What a smart meter sends to the power company
What a smart meter sends to the power company is not just a monthly total. The Energy Information Administration, the federal statistical agency that tracks meters nationwide, defines an advanced meter as one that records usage at a minimum in hourly intervals and reports that data to the utility and the customer at least once a day. The fuller version, built for two way communication, can also carry a signal back to the meter in real time, not only send one out. That second direction is what lets a utility ask a customer to use less power at a specific hour, charge a different price depending on when electricity is used, or see power flowing back from a home solar system.
Two-way AMI meters allow utilities and customers to interact to support smart consumption applications using real-time or near real-time electricity data.
U.S. Energy Information Administration, the federal statistical agency that tracks and defines advanced meters, in its own explainer. Source 3.
The same link also reports outages, helping a utility find and fix a broken line faster, the agency states.
119.3 million meters, and rising every year
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission counted 119.3 million advanced meters operating in the United States in 2022, 72.3% of the 165.0 million electric meters in the country. That share has grown every year since 2007, when only 6.7 million meters, 4.7% of the total, could do any of this.
Figures are the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission own count for each year named.
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| 2007 | 6.7 |
| 2021 | 111.2 |
| 2022 | 119.3 |
Almost all of the growth is residential. The Energy Information Administration counted 104,237,855 residential advanced meters in 2021, 88% of every advanced meter installed that year, against 13,908,481 for commercial customers and 574,726 for industrial customers.
Figures are 2021, the most recent year the agency breaks the total down by customer class.
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| Residential customers | 104.2 |
| Commercial customers | 13.9 |
| Industrial customers | 0.6 |
What the two way link lets a utility do with the data
The same signal that reports usage can carry a price or a request the other way. The Department of Energy states that real time, time of use, and critical peak pricing all give a customer an incentive to shift electricity use away from the busiest hours, which can reduce how much new power plant capacity the grid needs to build. The department counts virtual power plants, groups of home batteries, water heaters, thermostats, and electric vehicle chargers coordinated through this same data link, already totaling 30 to 60 gigawatts of capacity nationwide today, and estimates that figure could reach 80 to 160 gigawatts by 2030, enough to meet 10% to 20% of peak electricity demand nationwide and save an estimated 10,000 million dollars a year in grid costs.
Both ranges are the Department of Energy own estimate from 1 report, not 2 sources disagreeing, so the full range is published rather than narrowed to 1 number.
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| Today | 30 to 60 gigawatts |
| By 2030 | 80 to 160 gigawatts |
Not every meter is fully two way, and opting out depends on the state
The same federal definition that counts 119.3 million advanced meters folds 2 different capability levels into 1 name. A footnote in the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 2024 report states that advanced meters include basic hourly interval meters and extend to real time meters with built in two way communication capable of recording and transmitting instantaneous data. Neither the commission nor the Energy Information Administration breaks the national count down by which of those 2 levels a given meter actually has, so the 119.3 million figure describes meters that report at least once a day, not meters that are all confirmed capable of full real time two way control.
Subtracting that 119.3 million from the 165.0 million total meters in the country leaves 45.7 million meters, more than 1 in 4, that are still one way only and cannot do any of this at all.
Whether a customer may refuse an advanced meter is also decided state by state. The South Dakota Public Utilities Commission approved a request from Otter Tail Power Company to end the right to opt out of an advanced meter, effective January 1, 2024, in that state alone.