That doesn't necessarily mean they are flameproof. Thus, the vast majority of meters are Sensus meters.īut for new homes, or for homes that need a new meter, NV Energy will be using Landis + Gyr meters. That grant had strict deadlines for installation or the money would have disappeared.
Sensus water meter danger install#
That lag posed a significant problem to NV Energy, which was using federal grant money to install the meters. Sensus was able to manufacture ready-to-use meters more quickly, while NV Energy had to spend a considerable amount of time engineering a way for the Landis + Gyr meters to communicate with its network. When NV Energy first went to bid with the smart meter project, it planned to use Sensus for 70 percent of its meters and Landis + Gyr for 30 percent of its meters. If your meter does catch fire, it will be replaced with a meter that so far hasn't had any problems in Nevada. With such a low failure rate, it's to be expected that fewer to no problems are occurring with the meters that account for just a fraction of those installed.Ĥ. The meter is commonly referred to as the Gen 3 Sensus brand meter with a remote disconnect switch. The bad news is that the one with the problem accounts for the vast majority - 1,088,000 of the 1.2 million - of the meters installed in the state. Only one of the 12 is actually bursting into flame. NV Energy has installed a dozen different types of meters in Nevada, depending on the needs of the customer. Only one of the 12 types of meters installed in Nevada is catching fire. By March, 86 percent of all meters will be more than 30 months old.ģ. NV Energy officials says that's good news. Only five of the 77 occurred after 30 months.
The majority of consumed meters occurred within 15 months of installation. A consumed meter can be anything from a melted plastic housing to a "spectacular manifestation" of flame and smoke shooting from the device.īut the utility also found that as time goes by, the probability of a consumed meter diminishes. If your meter hasn't caught fire yet, it's even less likely to do so.Īccording to NV Energy's statistics, your meter has just a. In Philadelphia, meters were removed after. In Saskatchewan, authorities removed 105,000 meters after.
Still, other jurisdictions have had a similarly low "consumed meter" rate with the same brand of Sensus smart meters, which prompted massive recalls of the devices. NV Energy has logged every meter malfunction in its system since the start of the project in 2011, and says that its overall failure rate is below the expected industry standard of 0.5 percent. Out of the 1.24 million smart meters installed in Nevada, only 77 have gone up in flames. The number of meter fires, or as NV Energy calls them 'consumed meters,' is very, very small. Here are our top six takeaways from the information NV Energy submitted:ġ. The Reno Gazette-Journal has combed through most of the documents and interviewed top NV Energy officials involved in the smart meter project. Most of the incidents involved very little damage to the property. Fire investigators have not found the meters, which were the origin of the fires, to be the definitive cause. The inquiry was launched at the request of two local fire chiefs, who are concerned the smart meter flame-outs are a danger to homes and businesses after about a dozen incidents. The Public Utilities Commission has said it likely will take until the end of March to complete its review of the records. State regulators are in the midst of reviewing hundreds of records from NV Energy as part of an inquiry into whether the smart meters installed on 1.3 million Nevada homes and businesses are a fire hazard.