Customers will be able to track their energy use through a portal, and the utility will be able to immediately identify where power outages happen.
The utility has been installing the devices across upstate New York, replacing technology nearing the end of its lifespan.
Customers can use smart meters to track their energy use in nearly real time through a portal and see where they can conserve energy, said Ken Kujawa, National Grid's regional director.
"The hope is that the more information that we can put in front of our customers, relative to their energy consumption, the better decisions they're going to make when it comes to running appliances in their house, making sure that they're being smart consumers of energy," he said.
The new technology will also enable National Grid to immediately identify where power outages happen, providing operational benefits for the utility.
Smart meters communicate wirelessly with National Grid's control centers through a secure network. Replacing the older technology with a smart meter won't cause customers' bills to rise, Kujawa said.
"We're not seeing any significant issues with bill complaints or anything along those lines," he said. "The nice thing is that the customers' meters will continue to be read every month by National Grid."
National Grid is trying to avoid the headaches New York State Electric & Gas experienced in 2024, when the utility was installing smart meters for its own customers in the Buffalo Niagara region.
NYSEG faced claims from some customers that the new meters were driving up their bills. NYSEG insisted that was not the case, instead saying it was switching to generating bills based on a customer's actual electricity usage, instead of an estimate. The utility said weather, supply costs and customer usage were likely factors in any increases.
It takes about 10 minutes for a worker to remove the old meter and install a smart meter. If the old meter is inside a customer's home, as is the case in many city residences, an appointment will be needed for an employee to get access to it. The meters will be installed by a combination of crews from National Grid and Utility Partners of America.
National Grid has about 543,000 customers in its 11-county Western division and has installed smart meters for about 25% of those customers so far. The utility has installed over 1 million smart meters across upstate New York, and is aiming to complete its Western New York installations in 2027.
Customers can opt out of having a smart meter installed, but they will have to pay a monthly fee of $15.45, or about $185 a year. Kujawa said that is to cover the cost of sending an employee to a residence to read a meter, since the current system involving vehicles reading signals from the street will go away.
Around the state, less than 1% of National Grid customers have opted out of smart meters.
©2026 The Buffalo News, Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
