ComEd Preps Customers for Summer with Money-Saving Smart Meter Program
Saving money and earning a bill credit during the summer can be easy for customers who have smart meters and are enrolled in ComEd's Peak Time Savings (PTS) program. PTS is an industry-leading program that essentially pays customers for using less energy on hot days when energy use is high.
Through PTS, ComEd customers can earn a credit that will be applied to their bill when they voluntarily reduce their electricity usage during Peak Time Savings Hours which typically occur for a few hours between 11 a.m. and 7 p.m. during the hottest days of the summer.
ComEd notifies PTS participants on the day when Peak Time Savings Hours will occur, as early as 9 a.m. or at least 30 minutes prior to the start. Notifications arrive via phone call, text message or email, or any combination of the three.
Customers who reduce electricity during Peak Time Savings Hours, compared to what they typically would have consumed, earn $1 for every kilowatt hour (kWh) of energy saved. Since the program launch in the fall of 2014, participants have received more than $1.2 million in bill credits - credits that appeared as actual dollars off their total amounts due.
"The PTS program is made possible through smart meters and it's putting real dollars back into the pockets of our customers," said Val Jensen, senior vice president of Customer Operations. "We look forward to continuing to leverage smart meter technology to provide our customers with even greater control over their energy use."
According to a 2015 study conducted in conjunction with Citizen's Utility Board and the Environmental Defense Fund, the PTS program reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 10 percent by comparing the reduced energy loads of a sample of PTS customers with those of similar customers who did not participate in the program. To date, ComEd has installed more than 2.7 million smart meters in homes and businesses. The company will complete the installation of 4 million smart meters throughout the service territory by the end of 2018. Smart meters are part ComEd's smart grid investment program that has helped produce record power reliability and customer satisfaction results.
In addition to programs like PTS, ComEd also manages one of the largest energy efficiency programs in the nation. The ComEd Energy Efficiency Program has saved customers more than $2 billion in energy costs since it launched in 2008. Home and business owners can take advantage of the energy efficiency programs.