Jemena rolls out smart-meter portal

Victorian electricity provider Jemena has unveiled a new web portal where customers can monitor their electricity usage via their smart meters.

The Electricity Outlook
(Credit: Jemena)

Jemena has had 107,000 smart meters rolled out across Victoria, and the company expects to have 315,000 premises covered by December 2013. The portal, called Electricity Outlook, is accessible online or through mobile phones and tablets. It provides daily meter usage data. Usage can be viewed in half-hourly, hourly, daily or monthly intervals.

Customers can compare how much electricity they're using now to how much they have used in the past, and compare their own usage against the average neighbourhood consumption. From there, customers can then set consumption targets and compare prices for electricity between retail providers. The portal is free to access.

Consumer Action Law Centre, St Vincent de Paul, Moreland Energy Foundation and the Alternative Technology Foundation have been using the portal for the last six months as a trial, giving feedback to make the portal more user friendly.

In 2011, Liberal Premier Ted Ballieu decided to continue the roll out of smart meters in Victoria, despite an audit report that had identified a lack of governance and a sloppy trial process. The reasoning behind the go-ahead was that the program was too big to scrap. Baillieu has committed to completing the roll-out by 2013.