Smart Meters: Measuring, Monitoring, and Managing Electricity - Smart Grid (R) Evolution: Electric Power Struggles - page 101

5 Smart Meters: Measuring, Monitoring, and
Managing Electricity
5.1 Tensions in Metering
“You can't manage what you can't measure.”
Philip Drucker
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be
counted.”
Albert Einstein
These two famous maxims, the first attributed to the management scholar Philip Drucker
andthesecondtoAlbertEinstein, represent atensionassociated withmeasurement anddata.
Drucker's quote is often used to justify the need for frequent assessment and monitoring of
everything from worker productivity to consumer confidence, while Einstein's reminds us of
the risks of overemphasis on generating and analyzing data.
Within energy systems, the Drucker phrase has been used to justify the need for devices
to improve management of electricity demand through improved real-time measurement
and monitoring. The value of enhanced measurement and monitoring in electricity systems
has been increasingly recognized as a way to more closely link the costs of generation
with consumer behavior, particularly by the utilities that manage electricity distribution.
Access to consumer-level data on electricity use has the potential to more effectively meet
the many new pressures facing electric utilities, including enhancing efficiency, reducing
emissions, increasing reliability, and accelerating recovery from disruptions. This chapter
explores the tension between the ideal that measurement could revolutionize household
energy management and use and the experience that suggests a more incremental impact.
Consumer or household-level meters that monitor, record, and transmit electricity-use
information to utilities are often referred to as “smart meters.” Smart meters provide a
critical link enabling bidirectional communication between electricity consumers and
electricitysystemmanagers.Themeterprovidesawayforutilitiestocommunicatereal-time
costs of electricity to users while also allowing consumer use information to be transmitted