The Smart Meter Cometh: by Donames, www.detectenergy.com

Detect Energy will keep you informed about the progress of the smart meter as it makes it's way to your meter base. Since the smart meter has been in the news lately, it's time to continue the sharing of information. The main question is, will the smart meter be smart enough to save you money?

A co-worker of mine was informed by mail that his meter was going to be replaced. Sure enough, the service tech came along and installed a brand new digital meter. No more spinning wheels for this home. What my co-worker does not know is how to read the meter or whether or not it's an actual smart meter. Yes, one would think the power company would provide a little additional information.

First of all, just because the meter at your house has been changed from a spinning wheel model to an electronic meter with digital flashing numbers, it doesn't mean you have a smart meter. Some digital meters have the ability to broadcast a signal (smart meter) and some do not (dumb meter). It's my understanding that a smart meter has additional digital numbers on it's face - more numbers than just the plain, not-so-smart meter. Here in my neck-of-the-woods, there are two large power companies. One company started installing the smart meters last year and the other will begin installing the meters in a "couple" years.

The smart meter is in the news and it's not because it's graduating from college early. Seems some folks in the Bakersfield, CA. area and some folks in Texas have evidence that the smart meter is not so smart. People are taking power companies to court because the power company does not agree with the homeowner when the homeowner claims the smart meter is unfairly increasing their power bills. People claim that when the smart meter was installed their power bills went up. This has turned into a bit of a PR nightmare for the power companies.

Last of all, around here, the power company that has not yet started installing smart meters has gone ahead and request a 20% hike in power rates. Now, let me get this straight, the power company "needs" to install new meters (expensive) which are suppose to be more accurate and save money. The meter readers stop running around burning fossil fuel - that's good. In the mean time, if we pay 20% more for our juice (that's bad)  and get a smart meter, we can connect the smart meter signal to our computer and let Google and the computer help us save power. Right now, the only thing I really know is, all I want is hot coffee in the morning. Plug it in.

This is important so I want to cover it again. Google is forming relationships with power companies that allow your home computer to pick up the signal from the smart meter and then project your power usage right there on your home computer. With that usage information, you can leverage ways to adjust our usage so you use less. Unfortunately, Google has found it's first electric companies to work with in England. Google has just recently moved it's smart meter service into the United States. You can check out www.google.com/powermeter to find the current service areas of the US.

Let us not forget, as we enter this new relationship with our power companies, it is the companies that have been mandated by regulating government commissions to start providing more renewable energy. It has some of the power companies scratching their curcuits as they try to figure out how to provide so many megawatts of renewable energy by a specific deadline. Requesting a 20 % hike in rates sounds like the consumer is being looked at to provide the funding for more renewable energy and for more smart meters.

I can understand why the folks in Bakersfield and Texas just want their dumb meter back.

Hope you liked this article and will come back to detect energy soon, but, remember, I won't leave the light on for you...DonAmes

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