The New York Times recently published an article regarding the natural gas explosion in San Bruno, California, which is in Pacific Gas & Electric’s (PG&E) territory. The article highlights the lack of oversight in the natural gas industry and begs the question of why we don’t have more stringent laws in place to prevent blasts that have killed 67 people and injured 280 since 2005. The potential for smart gas metering systems to thwart blasts like the one in San Bruno is huge, as shown below.

Most AMR and AMI deployments to date have been driven by a desire for reduced operating expenses, better system integrity, and improved consumer engagement. These smart metering benefits include:

• Power quality monitoring, outage prevention, and load planning: Some smart meters provide power quality measurements in addition to consumption information. Utilities can leverage this information to detect emerging issues in the distribution network and perhaps prevent an outage. In addition, by leveraging the aggregate meter data, utilities can perform improved load planning studies. The load planning studies through aggregated meter data will enable a gas utility to prevent outages by better understanding where and when gas pipelines are stressed or need to be replaced. Additionally, the gas utility can aggregate loads of similar end-user profiles, creating a means to assist consumers keep gas consumption as low as other end users with the same needs.

• Remote disconnect: By deploying smart meters with the ability to remotely disconnect service to a residence (or business), utilities can again save labor costs in managing high occupancy turnover or nonpaying customers. They can also increase safety during dangerous situations, such as a gas leak a fire, when gas disconnect is imminent. While smart electricity meters enable both remote connect and disconnect, this is too dangerous for the gas industry. Rather, the gas utility will deploy a service employee to an end-use site to follow safety procedures and re-light the pilot. At the time of publication, Itron and Landis+Gyr (Libra 310 Series) are the only vendors offering remote disconnect for a gas meter.

• Cathodic protection analysis: Gas pipeline infrastructure is constructed of steel or other metals, which can deteriorate. Currently, the gas industry applies a coating or wrapping on these pipes so as to decrease rust. It is not unusual for the coating on the pipes to get scratched when there is other work being done in the same geographical area, such as new water or gas pipes being placed in the ground. The government agency administering the tests, the Department of Transportation’s (DOT) Office of Pipeline Safety, requires annual surveys and mandates that gas utilities employ cathodic protection. This is accomplished by doing a voltage test on the pipes; if the reading is outside of a pre-determined voltage parameter, then the pipe is too scratched and the gas utility is forced to replace it. With a gas AMI system, monitoring devices could be placed at endpoints throughout the gas pipeline grid, storing the data and enabling a comprehensive view of the pipeline network to the DOT. This would greatly decrease OPEX, as it costs approximately $50 to $100 to survey a location, a fee completely covered by the utility.

These benefits and more are discussed at length in the Pike Research report: Smart Gas Meters.