A smart grid diagram from the US Department of Energy. (Photo courtesy of the US Departmen of Energy)
Some electric companies are working
to put smart meters on our homes.
They want to change how we use
electricity hour by hour. Eventually,
power companies will charge more
when demand for electricity is highest.
Mark Brush reports on a new study
that looks at how people are responding:
Transcript
Some electric companies are working
to put smart meters on our homes.
They want to change how we use
electricity hour by hour. Eventually,
power companies will charge more
when demand for electricity is highest.
Mark Brush reports on a new study
that looks at how people are responding:
Connecticut Light and Power tested the smart grid on about 3,000 of it’s customers. Half of them residential and half of them business customers.
They found that people did respond to high rates during high periods of demand – such as from noon to eight pm.
Jessica Cain is with Connecticut Light & Power. She says there seems to be a limit to how much they’ll change. For example, doing laundry late at night seemed to be a non-starter.
“Doing your laundry after 8pm would be a barrier. And we heard that from customers, both from a residential customer side and then from a business customer side. We heard that changing their business hours outside of that twelve to eight window would be very difficult.”
The power company found the most energy was saved when the utility itself used the smart meter to shutdown things like air conditioners during periods of high demand.
The customers said they liked the “set it and forget it” approach – so long as they could override the system if they needed to.
For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.