'MyMeter' coming to Sidney residents

In the coming months, Sidney residents will be able to monitor and manage their consumption of household energy through a program called "MyMeter."

According to Mike Palmer, the City of Sidney's electric superintendent, customers will be able to use MyMeter to see exactly what their energy use is.

By accessing the MyMeter website, customers will be able to create their own login once the city has launched the optional program to the community. The program delivers tools for enhanced customer support and increased customer insights.

While utility bills calculate usage over a monthly period, in the MyMeter program, users are able to see their usage in 15-minute increments during that day. It also tracks the daily temperature and offers the customers different options including: setting an energy saving goal, tracking major household energy changes, customers can opt for receiving notifications during peaks of usage and comparing history from previous months.

"It tracks temperatures, and let's say it was 100 degrees that day, the customer can understand why their bill is what it is," Palmer said. "Not only does it show kilowatt usage, which we care about in out business, but it gives the option to see that in dollars. The customer can see that they used $1.50 in electricity that day and the day before they used $5. By tracking that usage during the week and weekends they can compare and see what days and times they use the most energy."

Eventually, the system will be able to send text messages or e-mails directly to consumers alerting them about critical peaks or outages.

"You will also be able to set budgets. For example, I can say I only want to use $100 of electricity this month. If at 15 days into the month you're over that bill, we'll send you a text message saying you're over," Palmer said. "It will notify the user that at their current pace they won't meet their budget."

Customers will be able to toggle between different heat maps, hourly, daily and monthly usage and diagnose expensive or wasteful usage patterns. With their login information, only the customer will have access to their usage data and history.

"As electricity prices go up, people want to manage their energy usage more efficiently," he said. "It's important that we give them to tools to do that. If they manage their energy better, it helps us too. Especially if we are managing energy at a critical time."

Palmer said that although the program is optional for customers, it's a great tool for everyone to be able to use.

"From a city perspective, it will be nice to have because a lot of questions we get is why people's bills are so high," he added. "We feel like our customer service is going to be better because we can walk them through their usage. We also feel like our customer service calls will go down by giving this access to customers."

Sidney's electric department is in the process of installing the wireless residential metering system and is hoping to make it available to the community in the next couple of months.