UPDATE: Butler to Upgrade Electric Meter System

The will be updating its entire electric meter system this year, updating the meters with technology that will allow a centrally located dispatcher to see data and billing office to collect readings every 15 minutes and activate and deactivate service.

The Borough Council approved the new meters, which will be supplied by Landis + Gyr for the residential meters and General Electric for the commercial meters, for $447,236, and an updated transformer system, which will be provided by Wesco, for $48,796, during a workshop meeting Tuesday.

Borough Administrator James Lampmann said he expects the installation of the new meters to begin this summer.

"This will replace every meter in our system with the latest technology," Lampmann said.

That technology will allow a dispatcher to collect data, such as power factors and voltage, on the meters, providing the borough with more current information than the existing meters provide. Having the information go to the billing office every 15 minutes will also prevent meter readers from having to go out and examine each meter. As a result, two full-time meter reading positions will be eliminated, Lampmann said.

Additionally, the borough will be purchasing remote disconnect system rings that will allow the dispatcher to disconnect service to meters where owners have not made electricity payments.

The transformer system will send electronic pulses from the meters to the dispatch station, Lampmann said.

Mayor Robert Alviene said Tuesday that he was pleased the borough was able to move forward with the project at an affordable price.

"This was the best deal, I felt, we were going to get," he said.

Correction: An earlier version of this story stated that the reading every 15 minutes will go to the dispatch center, when they will actually go to the billing office.