Advanced Meter Technology
Advanced meter provides you with detailed energy usage data. Watch a video on how to read your advanced meter.
Advanced Meters
What are Advanced Meters?
Advanced meters are modern electric meters that enable two-way data sharing between your home or business and Hawaiian Electric through a secure wireless communications network. Advanced meters look just like the analog electric meters but with a digital display. Advanced meters are an important component of our grid modernization efforts.
What are the benefits of an advanced meter?
- Unlike old meters that require a person to physically read the meter for billing purposes, advanced meters can capture and send electricity usage data to Hawaiian Electric via wireless technology. This means more privacy for homeowners, fewer trucks on the roads, less gas consumed, and cost savings through improved operational efficiencies. These savings are passed on to our customers.
- Energy use data can be collected in 15-minute intervals and securely uploaded to an energy management web portal that you can use to track your usage. This will allow you to better understand how different electronics and appliances contribute to your overall energy usage and how to make adjustments to better manage energy expenses. Learn how to read your advanced meter.
- Advanced meters play a vital role in helping increase our renewable energy capabilities to better provide for progressive technologies, such as electric vehicles which helps reduce carbon emissions, as we tackle climate change.
My Energy Use portal
An advanced meter will record 15-minute interval usage data and give you access to it through the My Energy Use Portal. You can easily view how much electricity you use during different hours of the day and compare your usage patterns to previous days and weeks. This can help you to be more aware of your energy use patterns and make smart, cost-saving energy adjustments.
Leverage your data
It's your data, and you have full access to it. The My Energy Use portal provides you with the ability to easily download your energy usage data with granularity down to 15-minute intervals in either Excel (CSV) format or Green Button format (XML).
Green Button is an industry-led initiative to provide utility customers with easy and secure access to their energy use information in standardized XML format. This allows you to provide your data to third parties to utilize - for purposes like programming home energy management devices, sizing and financing rooftop solar systems, and verifying home energy savings investments.
When it's time to upgrade your electric meter, here's information to help you make your choice
Compare the features of advanced meters and existing analog and digital meters.
| Comparing meters | Advanced meter | Existing meter |
|---|---|---|
| View daily electricity use | Yes | No |
| Remotely connect your service | Yes | No |
| Future benefits that could include dynamic pricing, customized billing dates, energy alerts, pay-as-you-go | Yes | No |
| Monthly meter reader visit | No | Yes |
| Estimated billing, when necessary (meter not accessible, animals in yard, etc.) | No | Yes |
To opt out of an advanced meter, you must be the electric account holder. You can opt out online, opt out by mail or call our Customer Service Center.
Safety of Advanced Meters
Advanced meters use radio frequency (RF) to communicate across the electric grid. RF is electromagnetic energy that includes frequencies used for everyday communications such as radio and TV broadcasting, cell phones and wi-fi routers.
Advanced meters are an important part of our Grid Modernization Strategy. When installed and properly maintained, wireless advanced meters result in much smaller levels of RF exposure – the total average transmission time is less than one second in a 24-hour period – than many existing common household electronic devices, particularly cell phones and microwave ovens.
Learn More About Radio Frequency
Learn More About Electric And Magnetic Fields
Additional Resources
- American Cancer Society
- EPRI (5G Radiofrequency Exposure Assessment and Implications for Safety)
- Health Canada (Safety of Advanced Meters, 2021) – PDF
- EEI (Smart Meters and Your Health, January 2012) - PDF
- California Council on Science and Technology (Health Impacts of Radio Frequency Exposure from Smart Meters, April 2011) – PDF
- World Health Organization (Electromagnetic fields and public health, Fact Sheet #304, June 2010) – PDF
