Smart Power Meters and Real-Time Pricing Leads to Saved Energy and Money

I'm part of the Power Smart Pricing program in Urbana, IL, and saved 10% on average over the past year. The main changes that I make are washing and drying my clothes late at night, and running my dishwasher then as well. However, I'm also a researcher at the Illinois Security Lab, and we're working on ways to cause appliances to automatically respond to the prices. You can read our paper at this URL if you're interested: http://seclab.uiuc.edu/pubs/LeMayNGG08.pdf Our main project page that this project falls under is here: http://seclab.uiuc.edu/web/critical-infrastructure/attested-metering.html I hate to put so many plugs into this post, but I figure other treehuggers might be interested in what we're investigating. Exciting stuff!

This concept was though-out a long time ago by myself and many others. So, where does one get a smart meter? That is the real solution. Do we have to wait until our utility company wake up? Can we just install a gizmo to the existing meter? Why are these answers never revealed?

To take advantage of the variable rates that smart meters are primarily used to implement, your utility must allow you to select such a variable rate. In my area (Urbana, IL), it's an opt-in program, but I believe that most areas still do not offer such a program. However, if you just want to monitor your home's energy consumption, you can certainly purchase something even better than a smart meter on your own. One example of such a device that I have used personally is the TrendPoint EnerSure meter that can monitor each circuit breaker in your house individually. Many comparable devices are on the market today, so you'll need to do some research to see which is right for you.

Echelon (ELON) is a terrific company in California that has been perfecting this technology for 20 years. Many countries in Europe have used Echelon's smart metering technology with great results. McDonald's has also recently signed a contract with Echelon to make the "kitchen of the future" which will be energy saving.

So far, American electric companies have been slow to adapt to these new ideas. I hope if we get a Democratic president in office, it will help move things along. It's nice to see Illinois getting with the program!

Will any of these meters that can be purchased show real time data via the internet for example. Or at least generate a report on your computer.

I have been working on a website dedicated to greening an older home and it would be great if I could post my energy usage on it as well.

All this Banter about Smart Meters & Nearby in the Greater Toronto Area Smart Power Meters &
Real-Time Pricing Leads to possibly
even more Energy & Money for Unpublic Utilities as
a study by residents here has noted an Increase in Bills
after a Digital Meter replaced the Old Round style pict above
http://www.topix.net/forum/world/canada/T6S4DNM03IJTDK1PL

Control4's Home Automation System is currently integrating zigbee power meters into their product. This will enable your house to react to the different demand periods specified by your power company. If your power meter determines that it is a peak period then for control4 will change your house to say set a maximum of 70% on your lights or it will only let you go +- 5 degrees on your thermostat. It will also allow you to schedule things to start up when a particular event happens (say for example power demand is off-peak).

For more information about control4 please visit http://www.control4.com

In 1992, Con Edison of New York instituted a program of “mandatory” time of use meters for the customers who were using large amounts of electricity during the months of June through September, as did the other six large NYS Utilities. They lied to the customers, never mentioning anything about differing rates during the twenty-four hour period, told them they were modern, digital meters, which would save them a lot of money. By the time we found out about it, over 20,000 meters had been installed in the State over the previous two year period.

The usual rate per kilowatt hour had been around 13-14 cents in the Summer months, including taxes. The new time of use rate, from the hours of ten in the morning till six at night, was 38.50 cents per kilowatt hour BEFORE taxes. Figure somewhere around 50 cents a kilowatt hour. The price went down slightly from six to ten at night, and from ten at night till six in the morning, the charge was only 5 cents a kilowatt hour. Sounds great, huh? Run all your appliances at night, and you save a bundle. The program of rate increase was phased in over three years. The first year, you paid your normal rates, but were shown how much less you would have paid under Time of Use. The second and third years, you paid a percentage of the time of use charges, and by year four, you were going to be charged full time of use.

Yes, “some” people (a very small number), did see that they would have saved a little that first year, and during the second year, the percentage of people who saw a savings was much less. Con Edison could not tell people what the score would be by the time year three came around. They said they “didn’t know”. We did the math, and the increase in rates was staggering. No matter how people changed their habits, their rates increased at least threefold.

Not only were residences affected, but houses of worship, schools, senior centers, and other places which ran programs during the day. They couldn’t cut their air-conditioning for children and the elderly, any more than the elderly and young mothers with small children could cut their costs at home during the day. People with fixed incomes were dipping into their savings accounts to pay their bills.

This is simply the back door approach to reinstating a program which is a money maker for Con Edison and the other six wealthy investor-owned Utilities, and now for the Utilities in the rest of the Country. Don’t believe the hype you see in Press Releases. It is as much of a fraud as it was over ten years ago, when they said this was a program to save people money while conserving energy. Con Edison is not interested in having you save money; they want to make as much off you as possible. While obviously, there is a push to conserve energy, this program is not the answer. It has never worked, and it has been documented that it does not work. Simply more money for the stockholders.