Advanced gas meters

Advanced meters have become the industry standard and are used by utilities worldwide. They’ll help us to enhance monitoring and management of our system for our more than one million gas customers.

Advanced meter benefits

To enhance our customers’ experience, and modernize our gas meter infrastructure, we’re upgrading our gas customers’ meters to wireless advanced meters over the next few years through our Gas Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) Project.

Advanced gas meters will provide additional customer service benefits and safety enhancements, including the following:

Increased convenience

  • Customers will be able to access information about their daily gas use through Account Online. This can assist them with making more informed energy choices for their homes and businesses.
  • We won't need to shut off gas service in most cases during future meter exchanges or enter customers’ properties to read meters manually.

Safety enhancements

  • We’ll have the ability to disconnect gas remotely if we become aware of an emergency situation, such as a wildfire, flood or earthquake.
  •  We’ll have the capability to better identify potential gas leaks and faulty appliances.

Improving BC’s energy system

We’re thinking differently about the energy we deliver today and tomorrow. We've established our first ever emissions reduction goal, representing one of the most ambitious reduction targets in the Canadian utility sector. It’s all part of our commitment to transform B.C.’s energy future by helping customers lower their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and supporting the Province’s Roadmap to 2030.

We’ve set an achievable, affordable path for our customers to reduce their emissions. Upgrading our gas customers’ meters to advanced meters is one of the practical ways we’re helping our customers to do that. Advanced meters will provide customers with access to more information about their daily gas use, which can help them better understand their gas consumption and make informed energy choices.

Exchanging our gas customers’ existing meters for wireless advanced meters will also result in fewer cars on the road, as we’ll no longer need to visit customers’ properties to manually read individual gas meters. This will remove about 150 vehicles from B.C. roads and reduce our GHG emissions by 1,100 tonnes per year.1

1The following was included in the AMI Project’s BCUC CPCN decision, including section 3.4 (p. 40): The Panel finds that the AMI Project reduces GHG emissions more than the AMR or Baseline alternatives.

The AMI Project eliminates approximately 150 meter readers, who drive an average of 35,000 km per year and emit a total of 1,100 metric tonnes of CO2e. These GHG emissions would be avoided, assuming that the same carbon-emitting vehicles continued to be used and were not replaced with non-carbon-emitting vehicles. The AMR alternative would eliminate only about 50 per cent of the GHG emissions compared to the baseline alternative, as meter readers would still be required to drive through all FEI’s service territory to collect the meter data from FEI’s customers.