National Grid USA smart meter data collection in New York and Massachusetts

National Grid USA is installing smart meters across Massachusetts and New York that contain embedded software capable of identifying individual household appliances by their electrical signatures.^[1] The software, developed by Sense Labs and embedded in Landis+Gyr Revelo smart meters, uses machine learning to determine which appliances are running in a home and when they are used. National Grid's consumer-facing communications primarily market the meters as tools for billing accuracy and outage detection, without prominently disclosing the device-level monitoring capabilities.^[2] Customers who wish to have their smart meter removed and replaced with a traditional electricity meter face a $33 one-time fee and a $26 monthly charge in Massachusetts.^[2]

National Grid plc is a British multinational utility company headquartered in London. National Grid USA, its American subsidiary, was formed when the parent company acquired the New England Electric System in 2000.^[3] The company expanded into New York by acquiring Niagara Mohawk Power Corporation in 2002.^[3] National Grid USA serves approximately 1.7 million electricity customers in upstate New York and over one million in Massachusetts.^[2]

The Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (DPU) approved National Grid's Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) proposal in late 2022.^[4] The plan authorized $487 million in grid modernization expenses, including the replacement of existing meters across the company's Massachusetts service territory.^[4] Costs are recovered from ratepayers through a Grid Modernization Factor added to monthly bills.^{[citation needed]}

The company expects to install around 2.4 million smart meters across upstate New York through 2027.^[5]

Sense Labs was founded in 2013 in Cambridge, Massachusetts by Mike Phillips, Ryan Houlette, and Christopher Micali.^[6] The company initially sold a direct-to-consumer energy monitor that clipped onto home electrical panels. It has since shifted to embedding its software directly into utility smart meters, partnering with meter manufacturers Landis+Gyr and Itron.^[1]

The Sense software embedded in National Grid's Landis+Gyr Revelo smart meters uses a technique called Non-Intrusive Load Monitoring (NILM). The system samples electrical current at 1 MHz, approximately one million times per second, to build a profile of each home's energy usage.^[7] This is roughly 84 million times more frequently than a standard smart meter.^[7]

Every electrical device produces a distinct pattern in its power draw. A refrigerator compressor creates a different waveform than a space heater or an electric vehicle charger. Sense's machine learning algorithms, originally developed from speech recognition technology, isolate these individual "voices" from the combined electrical signal of a household.^[7] The system can identify categories of appliances such as microwaves, ovens, dryers, and refrigerators, but doesn't identify specific makes and models. Users can manually label detected devices through the Sense app.^[7]

Sense markets this capability to utilities as "Grid Edge Intelligence." For National Grid, the technology enables theft detection through power flow analysis, fault detection for predicting equipment failures, and demand response optimization by identifying which heavy-load appliances are running during peak hours.^[1]

National Grid's customer communications describe the smart meters as providing "near real-time energy usage data," eliminating estimated bills, and helping crews respond more quickly during outages.^[2] The utility's website mentions that customers can download the Sense Home app to view appliance-level usage.^[8]

National Grid states that the company will not view a customer's device-level data through the Sense Home app unless the customer explicitly grants access for troubleshooting.^[8] Sense states that using the Sense Home app is voluntary and that downloading the app is a separate opt-in choice.^[8]

A distinction exists between the meter's data collection capability and the app's data display capability. The Landis+Gyr Revelo meter samples electrical current at 1 MHz regardless of whether the customer downloads the Sense app. The raw waveform data is processed locally on the meter's edge computing platform.^{[citation needed]}

Massachusetts customers who wish to change their smart meter for a traditional meter face a one-time charge of $33 for a non-communicating meter and a recurring monthly fee of $26 for manual meter reading.^[2] Customers who opt out before their smart meter is installed avoid the one-time fee but still pay the monthly charge.^[2] At $26 per month, a Massachusetts customer who opts out would, over the course of 10 years, be expected to pay $3,120 in meter reading fees.

