TNMP Stimulus Fund Application Could Speed Installation of Smart Meters Throughout Texas

(FORT WORTH, Texas) – TNMP today filed an application through the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act Smart Grid Investment Grant program requesting a matching grant of $49.1 million to support deployment of a smart grid including advanced meter technologies throughout its service area.

Advanced or “smart” meters help support energy management programs for customers. For example, retail electric providers could use the technology to offer programs that would give customers the ability to monitor and regulate electricity usage via the Internet and in-home devices. TNMP’s request includes grid elements that would increase system reliability and outage management as well.

The project is important to a statewide initiative to provide demand response and dynamic pricing – including peak pricing and peak pricing rebates -- throughout the Electric Reliability Council of Texas. Use of advanced metering infrastructure throughout ERCOT is expected to reduce usage and costs throughout the market, in part because it improves the ability to manage peak loads where generation costs are at their highest, providing environmental benefits as well through reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

TNMP’s application for stimulus funding would speed the installation of advanced meters and related technologies and reduce the ultimate costs of the project that would be passed along to customers. TNMP estimates the project will cost $98.2 million and is requesting funds for half of that amount.

The company earlier this year announced a 10,000 SmartSynch SmartMeter^TM trial deployment that uses public wireless networks for communications. The company became the first in Texas to perform remote move-in and move-out service requests using the SmartSynch system.

 “With the support of federal funding, we expect to be able to install advanced metering for all of our 230,000 customers in about three years,” said Neal Walker, vice president, Texas Operations. “Without the grant, the project is estimated to take three to four times longer. Another customer benefit is that federal funding would reduce the surcharge customers would pay for the program.”

The longer timeline without a grant is a result of the company’s strategy for managing cash flow and availability of credit facilities to finance a full deployment so that the costs of the project could be spread out over a longer period of time, resulting in smaller increases in rates borne by the consumers.

The TNMP project will provide a unique platform for demonstrating the benefits of smart grid technologies because of the company’s diverse service area. TNMP is a geographically dispersed utility whose service territory is similar to many smaller municipalities and electric cooperatives across the nation, with a mixture of large suburban and smaller communities. The company serves parts of north Texas near the Red River extending down toward Dallas, central Texas, west Texas and the Gulf Coast area south of Houston.

“This project will help TNMP demonstrate a unique advanced metering solution that can be leveraged across the state and country,” said Dave Harkness, vice president and chief information officer for PNM Resources, parent company of TNMP. “Our solution will use the existing cellular network infrastructure to send encrypted meter data to centralized data management systems. We’ve been pleased with the results of our trial deployment of this technology, and look forward to the ability to demonstrate it on a larger scale if this grant is accepted.”

Included in the application are requests for funds for advanced meters in addition to back office systems that include a meter data management system and an outage management system. Requests for funds for infrastructure technology also are included, including technology for substations to improve system reliability, optimize operations, and provide increased automation.

“There are a number of smart grid benefits to customers outside of an improved ability to manage energy use,” Walker said. “For example, the same real-time information that helps customers monitor and adjust their use also helps us optimize the performance of our system. Enhanced reliability is an important benefit of this project.”

TNMP is a transmission and distribution service provider that delivers power to about 231,000 customers on behalf of 65 retail electric providers in Texas. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of PNM Resources.