EPHRATA — Grant County PUD customers will start getting advanced meters later this month. Customers will have the option to have the meter read manually, but those customers will pay an extra fee.

The new meters and the opt-out provision were the subject of conversation at the regular meeting of the PUD commission Tuesday.

Commissioner Bob Bernd asked why customers who opted for manual reading would be required to pay a $250 installation fee if the meter remains the same. Terry McKenzie, the PUD’s senior manager for customer solutions, said all customers will get new meters even if they opt for manual reading.

The advanced meters collect electrical use data every 15 minutes. They can be read remotely. Manual meter reading still will require a PUD employee to go to the address (and the meter) once each month. Customers who opt for manual meter reading will be charged a fee of $65 per month in addition to the electricity used.

Commissioner Dale Walker asked if that’s what it costs to manually read meters now. Jeremy Nolan, of the PUD’s accounting department, said that’s not the current cost. Currently the cost is spread among all customers, rather than the smaller number of customers who opt out, Nolan said.

The monthly fee can be adjusted higher or lower, depending on how many customers opt for manual meter reading and where the meter is located, McKenzie said.

Commissioner Tom Flint said it was important to make sure customers could opt out if they chose, without making it cost-prohibitive. Nolan said it’s important to get enough customers to ensure the data collected is useful. So it shouldn’t be too easy to opt out, he said.

Bernd said it’s important to make sure customers know the data the PUD is collecting is about electrical use only. “That’s a lot of people’s fear, that we’re collecting data about them. I think we need to specify the data we’re collecting is when peak usages are, and those kind of things.”

“It doesn’t tell us when people are home, it tells us they’ve got (electrical devices) on,” Nolan said. “It doesn’t tell us what they’re running. We’re not reaching into the home for anything other than reading the meter.”

The idea behind collecting the additional data is to identify ways to make the PUD more efficient and cut costs as a result, Nolan said.

Cheryl Schweizer can be reached via email at [email protected].