Residential Smart Meter
Most people are now familiar with the much-touted vision of a smart electricity grid in which a combination of information technology and "smart" appliances will permit real time management of electricity demand, thereby reducing peak loads and allowing consumers to save money by purchasing electricity in off-peak periods for things like clothes-washing. It's a grand vision that promises real potential to improve the efficiency with which we use electricity. Smart grid technology is a hot topic currently among cleantech investors.
Last week, I listened to a smart grid progress update by a senior city manager from Boulder, which is one of three smart grid test cities across the country. A few beta test homes in Boulder are already using early-stage elements of smart grid technology and she told the story of one family whose smart meter showed that electricity consumption was skyrocketing between the hours of 1 and 4 AM! The immediate reaction was to focus on the family's teenage son and to wonder what on earth he could be up to in the middle of the night that was causing the spike in electricity consumption!
Turned out eventually that the family's hot tub, programmed to heat the water up in the early morning hours, was the cause of the trouble. I wondered whether you really need a smart meter to help you figure THAT out, but the episode does demonstrate one of the biggest challenges to the implementation of the smart grid - consumer privacy protection.
We may well end up under smart grid with a very different tariff structure for electricity (e.g. steep price increases during peak hours), and real time information that gives us the ability to manage our own consumption patterns to save money. But the questions of who else gets this data, how it will be used and how to ensure that the various electronic channels between your smart meter and the managing utility will be secure from hackers and other mischief-makers are only just now beginning to be addressed.
Already a number of consumer protection organizations are ramping up the noise levels on this subject and, while we may soon have the technology to make smart grid a reality with its promise to bring huge efficiency improvements in the we use electricity, the danger is that its implementation may be seriously stalled by our inability to reach a consensus on how the associated social issues should be addressed. What a pity that would be.
More information: www.sustainableindustries.com/energy/46274897.html and www.patrickmcdaniel.org/pubs/sp-smartgrid09.pdf
Comments