In April 2004 Ontario announced the deployment of smart meters in all homes and small business by the end of 2010. In 2010, the energy regulator, Ontario Energy Board, set mandatory dates for the adoption of time of use prices for smart metered customers. As of December 2012, smart meter installation is complete with 4.8 million smart meters installed in the province and 4.5 million customers on time of use (TOU) rates. The TOU rates have 3 bands:
Prices are regulated by the Ontario Energy Board and set twice a year for the summer and winter periods. Each local distribution company in Ontario has deployed its own smart metering infrastructure and each is integrated with a central meter data management repository (MDM/R). The MDM/R is currently operated by the Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO) in its capacity as the “Smart Metering Entity”. The IESO developed the specifications and through a competitive bidding process awarded a contract to IBM Canada to build and operate the system. As a centralized system, the MDM/R serves to provide hourly billing quantity data for the distribution companies so they may use the data to bill their customers on TOU rates. The data that the MDM/R receives is completely anonymized, with only time-stamped consumption data.As a central database which stores valuable data from across the province, the MDM/R is strategically positioned to leverage the data for analysis at an aggregate level and to provide important evidence from which to base conservation and demand management programs off of, and to use in evaluation of those programs. In the future, this data may also be made accessible to companies who want to develop innovative smart grid technologies based off of real consumption data.
The smart meters project was designed as a step toward modernizing the electricity system with would yield the following benefits to the customer and the electricity system:
