We are excited to annouce that our new meter project is on track to be 40% complete by the end of 2020. 

Since June of 2020, Dakota Electric installed approximately 40,000 meters and 9,000 load control receivers (LCRs) as part of our advanced meter upgrade project. We expect the remaining new meters will be installed by end of 2021 and new LCRs by the end of 2023.

We want to extend a special thank you to our members. Crews installing the new meters have mentioned multiple times how kind our members have been throughout this process. 

We never expected to be upgrading our service in the middle of a pandemic. We really appreciate how you have treated our workers with kindness and patience during this time. Thank you all!

Newly installed smart meters began reporting voltage dips at a few members’ homes. Our dispatch center called the members and asked if they were experiencing any dips in voltage. One member confirmed they were, but the others had not noticed any issues with their power. We dispatched a crew to investigate what was causing the smart meters to report the dips. While inspecting the transformer, our crew found a bad connection. They resolved the problem by replacing the transformer during a brief planned outage, potentially avoiding a longer unplanned outage in the future.