Smart Meters: Not So Brainy

I came across this rather interesting article on Business Week about 'Smart Meters: Not So Brainy'. In essence it was a debate about if the government investment in smart meters - to monitor and regulate energy consumption in homes - is a waste of money or not. Pro or Con?

Pro: Not Effective
The people who support the fact that it is really a waste of money believe that the smart meters, which would cost $500 to install and communicate, would only provide information to the average consumer how much he or she uses at real time. It would not provide them enough incentive to conserve energy. Believing in the 80:20 rule only 20% of the people would really do anything about cutting their needs where as the reminaing 80% would feel that the smart meters would not change their consumption needs significantly.

The US government is in the process of deploying $3.4 billion of federal Smart Grid Investment Grant Program funds, matched by $7 billion of state, local, and ratepayer funds for technological improvements to our electricity grid. A part of this would be used for Smart meters installation.

People believe that change in consumer behavior can only come about by economic or financial incentive. For the people to adopt using the smart grid, they need come up with incentive plans like if they use less electricity they get taxed less and also disincentives of higer charge rate for not conserving.

Cons: Built-in reminders to conserve
They say that knowledge is power. If smart meters are installed in US houses it would help the avg consumer save between $60-$180 annually. In a recent study it was found that when consumers tracked their energy usage, it declined by 15%.

Doing some basic calculations. If 338 million smart meters were installed in the US, each bringing in avg $120 savings annually, then that would be $40 bn in savings for the Govt. Just imagine that the $3.8 bn investment in smart grid technology would reap in savings of $40 bn! Clearly this would be really good use of tax payer's money.

Conclusion:
Smart Grid and smart metering seem very promising for everyone but we still do see many implementation challenges. To overhaul the electric grid which hasn't been done in the last 40-50 yrs is going to take time. It will benefit alot of industries, leading to a world of connected devices and internet of things.

Future:
The future would be where we would be living in smart homes where all devices will be controlled by our smartphones! The smart meter will just be one of these devices.



Below is a video of how smart metering is the foundation of the smart grid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zhT6-NCK0pM