Smart meters allow propane marketers to receive a customer’s usage data remotely. (Photo courtesy of Otodata)
Jerry Monro is drawn to the convenience of smart meters.
He doesn’t worry about his team at Roach Energy having to physically read a customer’s meter every month, having to access a fenced-in backyard or coming face to face with an unfriendly dog. They can simply view the customer’s propane usage from the comforts of the office through the digital reading transmitted by the smart meter.
But there’s something else the general manager of the West Virginia company likes even more. If the customer reports a gas leak, the smart meter technology will allow the marketer to shut off the gas remotely – immediately.
“It’s worth the weight in gold for safety reasons,” he says.
In addition to the safety features offered today by smart meters, propane marketers are uncovering efficiencies for their delivery operations while giving customers new usage and payment options. Some industry leaders also say the application provides an outlet for marketers to better manage their propane inventory and avoid supply concerns during peak demand.
Smart meter discussions
LP Gas heard about smart meters during discussions at last year’s Southeastern Convention & International Propane Expo in Nashville, Tennessee.
“Metering as a whole on the propane side seems to be gaining some traction, and I think what’s driving that is [marketers] are looking to provide their customers with another option on how to receive a bill [and] differentiate themselves from their competitors,” says Jim Schwartzfisher, telemetry unit manager and customer support specialist at Bergquist Inc.
“Having that option as a marketer is just another tool in the box for them.”
Metered customers are giving rise to the idea of consumption billing, in which the customer pays only for the propane used and metered instead of paying one sum for a full delivery.
The concept, Schwartzfisher says, benefits the consumer whose budget may not allow for a full tank fill of propane.
“If the industry looks at how consumers today buy products, it’s not in bulk purchases. It’s generally a pay-as-you-use situation,” says Pete Dwyer, vice president of sales and business development for the propane division at Cavagna North America, referencing the payment structure of utilities such as electricity, water and natural gas.
Cavagna developed an ultrasonic smart meter for natural gas in Europe before bringing a propane unit to North America more than two years ago.
Traditional diaphragm (positive displacement) meters have been a workhorse for decades, Randy Warner, product safety manager at Cavagna North America, writes in a 2023 column for LP Gas, explaining how meters measure gas.
Ultrasonic meters, on the other hand, use static measurement technology that does not include mechanical or moving parts. As gas flows through the meter from demand downstream, it passes through a flow tube with a known diameter. The ultrasonic sensor is positioned in the tube to measure the flow of gas. The measurement signals are then stored until the smart meter communicates the values to an asset management platform.
Cavagna’s Prodigi ultrasonic smart meter can be used in residential or small commercial applications with a maximum load of 500,000 Btu on an 11-in. WC system and 600,000 Btu on a 2-in. psi system.
“The technology has come a long way,” says Mike DelConte, vice president of sales at F.W. Webb. “Overall, given the improvements in technology of the smart meter, it’s definitely a tool to have in the toolbox of product offerings.”
Ultrasonic meters use static measurement technology instead of mechanical parts. (Photo courtesy of Bergquist Inc.)
The way of the industry
For more than 100 years, Dwyer says, the industry has enjoyed the process of setting tanks at single accounts, filling the tanks with propane and receiving payment from the customer to complete the sales transfer. While marketers are forced to meter accounts such as strip malls, town houses or other community systems – where a large tank or a set of tanks are feeding multiple end users – it’s rare for them to deploy meters on a large scale at single residential accounts.
“Ninety-five percent of propane gallons are pushed through non-metered accounts,” he says.
But could that change in the coming years?
“That’s what the big change in the propane industry is now – more point-of-use metering,” says Nicholas Kohart, owner of Pennsylvania-based IMAC Systems Inc., a gas meter supplier and manufacturer. “There’s always been jurisdictional systems with metering, but now we’re seeing more [marketers] starting to add point-of-use…
Read More: Smart meters add advantages for propane retailers, customers