When it comes to power generation and consumption, a lot of things have changed even in the past year, and not all of them had to do with the pandemic. The latest change coming from SaskPower is that there will be more smart meters on homes around Saskatchewan.

After successfully testing 35,000 such meters at industrial and commercial sites over the past several years, the crown corporation is ready to move on to putting them on people's homes. They'll ship these meters to 1,500 SaskPower employees and over 2,200 customers who requested one as part of the pilot, but starting in May they'll be shipping thousands more.

"Since about 2017, we've been installing smart meters for our commercial and industrial customers," said Sheldon Smith, SaskPower's Director of Customer Care and Billing. "We installed just over 35,000 of those and we've had no issues with those meters they're performing very well. That means we're ready to move to residential."

As May rolls around, about 30,000 of these meters will head out to residents around the province. Once installed, a smart meter allows SaskPower to read your power consumption more accurately and not need to send people into your yard to check your meter.

"We know how much power you're using, so no more estimate bills, no more mistaken meter reads," said Smith. "We also never need to enter your property in order to do a meter read. The other advantage is that we'll know there's a power outage at the same time or maybe even before you do. Today, there's no blinking light in a control room that tells us the power is out at your house."

These meters aren't exactly futuristic technology. In fact, according to Smith, 85 percent of Canadians already have a smart meter, with Saskatchewan being one of the last jurisdictions to start bringing them in. The good news is, the track record in other provinces (and in this one for that matter) shows they can stand up to the harshest weather of this country.

"They got far above industry standards," said Smith. "The meters were actually built to a safety spec built by SaskPower. They've been out there on our meter farms in cold winters and hot summers. We know they're built for Saskatchewan and they can stand up to our conditions."

He added he wasn't sure where all of these meters would end up, but some will likely be coming to the southeast as the goal is to get them to as many parts of the province as possible.