Dive Summary:

• Runaway smart meter project costs and extensive benefit claims have led the state of Maine to audit the smart meter rollout of Central Maine Power (CMP).
• Like with many utilities, CMP is struggling to quantify the myriad potential benefits of smart meters. And a real revenue model has yet to be developed for the integration of smart meters, promising a host of benefits such as lower utility bills and environmental impacts.
• “The reverberations of getting the cost/benefit wrong has been a public relations nightmare for CMP, which has to find a way to explain long-term benefits to customers while explaining why the technology doesn’t mean rates will drop as soon as it’s installed,” Katherine Tweed writes for Greentech Media.

From the article:
“The problem, however, is that the real value of smart meters is integrating the data, from customer usage to voltage to last-gasp messages, into all aspects of the business….”