Jordan Overbee, president and general manager of Piedmont Electric Cooperative, was interviewed for an article in RE Magazine about Piedmont Electric’s use of advanced metering infrastructure, also known as AMI, to improve service to our members.*
Automated metering infrastructure has transformed billing and load management, but electric cooperatives are finding even more ways to take advantage of the wealth of data provided by AMI meters. Piedmont Electric Cooperative, based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, has tapped AMI data to empower employees and engage with members. “We’re going to utilize every ounce of data we have in every way we can because the data’s free. Once you’ve invested in the system, it’s all yours,” says Jordan Overbee, Piedmont Electric president and general manager.
One of the ways Piedmont Electric is using that data is to set rates. “Instead of using rate consultants, the last rate changes we completed were actually completed internally using AMI data,” says Overbee. Providing staff with the information that allowed them to make rate adjustments is an example of how AMI can empower employees, notes Overbee.
Voltage fluctuations and other AMI data is also helping employees determine where substation and other equipment upgrades are needed, he adds. Members directly benefit through the daily monitoring of power use enabled by AMI. “We’re proactively calling them if it looks like something’s not right,” Overbee says, such as a possibly malfunctioning appliance.
Henry Cano, NRECA senior principal consultant, says the expanding capabilities co-ops are leveraging in AMI systems are being driven by improvements in AMI communications networks—which provide system operators with more real-time information—and advances in data analytics and AI that enable disaggregation of energy consumption data to identify and report which devices are powering on at a given time.
For Piedmont Electric, the next step is using AMI blink counts and outage data to identify future trouble spots on the system. It’s one more example, Overbee says, of how a co-op of any size can use the AMI data they already have at hand to improve operations.
*This article was originally written by Reed Karaim and published in the January 2026 edition of RE Magazine.