Smart Grid Blog

Many Arnprior residents got quite a shock when they received their most recent water bill and saw how much it said they owned the municipality.

Arnprior town council was under fire during the Aug. 23 meeting as more than 25 people expressed frustration with water bills that, in some cases, were three times what they were used to paying…

New water meters, known as smart meters, were being installed for all new residential construction and the town had decided to replace all existing meters in the town.

via Town of Arnprior tries to build bridge over troubled water bills – News – By Theresa Fritz Arnprior Local Community News.

The biggest complaint about SmartMeters is the huge spike in bills that many have seen. That was certainly the case for a Mountain View family and so far, there is no explanation.

An angry homeowner confronted a PG&E spokesperson about her SmartMeter back in June. PG&E originally insisted there was nothing wrong with it, but Alexei Kacharovsky and his wife Vera persisted.

via Mountain View couple confronts PG&E over SmartMeters | abc7news.com.

The Energy Department announced that over 2 million smart meters have beed installed across the country.

Cisco and power meter maker Itron announced they will team up to develop Internet Protocol-based communications for the power grid.

via Apollo Daily Digest » Blog Archive » September 2, 2010: 2 Million Smart Meters Installed in the U.S..

Smart meters capable of measuring and managing a building’s electricity use in real time are becoming increasingly common, but to date there has been little progress in the development of smart devices for managing the use of heat.

That looks set to change after smart meter developer Onzo and energy giant Scottish & Southern Energy (SSE) yesterday revealed they are working on a project to apply smart meter functionality to domestic hot water and heating systems.

via Onzo and SEE reveal plan for smart heat meters – 02 Sep 2010 – BusinessGreen.com.

The Brumby government’s troubled $2 billion smart meter rollout has been given a ringing endorsement by an independent economic analysis, which found it to be ”cost effective no matter which mix of costs and benefits are used”.

The Oakley Greenwood report, to be released today, found that the benefit of rolling out the smart meters would be between $1.87 billion and $3.51 billion over 20 years and that when combined with additional demand management services the benefits would be between $2.58 billion and $5 billion over the same period.

via Smart meters to save $5bn: report.

A long-awaited investigation into PG&E’s Smart Meters has found that the residential meters being installed in millions of California homes are “consistent with industry standards and performing accurately.”

But the report blasted PG&E for its customer services practices, finding that the San Francisco-based utility did not adequately address customer complaints and concerns about the new technology.

via Probe finds no problems with PG&E’s Smart Meters but criticizes roll out – San Jose Mercury News.

The government is likely to incentivise the use of smart metres at homes, enabling users to monitor their power consumptions in real time and save on electricity bills by over 15 percent, officials said.

A smart metre is a device that uses smart grid technology, which integrates power generators and consumers to balance supply and demand.

via Government may incentivise use of ‘smart’ metres.

Our Monday coverage of the decision to go forward with “smart,” computerized electricity meters for BGE customers got a lot of reaction, much of it negative toward smart meters. This is not necessarily representative. People with complaints are usually the ones who pipe up; those who are glad or don’t care don’t take the trouble to respond.

via Jay Hancock’s blog: Fear, loathing and smart meters – Business news: Stock markets, banks and economic observations with columnist Jay Hancock – baltimoresun.com.

No one said transforming the century-old power system into a state of-the-art digital smart grid was going to be easy. But California already is getting bogged down in a growing fight over installing smart utility meters in homes.

The wireless devices are a linchpin in building the smart grid as they allow the two-way, real-time transfer of data about a home’s power use. Utilities need that information to balance supply and demand on a power grid that will be increasingly supplied with intermittent sources of renewable energy while facing new demands from electric cars.

via California’s smart meter fears | The Energy Collective.

Southern California Edison recently installed the new smart meters in Hawthorne. What do the flashing numbers on them mean?- Tim Hagerty

via Q: Smart meters – The Daily Breeze.

The poor little smart meter…it keeps catching all kinds of grief when all that it wants to do is save the planet.

It is all things to all people. To utilities, regulators, and many environmentalists, it is the doorway to a modern green grid that will teach you to turn down your air conditioner when demand is high, and make it easier to rely on intermittent solar and wind energy.

via Smart meters and smart regulation « The Berkeley Blog.

