smart meters

smart meter

At a Smart Grid industry conference last week, three attendees protested against smart meters based on concerns about the health impacts of the Radio Frequency signaling technology in them.[read more]

utilities/shutterstock

To understand the scale of the task facing utilities, consider the impact of smart meters. Typically, standard analog meters were read once a month, for a single number representing energy consumed. A digital smart meter, by comparison, might relay a variety of indicators every 15 minutes or more frequent. Those updates pile up fast, to 35,000 per year. If not properly managed, the 3,000-fold increase in data volume could be overwhelming.[read more]

Jeff Wilber / Shutterstock.com

In my previous blog post I discussed how smart meters will be supplanted by increasingly intelligent electronic devices that will make possible new and better grid monitoring and control. Now I want to discuss the concept of enhanced grid management via distributed smart metering. While added functionality is a plus, the journey we’...[read more]

Smart Meter via Shutterstock

The unrelenting treadmill of Moore’s Law steadily makes electronic components more powerful even as it makes them smaller and more economical. This has revolutionized electronics, telecommunications and information technologies. It will do the same for smart meters that will be supplanted by advanced intelligent electronic devices (IEDs...[read more]

As dozens of U.S. utilities ramp up their deployment of smart grid programs and with them new digital / smart meters, a few meter installations reportedly are causing small fires that could undermine the trust utilities need to continue updating the nation’s 100+year-old electric system.This is from a report by Fox News in Philadelphia (...[read more]

Pipeline and Valve via Shutterstock

High-end restaurants rarely make money on food. However inflated prices may seem, the food tab just barely covers fish flown in from Japan, waitstaff salaries, downtown rent, broken wine glasses, and stolen forks. The cocktail menu, on the other hand, offers up an ocean of intoxicating profits. The chef may be a creative genius, but as a...[read more]

Courtesy of the Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, here are facts about smart/digital meters and six commonly circulated myths — debunked.1. Smart meters are less accurate than analog meters.Public service commissions require meter manufacturers to supply independently certified testing results to prove that their smart meters provide...[read more]

Electric Towers via Shutterstock

The history of innovations, whether these are in technology, policy, or in how people themselves upgrade attitudes or behaviors, offers resounding proof of a basic flaw in arguments that naysayers constantly winge about solar, wind, energy storage and other Smart Grid innovations.  They presume a static world where innovation...[read more]

Digital Power Meter via Shutterstock

Will deploying advanced sensors and controls allow the power industry to wring efficiencies from the grid? First, some smart meters can sense power on/off, voltage, phase angle and temperature at end points to help enable smart grid benefits. But not all meters do this.[read more]

We all need energy to survive. That’s just the facts in our modern society. The problem is that producing energy is a dirty business, and actually burning it’s even worse. Since we can’t give up on fossil fuels all at once (although we do have the capacity to produce plenty of clean, affordable energy without them) conservation is often...[read more]

Whether or not the average American homeowner has much idea why, as of this month, almost one third of American households have made the leap from ye olde analog electric meter to the smarter, digital variety.  This according to the latest report [PDF] from the Institute for Electric Efficiency (IEE). The organization predicts...[read more]

The EU has mandated a rollout of smart meters to at least 80% of households by 2020. What are some of the transformative ways we will we use the extra energy consumption information these meters will bring?[read more]

More California residents wanting to opt out of smart meters were given their chance today as the California Public Utility Commission (CPUC) approved such choices for Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas & Electric (SDG&E) customers. Like with Pacific Gas and Electronic (PG&E) customers earlier this year...[read more]

China is the world’s largest electricity consumer, and growing fast. That’s motivating the country’s embrace of renewable energy production, but the focus apparently isn’t only on the production side: According to a new report from the research firm Zpryme, investments over the next several years could help catapult the country to...[read more]

Today the White House launched the Green Button Initiative, which connects more than 15 million Americans with their utility providers for streamlined access to their energy data. Nine utilities and electricity suppliers initially signed up for this landmark program designed to enable consumers to put their energy consumption into their...[read more]