EnergyAustralia has been selected to run the federal government's Smart Grid, Smart Cities project in New South Wales, which is due for completion in 2013.
The utility will be rolled out the $100 million smart grid to five sites in Sydney and the Hunter. The 12,000 smart sensors across EnergyAustralia's electricity network will be fast-tracked to allow earlier fault detection and repair during the roll-out.
The initiative will allow homeowners to track their energy usage in real time.
"New generation smart meters will be rolled out to 50,000 homes at five sites in Newcastle, Scone, the Sydney CBD, Ku-ring-gai and Newington. Around 15,000 households will become 'smart homes' to trial a new breed of in-house displays and websites that track electricity and water use, costs and CO2 emissions," EnergyAustralia's managing director George Maltabarow said in a statement.
He added that the roll-out would include a trial of new technology to help test the implementation of the National Broadband Network.
EnergyAustralia beat three other bidders: Country Energy from regional NSW, a consortium of United Energy, Jemena, AGL and Accenture from Victoria, and TEL in Townsville.
See the EnergyAustralia website for details.