This week I met Aneesh Chopra, the first Chief Technology Officer of the US. My first question was: What does America’s CTO do?

Not surprisingly, his job description is quite lengthy — and it includes several duties critical to smart meters and the smart grid. In fact, Chopra is responsible for crafting President Obama’s vision of the smart grid. He’s also responsible for promoting efforts nationwide to get the smart grid built, and to deliver benefits to consumers.

via US Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra: Crafting the smart grid vision | eMeter.

The British Government has just recently announced its plans to install smart energy meters in every home in the UK by the end of the next decade. The meters that monitor energy consumption on a regular basis will prove to be a revolutionary change to the energy industry for a number of reasons.

via British Gas Energy Smart UK: Smart Meter Plan Announced By British Government | British Gas Energy Smart.

Baltimore Gas & Electric has bragged since last summer about its proposal to install “smart,” computerized electricity meters in 2 million Central Maryland households and businesses.

“We are really at the cusp of one of the greatest transformations of the electric grid ever,” Mayo Shattuck, CEO of BGE parent Constellation Energy, said last year. Smart meters won’t just give customers more than $2 billion in savings, he said; they’ll deliver “reliability, service quality and environmental benefits.”

via Will ‘smart’ meters be effective? BGE’s answer to regulatory conditions might tell – baltimoresun.com.

Smart meters have become well-known for their role in electric utilities’ smart grid deployments, but a lesser known trend is the increasing importance of advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) for gas utilities, according to an industry analyst report from Pike Research.

via Smart Gas Meters to Reach 36 Million Installations Worldwide by 2016, Says Pike Research| Tekrati Research News.

Cleco Corp. says its 277,000 customers will have a better idea of where they’re spending their energy budget once “smart” meters are installed.

President and Chief Executive Officer Mike Madison tells The Town Talk that the Pineville-based utility wants to put $52.9 million of its own money and a $20 million federal grant into the meters.

via Cleco plans changeover to ‘smart’ meters – KLFY TV 10 – Acadiana’s Local News, Weather and Sports Leader |.

Baltimore Gas & Electric has bragged since last summer about its proposal to install “smart,” computerized electricity meters in 2 million Central Maryland households and businesses.

“We are really at the cusp of one of the greatest transformations of the electric grid ever,” Mayo Shattuck, CEO of BGE parent Constellation Energy, said last year. Smart meters won’t just give customers more than $2 billion in savings, he said; they’ll deliver “reliability, service quality and environmental benefits.”

via Will ‘smart’ meters be effective? BGE’s answer to regulatory conditions might tell – baltimoresun.com.

This week, research company Berg Insight predicted that installed smart meters will shoot past the 300-million mark worldwide by 2015. That’s a lot of meters. A whole lot. But, are we circling, here? Smart meters may be the heart of the smart grid, but where is the rest of the infrastructure we were promised? How is it developing? Are we going to get that intelligent overlay all the way up the path to the power plant, or is the concept of smart meters the only bit of fruition in our smart grid dreams?

via POWERGRID International Magazine Blog.

The EU has recently set the objective of installing smart meters in 80% of households across Europe by 2020.

A new report by Greenbang, covered by the Financial Times Energy Source blog, reveals that the market for ‘smart’ electricity in Europe is “set to expand rapidly in coming years” as more and more renewable energy comes online, government initiatives kick-in and overall demand for energy grows.

via REVE – Regulación Eólica con Vehículos Eléctricos -.

Baltimore Gas & Electric Co. on Thursday defended its plan to pay for its smart grid program with some form of surcharge passed on to customers, and intimated that it might walk away from the project without one.

After rejecting BGE’s first plan in June, the Public Service Commission began two days of hearings about the utility’s revised smart grid plan, which includes installing meters in customers’ homes that transmit usage and outage information along with other data. The PSC’s action threatened a $200 million federal stimulus grant attached to the project. BGE amended its initial plan to allay the PSC’s concerns.

via » BGE: Surcharge critical to smart meter plan.