Products & Services

A.Smart grid is really about digital two-way communication – between the customer and Duke Energy, and Duke Energy and the power grid. The customer’s meter and devices on the grid will provide real-time information, and help us improve how we deliver energy and how customers consume energy.

Duke Energy’s smart grid initiative is part of a much larger effort. Building out a nationwide smart grid is an industrywide, multibillion-dollar vision for the digital modernization of energy delivery in this country. You could say, in effect, we’re building out an “energy Internet.”

A.The existing power grid is an engineering marvel, but its design is more than a century old. It’s an analog-based system designed to deliver power – that’s all – with
little communication between the utility, the power grid, the meters and our customers.

Smart grid, with its digital, two-way communication capabilities, will transform how we operate our system – improving customer service, power reliability, and the efficiency of our transmission and distribution system.

A.We’ll be able to give customers information on their daily electric and gas usage, which opens the door for new energy efficiency programs that help customers conserve power, save money and help the environment.

Another big benefit is that we will know when the power is out at a home or business without the customer having to call us. Smart grid will also help us provide new flexible billing and payment options. And, we’ll be able to handle meter reading as well as service connections and disconnections remotely.

A.We currently have initial deployments under way in North Carolina, South Carolina and the Greater Cincinnati, Ohio, area comprising approximately 70,000 smart electric meters and 40,000 digital gas meters.

Pending regulatory approvals, we plan to invest about $1 billion over the next five years in smart grid equipment for homes and businesses in our service territories. We’ve received approval to begin deploying smart grid technology in Ohio, where we will install 700,000 smart meters over the next five years. We’re seeking approval to install up to 800,000 smart meters in Indiana. We’re also making plans to bring the smart grid to the Carolinas and Kentucky.