finally, even though a utility has the available metering and communications technology, the back-office software to enable real-time sharing of data may be unavailable or uneconomic for many years. The utility may find that another approach to demand response provides much greater value to the consumers on the system at a much lower cost. In all cases, the calculation must be based on a rigorous analysis of the costs and benefits to the electric consumers.