On Aug. 18, 2010, the Toronto Star ran the first of several articles reporting on the government’s Smart Metering Initiative (SMI) and the Meter Data Management and Repository (MDM/R). A focus of the article was that time-of-use (TOU) bills in Ontario were inaccurate and needed to be “fixed." This is not the case. These are not problems of accuracy with the meters or with the processing within the MDM/R and they do not result in systemic overcharging or undercharging. The issue at the heart of the story is Measurement Canada’s requirements that cumulative register reads appear on the customer’s bill and that the total billed energy consumption align with and match the difference between the meter’s cumulative register reads at the beginning and end of the billing period.

While the Star’s articles can easily be misinterpreted, it is inevitable that they have raised some concerns among members of the public and that distributors in the province are being asked what is being done to remediate this situation. The short answer to that question is that since February of this year, the IESO and the MEI have been collaborating with the OEB, the EDA and a representative group of distributors to find a way to meet the Measurement Canada requirements. Modifications to the MDM/R will be an integral part of the solution.

The IESO is confident a solution that meets Measurement Canada’s requirements will be agreed to shortly. It will then remain to develop the changes and schedule their introduction in consultation with the distributors.

Background

From early 2007 until late last year we were operating with the understanding that the basis for determining energy consumption on TOU bills fell under the regulatory framework of the province. In a November 2009 letter from Measurement Canada, both the IESO and the Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure, were formally notified that Measurement Canada’s federal jurisdiction took precedence over the provincial authority. The letter stated specific Measurement Canada requirements that were not being met and gave notice that the shortcomings needed to be corrected by January 1, 2012.

Upon being notified by Measurement Canada, the IESO and the MEI formed and are co-chairing the Cumulative Register Reads Working Group (CRRWG). Its sole purpose is to oversee the development and implementation of a solution to the Measurement Canada issues throughout the province. Fifteen distributors, the IESO, the MEI, the EDA and the OEB are all members of the working group. There is frequent contact with Measurement Canada to assure our definition of the solution is on track. Later this month we will be presenting our full solution to Measurement Canada, seeking their approval to proceed with the implementation. Based on our discussions to date, we fully expect Measurement Canada to endorse our design; we will keep you informed of our progress. As is our normal practice, all the papers from the working group have been available on our website since its inception, and we have also added copies of the Measurement Canada letter to us and our reply (previously these were only passed to the working group for their information).

The full solution entails both modifications to the MDM/R and to the distributors’ systems and business processes. Passing register reads through to distributors, as well as TOU consumption, for billing is straightforward, but modifications to the MDM/R will also have to align total energy consumption with the differences between the cumulative register reads at the beginning and end of the billing period. Distributors will have to modify their systems to receive the cumulative register reads and to include those reads, along with the TOU consumption information, on their customer bills.