This week, PG&E quietly reported to the California PUC its substantial progress on rolling out smart meters.  As of last month, PG&E’s total installations had exceeded 4.6 million meters, half electric and half gas.  PG&E remains on schedule to complete its rollout to almost 10 million meters by the end of next year.  The figure below shows PG&E’s substantial progress.

As a pioneer, PG&E has taken some arrows in the back, and some customers in Bakersfield and elsewhere have complained about not seeing the benefits of smart meters.  When PG&E started its smart meter journey, few others were even discussing smart meter rollouts.  Today, some PG&E smart meter recipients have already taken advantage of critical peak pricing, but most are still awaiting new pricing choices, including Peak Time Rebates, and more detailed information, including hourly and daily energy usage information.

We applaud PG&E for its accomplishments to date.  And we look forward with anticipation to PG&E rolling out the smart meter benefits now that PG&E is making such good progress on the meters themselves.