Dive Brief:

• Baltimore Gas & Electric has filed a five-year plan outlining how the utility will use its advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) to optimize its distribution system, plan upgrades, avoid capital expenditures and better serve customers.
• The Maryland Public Service Commission authorized BGE to recover costs from AMI rollout in June of last year, after concluding there was "compelling evidence" the new meters would benefit customers.
• The utility told regulators in its June 5 filing that it will be deploying new business intelligence/data analytics (BIDA) tools to manage and process the volumes of data produced from the AMI system.   

Dive Insight:

With advanced meters in place, Baltimore Gas & Electric says it will use a rollout of BIDA tools to assist in planning and designing system improvements that will increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the distribution network, "and the electric service that BGE provides to its customers."

In its filing with the PSC, the utility said it will also continue to expand its AMI-enabled demand management programs, like its BGE Smart Energy Manager and BGE Smart Energy Rewards demand response offering.

"AMI-enabled programs like SEM and SER that lead to predictable reductions in customer load may avoid certain upgrades on the distribution system that would otherwise be necessary absent the existence of such programs" the utility pointed out. The utility said it plans to investigate and develop "additional AMI-enabled opportunities" targeting electric vehicles, energy storage, and distributed energy resources.

BGE has over 1 million smart meters on its system. The utility also runs a pair of demand response programs that combine to give the utility control over more than 10% of its peak demand. 

"​AMI is transforming the way BGE forecasts," the utility told regulators. "With the addition of advanced system modeling and planning tools, AMI data will allow the system to be modeled closer to actual conditions, resulting in improved issue identification. Improved analysis may also allow current planning margins to be reduced allowing projects to be built closer to the time of actual need."