[MotoSook]

I will admit my job involves measurement. I work with meters (not electrical meters) and the data from the meters all the way to the handoff of the data to the billings group.

With the "smart meter," the data can be captured on an hourly (or more frequent, as Peter stated in NL) basis, so consumption could be billed on an hourly basis. You pay the hourly rate when you use it. So if you were to time your appliances for automatic operation, it should be possible to take advantage of off peak rates. But the billing is harder to do for some companies than you think. It's rediculous, but it happens. So I don't see taking advantage of this hourly rate happening anytime soon, and when it does happen the customer will be paying a higher rate for the cost of the new system the company had to purchase or develop. The return on these smart meters given the realistic behavior of the consumer is never going to be positive for the consumer. AND until the power company does implement an hourly billing cycle there really is no point to providing hourly data, but to point out to the user they should use more off peak hour electricity....which cost the company less money, but if they bill you at a flat rate...guess who's ahead?

There is profit driving these initiatives. The power companies are not going to go after a project like this if they think power consumption will go down due to a more conservative consumer group. That is no way to grow a company!

New meters may be more accurate and they will provide better and faster data to the power company, but there is no way the new meters will help the consumer use less energy. The only data that will be of any use to the consumer from these meters is to identify how much they use and when. This is not difficult to know now!

We know when we use the most energy in our homes, and we know when we use the least energy in our homes. We've learned to turn off lights in rooms that are not occupied and to turn off appliances that are not being used (e.g. TV's, computers. etc). Not all of us have automatic systems to turn appliances on and off, and a lot of us don't have the time to prep the washing machine or the dishwasher to turn on at 2AM. We cut back as much as we can, but when it affects our daily production (by that I mean cuts into our time for other things) we compromise...we don't wait until 2 AM to run the washer.

If we were to install systems to automate all our appliances for off peak operation, the systems would cost money to purchase and install...and maintain! Will the cost be recovered through energy conservation? How long before the break even point?

Wouldn't we be better off spending the money on home solar panels or wind turbines? Yes, but then the power company lose out. The consumer doesn't have an effective lobbying group to lobby against the power company lobbiest. If we did we wouldn't see this stuff.