At age 83, Charles Beamon would appear to be an unlikely pioneer in solving America’s energy problems.
But the Vance Road homeowner is among the first in Chattanooga with a so-called smart electric meter that gives him and his power provider — Chattanooga’s EPB — continuous feedback on his home’s energy consumption.
Mr. Beamon says he hasn’t noticed any change in the comfort of his home since the smart meter and the programmable thermostat from EPB were installed a year ago. But he does enjoy cheaper monthly electric bills.
“My electric bill in June was only $31 and only $28 in May,” he said. “I’d say it’s working out pretty well.”
With such favorable feedback from most of the 32 participants in EPB’s pilot EnergySense program, EPB will begin next week installing 1,000 more of its smart meters under its time-of-day pricing option. Such devices and pricing methods continuously measure how much power is being consumed and set the electricity rate at a higher cost when it is most in demand and the most expensive to produce.
On Thursday, the Tennessee Valley Authority and 20 of its distributors initiated a request for assistance from the federal government to help pay for similar smart grid technologies across the utility’s seven-state region.
Under time-of-day prices, consumers who limit power consumption on hot summer afternoons or cold winter mornings could get a break. Those who use more power when most others do could end up paying more.
“If we make people aware of the electricity they consume and use time-of-day pricing to discourage consumption during peak demand periods, we think we can promote more energy efficiency and help the customer and us save money,” EPB Senior Vice President David Wade said.
The typical residential customer in the program saved about $50 over the past year, EPB spokeswoman Lacie Newton said.
EPB’s smart grid is part of a $220 million fiber-optic network being deployed across Chattanooga in the next year by the city-owned utility. Once the system is fully installed — estimated to take about three years — EPB will have the largest municipally owned fiber-optic system in America.
EPB hopes to recoup its investment primarily from not having to continue to manually read its 160,000 meters, cutting the theft of power from altered older-design meters and generating extra revenues from new video and telecommunications services made possible by the fiber-optic network.
via Chattanooga Times Free Press | Electricity meets the Internet with smart meters.
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