On July 20th, 2006, Pacific Gas and Electric Company’s $1.7 billion SmartMeter proposal received unanimous approval by the California Public Utilities Commission. In the fall of that year, PG&E began the installation of 9.3 million SmartMeter devices for its 5.1 million electricity and 4.2 million gas customers and plans to finish system-wide in 2011.
Alexis Madrigal, from Wired, got his PG&E SmartMeter installed in October of this year and writes about his discussion with the PG&E SmartMeter installer:
Though he installed the meter yesterday, it wouldn’t do anything special for PG&E or me until the transmitters went in to create the network through which my meter would communicate with the world. And the transmitters wouldn’t be in for a couple of years.
But, surely, after the transmitters went in, I’d be able to track every kilowatt hour of my energy usage? Nope, Dave said. Special web apps for understanding my power user profile like I’d seen from Tendril or Greenbox? Not that he’s heard of. The best I was going to get was daily energy usage reports. That’s low resolution data, like your Toyota Prius telling you your gas mileage over the course of a week. The feedback loop just wouldn’t be strong enough to change wasteful behaviors.
In fact, the primary purpose for these smart meters, Dave told me, was to simplify billing issues for PG&E.
“Meter readers are under intense time pressure,” Fong said. “They are literally running from meter to meter.”
Taking too long earns meter readers demerits, and so do mistakes. If meter readers accidentally charge you for $350 of gas instead of $35, it causes major headaches. The new smart meters will eliminate the meter readers and the pesky problems humans introduce.
But will the new meters do anything to change the energy usage patterns that have Americans using five times more energy than the world average? Anecdotally, it sure doesn’t sound like it.
