San Diego Billing Errors Decline : Meter Readers Join the Computer Age

Unfriendly dogs might still be hounding Uncle Sam’s letter carriers, but angry canines are becoming less of a worry for San Diego Gas and Electric’s meter readers.

That’s because all meter readers now carry hand-held, portable computers that, in addition to reducing meter-reading errors, alert SDG&E; employees to properties harboring unfriendly dogs and meters that are located in hard-to-read places.

The devices, introduced last year, replaced a pencil-and-paper recording system that had been in use for 17 years, said Chuck Johnson, SDG&E;’s meter-reading supervisor. Although employees still read meters, they now plug data into the hand-held electronic devices, which subsequently unload the information into SDG&E;’s main computer.

Under the old system, meter readers using special lead pencils copied data onto paper. An optical scanner transferred the information into SDG&E;’s computer system. But the system left room for transcription errors, Johnson said.

“We’ve seen a dramatic improvement in our reading error factor,” Johnson said. “Last year, we registered 1.29 (errors) per 1,000 readings,” Johnson said. “For the first six or seven months of this year, with the new microprocessors, we’ve reduced that to 0.75 per 1,000 readings.”

Reading the meter right the first time reduces customer complaints and eliminates expensive re-reading visits.

The hand-held devices, although not as advanced as some Buck Rogers-type meter-reading equipment being tested by other utilities, help meter readers do their job more effectively and efficiently, Johnson said.

The devices incorporate a “built-in, high-low edit system” that triggers an audible alarm if a reading is excessively high or low given a customer’s usage record and assorted energy and weather-related variables. When the alarm sounds, the meter is re-read and, if necessary, tested for accuracy.

The system is also programmed to warn meter readers about customers who own dogs or who have meters mounted in awkward places. “We can program (the hand-held device with) anything that’s in our master file,” Johnson said.

The devices are especially helpful for meter readers who must read “a bank of meters at a shopping center or an apartment complex where you’ve got gas and electric meters for each customer,” Johnson said. “With the old system, you’d be flipping (paper) pages back and forth.”

Although the new system brought SDG&E; meter readers into the computer age, there are even higher-tech systems waiting in the wings, Johnson said. Some of them read meters through an “umbilical cord” that is plugged into specially designed meters, Johnson said. Meter readings then pass, untouched by human hands, into the utility’s main computer.

Another system uses a “laser gun” to beam information from the meter to the computer and in a third, “someone in an airplane flies over and receives signals from meters,” Johnson said. “They’re taking us to the Buck Rogers sorts of things we saw as kids.”

SDG&E; has tested a system that linked a pair of condominium unit meters in Pacific Beach and Coronado to the utility’s computer. “We were getting a reading over the telephone line but it wasn’t that good and we abandoned it,” Johnson said. “I see in the trade journals that the system has been been improved.”

Just because the technology is moving fast, however, doesn’t mean that SDG&E; will be keeping stride.

“Utility companies sometimes move slowly,” Johnson acknowledged. “And, the technology might be advanced to the point we may not be ready for it.”