Smart Meters Need Smart Consumers.
A smart meter is displayed during a news conference at the Baltimore Gas and Electric Company in Baltimore. BGE recently received approval from the Maryland Public Service Commission to replace all of their traditional meters with smart meters and is spending $60 million educating consumers about their new meters.
Twenty years from now your relationship with your electric utility likely will be fundamentally different from today. Currently you use electricity whenever you want, pay a flat rate for all of the energy you use, and the only real service you expect from your utility is to keep the lights on. Consumers in 2030, however, will have houses that are optimized to use energy when it’s most efficient, pay rates more closely related to the power’s cost, and expect their utility to be much more of a service provider.
At the heart of this change is information: information about the energy we use, how we use it, and the real value of that power. Data will flow in a two-way conversation between homeowners using electricity—and maybe even producing it, too—and the energy companies managing the electricity grid.
The smart meter is a key to managing all these information flows, and new research shows that smart meters are technically up to the challenges of the future. Consumers now have to learn how to benefit from this new technology.
Several high-profile news stories document consumer opposition to smart meters. This opposition usually stems from consumers being unconvinced that the meters will provide benefits that outweigh their costs. But it is now clear that the meters themselves are already a marked improvement over the traditional electromechanical meters on most consumers’ houses.
For instance, Structure Consulting Group found that PG&E’s smart meters were incredibly accurate in its report for the California Public Utility Commission, or CPUC. One-hundred percent of the smart meters (611 out of 611) met CPUC’s rigorous accuracy standards, but just 141 out of 147 traditional meters did so.
The potential of these new gadgets goes well beyond the accuracy of their readings, however. PG&E’s meters will enable the utility to tell consumers how much electricity they’re using and help consumers manage their usage. In short, they are teaching devices that can help customers be better-educated consumers.
They can also offer new and enhanced services. Baltimore Gas and Electric in Maryland (a subsidiary of Constellation Energy) recently received approval from the Maryland Public Service Commission or PSC to replace all of their traditional meters with smart meters. BGE will implement a new pricing structure where all customers automatically earn rebates by curtailing energy consumption during high demand periods when the grid is stressed and wholesale power prices are high. Pilot studies from across the country show that knowledgeable consumers can significantly reduce their electric bills under such dynamic pricing structures.
