News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Cookeville Electric Department hoping to start the process of getting automated meter readers.
Director Carl Haney said currently, the city has readers that go out once a month and manually read some 19,000 meters across the city.
“Every time that happens we have to send out a truck and a person out to those sites, either read the meter, turn that electricity or turn it on,” Haney said. “Well these give you the ability to do all of that just remotely.”
Haney said that this process also has options for the Gas and Water Quality Control Department to get automated readers as well. He said once City Council approves the engineering services agreement, they will work to get the infrastructure ready to implement automated readers.
“There are more benefits with electric doing it, there are things such as outage management,” Haney said. “We can see any of our meters that are out of power typically before that customer can even call us, we would know that it’s out of power. So there are other benefits of it such as that, so while electric (Department) is heading ti up, there is a possibility of gas and water (departments) to get on board as well.”
Once needed infrastructures, such as antennas, are in place, the department will work to test all the meters and make sure they communicate properly. Haney said the department estimates the full process to take about two years.
Haney said initial savings estimates indicate the meter readers will be paid back in about five to seven years. He said after that, the city will be able to get huge savings on time, money, and labor.
