Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
said that, with annual savings of €500m - there were no longer any house
visits by meter readers, and less customer fraud - it could recoup the €2bn
cost of the meters in four years.
Elsewhere in Europe and in North America, deployment of standard
smart meters has been patchy. The UK only plans to have national cover-
age of smart meters completed by 2020. But the UK is also conducting
trials - in some 18,000 households during 2009-10 - into how consumers
respond to real-time energy display devices to change their behaviour.
Behaviour change is the key. For smart meters can give the customer
hyper-detailed, up-to-the minute price and volume information with
which to make a choice about which appliances to use. If smart meters are
to influence consumers to change their electricity consumption pattern,
there has to be a parallel smart
pricing
of electricity. Intelligent pricing of
this kind could, for instance, provide an incentive to people to run their
dishwasher at night, when demand and prices are lower.
This smart pricing is usually referred to as time-of-use (TOU) pricing.
But it would be really boring to go
to the meter every half an hour
to check the price of the electric-
ity you're using. So some smart
meters can control appliances
remotely, in accordance with
guidelines pre-set by consumers.
Smart meters can automatically
shut off washing machines and
dishwashers when the TOU price
goes above a certain level. Smart
thermostats can automatically
raise the temperature setting on
an air-conditioning unit by a cou-
ple of degrees when the price rises
above a set threshold.
So far it is mainly in the US
where smart meters of this
sophistication have been tried
out. One example is the city of
Boulder in Colorado, where the
local utility company Xcel, in alli-
ance with several IT companies,
is equipping ten thousand homes
This European smart meter uses
two-way communication to connect
remotely and interface with gas and
water meters.
