SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) today announced it achieved a major customer milestone, having recently upgraded more than 9 million meters to SmartMeter™ technology. And now, with 93 percent of the SmartMeter installations complete across Northern and Central California, most of PG&E's customers have access to the energy- and cost-saving benefits of SmartMeters – ranging from faster detection and restoration of power outages to easy-to-use tools that can lower energy bills.

"SmartMeters are helping improve the customer experience," said Helen Burt, Senior Vice President and Chief Customer Officer of PG&E. "In addition to detecting outages, our customers are telling us how SmartMeters are making their homes more energy efficient and helping to reduce their bills. That's always exciting to hear and we continue to encourage our customers to take advantage of SmartMeter usage data to help save energy and money."

As recently reported on [ PG&E Currents ], [ Tom Lyons of San Jose ] is a self-described "energy detective" who enlisted his family to use information from the SmartMeter to reduce electric usage by about 20 percent. He started by tracking their daily and hourly electric usage on PG&E's MyEnergy website — [ www.pge.com/myenergy ]— which also compares their household energy usage to similar homes in the neighborhood.

Lyons determined that his washing machine was consuming too much energy, and replaced it with a more efficient model. He also switched from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs.

While saving money was important, Lyons says he was more motivated to help the planet. Using the reports and tools on MyEnergy made it easy. "There really hasn't been any pain of change," said Lyons. "We didn't really have to give anything up to save some money."

With the new meters connected to the smart grid, customers have access to a wide range of energy- and cost-saving tools, including energy analysis, usage notifications and voluntary rate programs. Action on the customer's part isn't necessary to derive value from SmartMeter technology. PG&E can quickly confirm that a customer has power by pinging the SmartMeter, allowing PG&E to detect and restore outages faster. During the 2011-2012 storm season, PG&E began using this capability to better serve customers.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a subsidiary of [ PG&E Corporation ] (NYSE: [ PCG ]), is one of the largest combined natural gas and electric utilities in the United States. Based in San Francisco, with 20,000 employees, the company delivers some of the nation's cleanest energy to 15 million people in Northern and Central California. For more information, visit [ http://www.pge.com/about/newsroom/ ] and [ www.pgecurrents.com ].

SOURCE Pacific Gas and Electric Company

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PG&E Reaches Major Milestone Installing 9 Millionth SmartMetera"

PG&E Reaches Major Milestone Installing 9 Millionth SmartMetera"

Most Customers Now Have Access to Energy- and Cost-Saving Tools; San Jose Family Uses SmartMetera" Data to Reduce Energy Use by 20 Percent