One of the largest utilities in the U.S. is about one-fifth of the way into a massive deployment of smart meters to its 5 million electricity customers. Southern California Edison, a division of Edison International (NYSE:EIX), today installed its one millionth smart meter at a customer's home in Redondo Beach, California.

SCE is investing a total of $1.6 billion on the installation of 5 million smart meters for residential and small business customers by the end of 2012.

"After years of extensive research, we have made careful decisions to invest in technologies, systems and devices that provide a full range of customer benefits," said Theodore F. Craver Jr., chairman, president and CEO of Edison International. "We look forward to making available to all of our customers the valuable features smart meters provide, enabling them to closely monitor and manage their electricity usage to help them save energy, money, and the environment."

Replacing traditional mechanical meters, Edison's SmartConnect meters are digital, secure, two-way communicating devices that can provide a key step in "smartening" the grid. Smart meters measure a customer's electricity usage up-to-the minute and, later this year, customers will be able to view their energy usage online to track how much they use and how much it costs.

SCE believes that the information gleaned from the new meter program will reduce demand on the electricity grid by about 1,000 megawatts, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and smog-forming pollutants by a minimum of 365,000 metric tons per year.

In anticipation of a growing number of electric vehicles in southern California, SCE is also investing in electric vehicle testing and charging infrastructure research. Company officials believe that the smart grid of the future will also have to account for a growing number of electric cars and their chargers. And that the influx of electric cars presents not only a challenge in terms of balancing demand; but it also presents an opportunity to rethink how electricity is produced, stored and transmitted -- a duality they explore with their Garage of the Future project.

Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry