If you have watched your electric bills closely you may have seen an additional charge that was added at the beginning of 2009. This monthly charge is just over two dollars and is paid to ONCOR for its new advanced metering project.

With the money collected from this “Advanced Meter Fee”,  ONCOR has purchased and installed millions of new Smart Meters within its service territory.

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Smart meters send the usage information wirelessly to ONCOR.  ONCOR then transmits this data to your electricity company so that company can produce an invoice.  Smart meters automatically read and report usage data every 15 minutes.  This enables customers to see how much power they are consuming, virtually in real time.

This information can help customers cut back on their energy use. A California study showed that smart meters cut home energy use by 9 percent! This means a lower energy bill.

Further, for customers with Smart Meters, there will no longer be a need for ‘meter readers’ employed by ONCOR.  Reducing the actual numbers of meter readers could also reduce (or at least limit increases in) the fees charged by ONCOR for delivering our electricity in Hutto.

Still another advantage of the Smart Meter is made apparent during power outages. These meters will “report” the outage FOR YOU, therefore ONCOR will get the notification fairly quickly which will likely result in quicker response times for restoring power.

For a more extensive list of the benefits of Advanced Metering check the Smart Meter Texas website.