Thanks for your thinking about this , and the explanation, Ted. I agreed with
you when I first read about them, and now I’m not as sure. I keep reading when
I find info, and I keep find people on both sides of this issue that are
passionate. Sometimes the truth is a bit hidden, and I haven’t dug down far
enough to be satifified witht he /good or bad issue yet. It seems to be a no
brainer that ithey’d be good. Hence my being flummoxed about it. Personally I
like Seve K’s idea that people have a certain amount of electricity at a good
rate, and then it hops up; Thereby having higher rates for homes that choose to
have several tv’s going, and don’t shut off things they are not using. I know
homes where pepoe have their own tv’s in their bedrooms, leave them on for the
‘noise’ and comfort…. Heck kthis is small potatoes compared to all those
skyscrapers s in Boston that keep lights blazing all night.
On Apr 23, 2017, at 11:06 AM, Ted Cady <ted.cady@xxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hi folks,
In response to the article Elaine sent out, it is industry rubbish. Smart
meters are an important part of the energy solution. The article referred to
smart meters for homes, and said that they were not needed. I disagree.
Smart meters allow a flattening of the demand curve for electricity and that
is quite important. Let me explain. The demand for electricity has large
peaks and troughs during the 24 hour day. Very little electricity is used at
night, but when folks start cooking breakfast and industry cranks up its
operations for the day there is a peak in demand. It tapers off a little
during the day and then peaks again when industries are still running and
folks are starting to cook supper, turn on TV and what not. It is highly
desirable to reduce the peaks of electric demand so that electrical
generating capacity that is only used for a very few hours each day (and
therefore is very expensive) can be taken off line. A simple way to do this
is to charge more for electricity used during peak hours and charge less for
electricity used during off-peak hours. This is not a new concept. For many
years some electric companies had a separate electric meter for folks who
heated their hot water with electricity during off peak hours and charged a
much lower rate for it. The use of smart meters would encourage folks to
heat their hot water during off peak hours, do their laundry at night or in
the early morning (our clothes washer has a delay start capability so it
would be easy to do that), and charge your electric car battery at night.
This is not new. Having worked in the forest products industry, I know that
it used to be that sawmills would turn on all of their saws, blowers,
conveyors, lights and so forth at precisely the starting time for operations.
This caused a huge surge in electricity use as all these things started up,
and sometimes, especially in rural areas, caused excessive demand on the
electric company's line. Electric companies solved this by using a "demand
factor." They would charge the company a steep fee based on its peak demand
for power. Sawmills quickly learned that it would save them a lot of money
each month by turning on the high electric demand items over a period of
time. For example, they might turn on the head saw which usually draws the
most power of any piece of equipment when starting and let it get up to
speed, and then turn on the resaws and let them get up to speed, and then
turn of the conveyors and let them get going, and then turn on the lights.
This would spread out the starting loads and thereby significantly reduce the
demand factor. Now it is routine and all sawmills do it and it saves them a
lot of money each month.
Water systems have used a form of smart metering for decades. Water is not
as time sensitive as electricity, but overall demand is for some water
systems is a major problem. They often have to worry about high demand in
summer when water supplies might be the tightest. Many water systems solve
this problem by having step rates. There is a base charge for use of the
average amount of water used, if you use more there are increasing price
steps as water usage goes up. In some towns there is a additional,
significant water conservation charge in the summer. This targets users who
often have automatic lawn sprinkler systems that use huge amounts of water
when the water system pipes and supply are already stressed by increased
summer demand.
Smart meters are good. It allows those that take conservation seriously or
want to save money a chance to practice good energy management and save money.
Ted Cady
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