FortisBC is starting community engagement on a proposal to upgrade its gas meters to new advanced meters.
“They’ve got a couple of really great advantages,” corporate communications officer, Alex Munro said of the new meters.
“For example, they’ll allow us to remotely detect and respond to gas leaks including in the case of an emergency, and offer our customers some new benefits. For example, people will be able to access daily updates on their gas use.”
Although no info sessions are currently scheduled to take place in the Cariboo, Munro said they want everyone to have their say and encourages people to visit their website for further information.
“The existing technology we use for gas meters hasn’t fundamentally changed for more than 100 years,” Munro said.
“These will just offer us some new advantages. They will basically use soundwaves to measure gas use and they’ll send that back to us over a wireless network and we’ll do a calculation there, so they’ll save us from having to regularly enter people’s properties to take manual gas readings.”
There are more than one million natural gas customers in British Columbia, 20,000 of which are in our region.
Munro said they expect to make an application on the proposed new meters to the BC Utilities Commission in early 2020. He added that they would anticipate a decision a year after that with upgrades to advanced meters if approved starting in 2022.
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