High Point outlines phased rollout, pilot and customer tools for new advanced metering system

Jeremy Coble, High Point’s customer service director, told the Transparency, Engagement and Communication Committee on May 21 that the city is nearing the launch of an Advanced Metering Infrastructure program to provide two-way communication between utility meters and the city.

Coble said the city will begin with an initial deployment area of approximately 500 customers to validate the system and correct remaining configuration issues before broader installation. “Once these are done, and they will be very soon, we will then roll out on our initial deployment area of approximately 500 customers,” Coble said.

The nut of the proposal is immediate customer access to near real-time hourly water and electric usage through a portal the city will deploy. Coble said the portal (the vendor software is called Silver Blaze) will include hourly and daily consumption graphs, year-over-year overlays and exportable CSV data for tech-savvy users. He also described tailored alerts customers can set for high usage and timely leak detection that will let the city and customers spot abnormal consumption sooner than the current monthly-read model.

Coble framed several operational benefits: improved first-contact resolution at the call center, automated remote reconnections for electric service (the city will still perform manual water reconnections), and targeted outage and service-area messaging by drawing geographic areas on a map. “This will allow us to proactively see where some of these leaks are occurring. We can notify the customer,” he said.

On scale and cost, Coble estimated the overall program at about $20 million to $22 million, saying “a large portion of that, over half, is actually the electric meter themselves.” He said the electric department is integrating the AMI meters into its ongoing meter replacement program to reduce incremental cost impacts.

Coble described technical volume and staffing expectations: the system’s backend will receive roughly 9,000,000 data points per day, and the city has already hired an internal staffer for a data analytics team to work directly with high‑usage commercial customers and produce automated reports.

Committee members pressed on timeline and coverage. Coble said electric-meter installation will begin this summer and the full electric deployment is expected to take about 18 to 20 months once it starts. He acknowledged integration complexity in parts of the service territory served by other utilities (he named Duke and United Energy), noting pole‑attachment and contractual work remains for about 70 poles with Duke. A propagation study showed roughly 400 customers “so far out” that AMI signals are unlikely to reach without expensive additional infrastructure; those customers will keep existing radio reads (AMR) unless an alternate cellular-equipped meter option is chosen.

Coble also offered several usage and customer-service details: the city has about 35,851 customers signed up for text messaging so far; the call center fields roughly 20,000 calls per month and the most frequent inquiry is balance and due date; AMI will enable text-based outage reports and geotargeted messages; and automated electric reconnections will reduce field‑crew exposure and workload.

On questions of solar and customer-owned generation integration, Coble declined to answer on the spot and said he would coordinate with the electric department, which he described as the subject‑matter experts.

Committee Chair Councilman Michael Holmes thanked Coble for the presentation; no formal action or vote was taken during the meeting.

Coble closed by reading a project vision statement he keeps in his office: “At High Point, we have established a rich legacy defined by quality, innovation and a dedication to the community… Our foremost objective is to modernize our utilities ensuring a safe and sustainable environment while fostering economic growth and prosperity through responsible resource management.”