If you could track your energy consumption and its related costs in real-time, you might be less inclined to run that dishwasher during peak hours. You might think twice about running the air conditioner, if you could see that electric bill rising. At least that’s the thinking behind the ‘Smart Meter,’ the latest and greatest in home energy efficiency. A growing number of power companies are replacing old meters with these new dynamic, networked ‘Smart Meters’ that allow two-way communication between the consumer and the grid. Using a web-browser interface, the ‘Smart Meter’ makes it possible for the customer to track energy consumption, costs and habits. Viewing a variety of charts and graphs, the customer can determine how much a particular appliance costs to run at any given time. (Car manufacturers have been tweaking this concept for decades. In a pre-digital age, before cars like the Prius offered real-time Miles-Per-Gallon analysis, car makers offered something called a vacuum gauge. The theory holds that the higher the vacuum reading, the less air- and therefore less fuel- is getting into the engine and the more efficient the car is running.)
The technology also offers the power companies more dynamic pricing, as it allows utilities to adjust prices based on constantly updated metrics of supply and demand. ‘Smart Meters’ have already been embraced in Europe, with an estimated 80 million installed units expected there by 2013.
For more info, check out Erik Olsen’s piece in the NY Times.
