Smart meter technology is being implemented all over the world and now it’s becoming more and more popular here in the states and I ask myself the question why? The short answer I came up with was that the utility companies are trying to save money and address a problem at the same time. So what’s the problem?
The problem
The U.S. electric grid is an “aging infrastructure” made up of a network of complex independently owned and operated power plants/transmission lines and when combined with a rise in domestic electricity consumption it puts a strain on the electrical system (grid). When there is a strain on the electrical system (grid) or when electricity demanded surpasses the electricity supplied the utility company must respond. Utility companies can respond in a few ways; purchase more electricity/build new infrastructure to handle the load or implement “rolling blackouts” or “brownouts” to reduce the load.
A rolling blackout is a deliberate interruption of service produced by utility companies in order to take stress off of the system’s energy load and prevent a “blackout” which is a complete interruption of power in a given service area. Rolling blackouts are usually intended to affect only a specific service area, and the energy provider will typically spread them among several service areas to insure that no specific area suffers substantially more than any other.
Brownouts are also deliberately produced by energy providers as an emergency measure to prevent the system from failing completely (blacking out). Typically, a utility company will decrease system voltage by 10-25%, usually for a short period of time.
In addition, electricity pricing is a problem. The problem is that electricity prices usually peaks at certain predictable times of the day and the season. In particular, if generation is constrained, prices can rise from other jurisdictions or more costly generation is brought online. Since the inception of electricity deregulation and market-driven pricing throughout the world, government regulators have been looking for a means to match consumption with generation. Traditional electrical meters only measure total consumption and as such, provide no information of when the energy is being consumed.
The solution
A “Smart Electric Grid” and one component of that smart grid is “Smart Metering” which provides an economical way of measuring real-time energy consumption, allowing price setting agencies to introduce different prices for consumption based on the time of day and the season.
It is believed that billing customers by how much is consumed and at what time of day will force consumers to adjust their consumption habits to be more responsive to market prices. Regulatory and market design agencies hope these “price signals” will delay the construction of additional generation or at least the purchase of energy from higher priced sources, thereby controlling the steady and rapid increase of electricity prices.
Many utility companies worldwide are now beginning to implement “Smart Meters”.
What are smart meters?
Smart meters are “digital” devices that allow wireless two-way communications between your home or business and your local utility company and unlike traditional “analog” meters they have the ability to transmit and receive data in real-time.
Smart meter benefits?
Customers
Smart meters track the energy use in your home on an hourly basis and send this information automatically to your local utility company. By automating the meter-reading function, smart meters deliver a number of benefits:
- Enable special pricing options for customers to save energy and money.They support the implementation of Time-of-Use prices. By time-stamping your consumption data, local utility companies will be able to determine how much electricity was used during off-peak times and how much was consumed during on-peak periods. This capability allows homeowners to find electricity savings by shifting their electricity use. The Sobuka team blogged previously about how consumers will be able to see and control their energy usage in real-time thanks to smart grid control systems. The blog is “smart-grid-technology-for-your-home“.
- By tracking electricity use remotely, all bills will be based on real-time consumption – eliminating the need for estimated bills.
- Provide customers with enhanced energy information through the online My Account service, enabling them to better manage their energy use and costs.
Utility customers only save money when smart meters help them to cut their energy use. A good way to do that is by raising the price of electricity when demand is high, such as during the middle of a summer day, when high rates of air-conditioning use push the electric grid to capacity. Under such a scenario, known as dynamic or real-time pricing, it’s expected that customers adjust the temperature of their air conditioners a few degrees to save money. Consumers might chose to run their washing machine late at night when demand is lower and save even more.
Utility
- Greater operational efficiencies in the management of local distribution systems.
- Make it easier to integrate renewable energy, such as wind power, and plug-in vehicles into the electric system.
- Help improve customer reliability and outage management.
- Improved outage detection, restoration, two-way communications can be used to “ping” a meter when the system detects an outage or when a customer calls regarding an outage to determine whether or not the outage is on the customer’s side of the meter, thereby avoiding a field crew dispatch. In the case of storm related outages, crews can be dispatched to the outage location or site of the problem as opposed to searching for the problem.
- Remote meter reading reduces labor, no need for manual meter readers. Instead there will be drive-by or walk-by meter reading which is faster and quicker. However, the utility companies say there will be no layoffs planned, employees currently working as meter readers will be offered other job opportunities and training. Although a meter reader will no longer be reading the meter, utility companies will still need to have access to your meters for safety and regular maintenance. For quality assurance purposes, after the initial installation, a meter reader will continue to read your meter for billing until the new meter has confirmed its reading reliably in the system. This may take up to three months.
- Eventually, utility companies will able to control the strain on system during peak hours by controlling “smart thermostats” purchased by customers who agree to allow the utility company to control their heating and cooling during peak time to receive financial rebates. Heating and cooling amounts to almost 50% of an energy bill of a typical single family home.
Environment
- Reduces the need to build power plants, or avoiding the use of older, less efficient power plants as customers lower their electric demand.
This is beneficial for all utility customers because the costs of building new power plants or relying on older, less-efficient power plants are eventually passed on to customers in retail rates. Building power plants that are necessary only for occasional peak demand is very expensive. A more economical approach is to enable customers to reduce their demand through time-based rates or other incentive programs. When the utilities avoid the use of “peaker” plants to meet high demand, the environment benefits because peaker plants typically have higher greenhouse gas and other air emissions.
The Department of Energy (DOE) estimates that if the grid were merely 5 % more efficient, the energy savings would equal the fuel and greenhouse emissions from 53 million cars. As the United States accounts for 25 % of the world’s greenhouse emissions, this change could go a long way toward reducing the effects of climate change.
In summary, installation of “Smart Meters” are on the rise all other country and all over the world. The best thing you can do is become familiar with how they work and how you can benefit from their installation. For more information specifically about Pepco’s Smart Metering program use the following link. Pepco’s Smart Metering Program
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- Smart-grid technology for your home
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- Oil Spill at the Gulf of Mexico
Tags: digital meters, meters, smart grid, Smart meters, time-of-use pricing, two-way communication
This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 at 2:22 pm and is filed under Environment, Featured Content, Green Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
