Recovery Act Program Highlight

Program Highlight: Regional ARRA Advanced Metering Program

Funding provided by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) was used to implement the Southeast Sunbelt Region’s Advance Utility Metering program.  The goal of the ongoing program is to meet federal legislative requirements, increase energy efficiency and lower operations and maintenance costs.

There are two primary pieces of legislation dictating the use of advanced meters within the federal building inventory. The first, the Energy Policy Act of 2005, states that agencies must, “…to the maximum extent practicable, use advanced meters or advanced metering devices that provide data at least daily and that measure at least hourly consumption of electricity (Sec 103).” This act was later supplemented by the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which requires agencies to also use advanced metering to measure natural gas and steam consumption.

An “advanced meter” is defined as one that has the capability to measure and record interval data (at least hourly for electricity), and communicate the data to a remote location in a format that can be easily integrated into an advanced metering system. This is different from a “standard meter” which stores only aggregated data that is retrieved periodically for billing purposes.  The regional advanced metering program will track electrical data in 15 minute intervals, natural gas consumption by the hour, and water consumption in gallons per hour (GPH).

Here are just a few ways the interactive data will be used:

• Verify utility bills
• Provide/monitor tenant energy use (sub metering)
• Participate in demand response programs
• Diagnose equipment & systems operations
• Benchmark utility use
• Identify potential projects
• Identify power quality problems
• Verify performance of other energy projects
• Promote energy awareness

With the exception of a few, any building within the Southeast Sunbelt Region that received ARRA funding was included in the Advanced Metering Program. The current program spans  73 buildings, which includes new construction projects as well as current building inventory.  Not included in the program are leased buildings (with the exception of one capital lease) and buildings with low energy usage.