HomeMy WebLinkAboutMemo - Mail Packet - 9/13/2016 - Memorandum From Tim Mccollough, Kraig Bader, Adam Bromley Re: Advanced Meters And Underwriters Laboratories CertificationUtilities
electric · stormwater · wastewater · water
700 Wood Street
PO Box 580
Fort Collins, CO 80522
970.221.6700
970.221.6619 – fax
970.224.6003 – TDD
utilities@fcgov.com
fcgov.com/utilities
M E M O R A N D U M
DATE: September 7, 2016
TO: Mayor Troxell and Councilmembers
FROM: Tim McCollough, Light and Power Operations Manager
Kraig Bader, Standards Engineering Manager
Adam Bromley, Smart Grid and System Operations Manager
THROUGH: Darin Atteberry, City Manager
Kevin R. Gertig, Utilities Executive Director
RE: Advanced Meters and Underwriters Laboratories Certification
Fort Collins Utilities would like to address questions that have recently come up with respect to
certification of advanced meters by Underwriters Laboratories. Underwriters Laboratories (UL)
is a third-party safety testing laboratory used extensively for certification of consumer-grade
electrical equipment, or electrical equipment that consumers can purchase and install or operate
in their homes and businesses by themselves. This is one of the reasons that the National Electric
Code (NEC), which has been adopted as part of the Fort Collins Building Code, frequently calls
for UL certification of consumer-grade electrical equipment.
Electricity meters, including advanced meters used by Fort Collins Utilities, are specified,
manufactured, installed, and accessed by trained and certified engineering and electrical
professionals in compliance with industry safety and manufacturing standards. Because
consumers do not specify, install, or directly interact with electricity meters, UL certification has
not been, in the past, a part of the series of standards to which they have been manufactured,
tested and installed, though many of the components that compose electricity meters have been
UL certified.
Certification to standards and test regimes other than those written and employed by UL is not an
indication of a safety problem however, and it is important to note that the electricity meters that
Fort Collins Utilities uses are tested for compliance with a number of stringent standards
including, but not limited to:
ANSI / IEEE C2 - National Electric Safety Code,
NFPA 70 - National Electric Code,
ANSI C12.1 – 2001 - Code for Electricity Metering,
ANSI C12.20 - American National Standard for Electricity Meters,
ANSI C12.19-2012 Utility Industry End Device Data Tables,
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Part 15 regulations
DocuSign Envelope ID: 8E0EB584-B072-480F-8064-15FF6E3F0187
IEEE Standard 1547- Standard for Interconnecting Distributed Resources with Electric
Power Systems,
IEEE Standard 1547.1 - Conformance Test Procedures for Equipment Interconnecting
Distributed Resources with Electric Power Systems.
Fort Collins specified, purchased, and installed the majority of the advanced meters used for
electricity metering in 2011, 2012 and 2013. UL established and announced its product safety
certification and testing services to their Standard 2735 for smart meters in January 2014, after
meters were purchased for Fort Collins Utilities’ advanced metering infrastructure.
Since that time, a number of manufacturers have voluntarily submitted their meters to UL for
safety testing and certification. Elster Solutions, the manufacturer who makes the advanced
meters used in Fort Collins’ electric distribution system, achieved the new Underwriters
Laboratories (UL) voluntary safety listing for the A3 Alpha meter in January of 2015.
DocuSign Envelope ID: 8E0EB584-B072-480F-8064-15FF6E3F0187