Avista plans advanced metering roll-out in 2017

Avista Corp. will begin rolling out advanced metering to its Washington customers next year, which will help the Spokane-based utility to better track outages and allow customers to see their real-time energy use.

About 263,000 of the utility’s electric and natural gas customers will get the new meters over a six-year period, said Laurine Jue, an Avista spokeswoman.

Avista will be using be using advanced meters, a wireless communication system and software developed by Liberty Lake-based Itron, Itron officials announced this week. The two companies are negotiating an equipment and services contract.

Avista will release more information about the advanced metering roll-out later in the year, Jue said.

Itron was founded in 1977 as a subsidiary of Washington Water Power, which is Avista’s former name. Itron spun off as a separate company in the early 1990s. The company develops equipment and provides services related to energy and water efficiency. Itron has annual sales of $2 billion and 8,000 employees worldwide, company officials said.