Itron Lands Contract With Montana Utility

Itron Inc. will deliver $20 million in automatic meter-reading equipment to Montana Power Co. over the next two years under terms of a contract announced Thursday.

The order includes 375,000 modules that fit on electric and natural gas meters, and equipment to read them from vans driven through neighborhoods.

Montana Power, based in Butte, serves 278,000 electricity customers and 141,000 natural gas customers in the western two-thirds of the state.

Montana has authorized deregulation of the utility industry, a process that will give residential customers the choice of energy supplier by the year 2002.

Montana Power Executive Vice President Jack Haffey said installation of the Itron system will assist the transition to customer choice, and allow the company to offer metering services to other utilities.

Itron is headquartered in the Spokane Valley.

, DataTimes