Reading meters automatically, with the added bonus of the consumer being able to control power use to when it costs the least is such a no-brainer, and such an optimal use of technology by public utilities the only question here is; “How long before this is adopted by all utility companies?”
An excerpt.
Editorial: Needed: Smarter meters
When power is pricey, consumers should pay
Published 12:01 am PDT Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Electricity meters are going to be whirring away this week as residents crank up the air conditioners throughout the state to cope with the heat.
These rather antiquated devices manage to record the overall use of power, but that isn't enough information for either consumers or the utilities. If consumers knew just how expensive it was for the utility to buy that extra power during a hot afternoon, they might shift some of their uses (such as the laundry) to other times. If consumers actually had to pay more for power at the peak, and less for power at night, they might get downright serious about shifting their habits.
A new generation of electric meters, known as "smart meters," is necessary so that consumers know the ever-changing price of delivering the power. In Northern California, give credit to Pacific Gas and Electric for proposing to get rid of the old meters and bring in a new, smarter era.
On Thursday, the California Public Utilities Commission is expected to approve PG&E's plan to switch to smart meters for its 9.3 million customers. The change in hardware comes at a cost (about $1.74 billion for the entire project). But this is one of those long-term investments that must be made.
The smart meter is a key building block to a future generation of smarter appliances that will be able to time their activities around when electricity is cheap, at least comparatively speaking.
There is no way for a washing machine to know when it's time to run on the cheap juice if it is not connected to the home's "smart" electricity meter.
Change can be discomforting, and this is no exception. Consumers will justifiably have a lot of questions about varying prices for their power, the most obvious being: Will this increase or reduce their overall bill? There can be a fine line between a pricing structure that motivates consumers to do the right thing and one that punishes them for something out of their control, such as the weather.
Change is definitely discomforting to the labor unions that represent the electricity meter readers. PG&E, for example, has 900 meter reading positions that will become obsolete.
The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is behind PG&E when it comes to the conversion to smart meters. The local utility plans to switch to meters that can be remotely read by an employee who can stay safely in a SMUD vehicle in front of the home. (No more dog bites from Fido.) But this new meter won't be smart enough to know the changing price of power.