In New York, monthly opt-out fees are lower, however the cost of traditional meter installation is higher, at $72.44 for each of a non-smart gas or electric meter, or $134.53 for both. National Grid charges $15.45 per month for electric meter reading or $21.24 for dual-fuel (electric and gas) customers.^[5]

Massachusetts legislators introduced companion bills H.3551 and S.2306 ("An Act relative to smart meters") to eliminate opt-out fees.^[9] The bills would require utility companies to provide customers with a choice between smart meters and electromechanical analog meters at no charge, and to obtain written consent before installing wireless meters.^[9] The legislation cites Vermont, which established a statutory no-fee opt-out in 2012, as precedent.^[9]

The DPU continues to oversee AMI implementation through Docket D.P.U. 21-81, with an AMI Stakeholder Working Group meeting regularly to discuss data access and opt-out provisions.^[4]

The privacy implications of appliance-level energy monitoring have been tested in federal court. In Naperville Smart Meter Awareness v. City of Naperville (7th Cir. 2018), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled unanimously that the Fourth Amendment protects energy consumption data collected by smart meters.^[10] The court found that smart meter data reveals "intimate details" of a home, including occupancy patterns, sleep schedules, and specific appliance use.^[10] The panel rejected the argument that analog-era precedent applied to digital-age data collection, citing the Supreme Court's reasoning in Carpenter v. United States.^[10]

The court allowed Naperville's data collection to continue by deeming it a "reasonable" administrative search, but held that the analysis would differ if conducted "with prosecutorial intent" or by law enforcement.^[11]

That distinction became central to a 2022 lawsuit filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation against the Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). The EFF alleged that SMUD shared granular smart meter data of tens of thousands of customers with the Sacramento Police Department to identify suspected cannabis grow houses, disproportionately targeting Asian American communities.^[12] In November 2025, a Sacramento County Superior Court ruled that SMUD's mass surveillance program violated state privacy statutes, holding that proactively scanning smart meter data by zip code without individualized evidence did not constitute a lawful investigation.^[12]

National Grid began installing smart meters on Nantucket in October 2025, deploying them to its customers on the island.^[13] Residents reported electricity bill increases, with the largest changes being increases of over 500%, immediately after installation, despite reporting no changes in their usage patterns. One homeowner reported bills rising nearly 70% despite spending most of the month off-island.^[13]

National Grid attributed the increases to three factors: an unusually cold winter (12% colder than average), a 6% increase in island-wide electricity usage, and temporary billing estimation errors caused by meters taking up to a month to connect to the network after installation.^[14] The company maintained that independent testing showed smart meters have a 99.96% accuracy rate.^[14]

Nantucket Select Board member Brooke Mohr reported her own bill doubled. Residents noted that neither a 12% weather increase nor a 6% usage increase accounts for the 70% to 500% bill spikes they experienced.^[14]

National Grid states that all smart meter data is transmitted through an encrypted network meeting national standards and that the meters do not collect personally identifiable information beyond energy usage.^[2]

Sense's privacy policy states the company doesn't sell personal data and that data sharing with third parties requires explicit user consent.^[15] Regarding utility access, Sense states that utilities don't have default access to all granular in-home data. Data sharing with utilities is limited to specific operational use cases such as categorical usage (total HVAC load) or grid reliability metrics.^[15]

Sense encrypts all communications between the smart meter, cloud servers, and the Sense Home app using AES 128-bit encryption and TLS/SSL.^[16] Data is stored on Amazon Web Services servers, with access to production systems limited to a small group of Sense engineering team members.^[16]

The proposed no-fee legislation (H.3551 and S.2306) reflects constituent frustration with mandatory smart meter deployment and the cost of opting out. At $26 per month in Massachusetts, customers who want to keep a non-communicating meter pay over $300 per year for the choice.^[2][9]

On Nantucket, residents brought billing complaints to the Select Board, which scheduled National Grid representatives to appear at public meetings to address concerns. National Grid claimed that over 85% of customers are satisfied with the smart meters, though this figure was not independently verified.^[14]

• Smart meter
• Itron