Understanding and Connecting Smart Meters, Smart Grids, and Smart Markets.
- Lynne Kiesling
November 9th, 2009
Courtesy of The Energy Collective, an interesting article on the position of consumers in the smart grid / smart meters roll out. We are in agreement with the author’s view on smart meters and their relative lack of utility (dare we say…), but we disagree with his overall somewhat pessimistic view on the primacy of the consumer’s role. As the author notes, we must “…change the terms of the conversation, and be honest about what’s happening as the smart grid develops and smart meters take hold”. Hmmm – could smart markets be a potential answer?
Energy efficiency has been called the low hanging fruit of everything from reducing carbon emissions to energy conservation. Air Sealing has been called the low hanging fruit of energy efficiency. And Secretary Chu has pointed out the low hanging fruit that is energy efficiency isn’t really hanging any more. It’s on the ground. And fruit on the ground rots if it isn’t picked up…
Recently, I’ve come to question whether our belief that energy efficiency is the low hanging fruit is misplaced, and not just because food analogies wear on me. I have two sources of doubt. The first is the oddly inconclusive information we are receiving about the importance of smart meters. The second is the reality of home owner priorities.
Smart Meters
Smart Meters have received a lot of attention, most recently on the heels of President Obama’s announcement that the devices will benefit from smart grid grants. The theory, as articulated by the President, follows:
Smart meters will allow you to actually monitor how much energy your family is using by the month, by the week, by the day, or even by the hour. So coupled with other technologies, this is going to help you manage your electricity use and your budget at the same time, allowing you to conserve electricity during times when prices are highest, like hot summer days.Granted, I am biased by my singularly unimpressive experience with the smart meter on the side of my house, punctuated with this week’s conversation with my utility in which I was urged to “ask someone to drive out to the cottage and read the (smart) meter before the road is blocked with snow, so that we can have an actual reading…” and more accurate billing. A long interview with a helpful Hydro employee, however, confirmed what I have felt from the beginning -Smart Meters are not really about consumers. They were designed to enable utilities to initiate time-of-use billing. For years, utilities have fought for this ability, and for years, politician have been forced to refuse. After all, what constituency would welcome such a policy. But now? Now smart meters have been dipped in the sweet chocolate of consumer awareness. Are they, as Peter Troast recently wondered, “One of the most cleverly branded Trojan horse for higher utility rates ever conceived?” If the Trojan Horse analogy feels over the top (We have no reason to believe that the smart meters gifted to the side of your house will actually kill you in your sleep) consider this: at best, you are an after-thought in smart meter technology. At worst, providing you with data from your own household is a means to an end. Sure, you get to see how your household is spending energy… at some point. In the interim, the utility gets to charge more for peak hours, the same or more for off-peak hours, and blame you for your increased bills: your fool-hardy reluctance to change in time. Perhaps most importantly, slapping a smart meter on your house constitutes an approved capital investment for a utility – read: cash cow.This is one reason why I am so delighted that Google PowerMeter opted to partner with TED The Energy Detective, obviating the need to rely on smart meters. Information for consumers, I still believe, is helpful. Let’s not get that positive change all muddled up in utility-driven needs.
Consumers are High, Clinging Fruit
Not long ago, I spoke with a professional intimately involved in the development of the smart grid in Boulder, Colorado. He isn’t a big fan of smart meters, and says the smart grid doesn’t need them. He believes that the only positive consumer gain will come when consumers recognize that they are required to buy smart appliances in order to reduce costs. That’s not low-hanging fruit. What is? In his view, the smart grid: outage avoidance, increased voltage control (getting the precise amount of power needed to its destination, reducing transformer issues); smart, efficient delivery. In other words, technology is the low-hanging fruit. Consumers are not. To consider end-users low-hanging fruit in this process is insane, he says. “It’s incredibly hard to make people change.”
So, I’m a little concerned that home owners are getting beaten up with the low-hanging fruit message. The truth is, increasing the energy efficiency of your home IS easy. But change – including changing the way you think about your house – is surprisingly hard. A recent survey revealed that the blip of renewed enthusiasm for energy efficiency of last year has receded in favor better bathrooms and kitchens. While this is frustrating, it’s not entirely shocking. Do we need to make home energy efficiency products more attractive in order to reach this market? Will a homeowner some day consider insulation a fair trade-off to a gilded faucet? I doubt it. I think we need to change the terms of the conversation, and be honest about what’s happening as the smart grid develops and smart meters take hold.
Your utility bills are going to go up. We know it’s hard to think about your home as anything other than hearth and sanctuary. But it’s time. Think of your home the way your utility does: as an opportunity for change. Smart Meters, at least in their current form, are not the answer.
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Based on decades of experience and interest in conservation, Monty Simus believes that a truly “smart” grid must be a “transactive” grid, unshackled from its current status as a so-called “natural monopoly.”
In short, an unlocked grid must adopt and harness the power of markets to incentivize individual users, linked to each other on a large scale, who change consumptive behavior in creative ways that drive efficiency and bring equity to use of the planet's finite and increasingly scarce resources.