Comments on: Opinion: Smart Meters Are Not the Answer to the U.S. Power Problem

By: Energy Tough Love Blog » Oh Great Now They Are Picking On Smart Meters - Heh pick on someone your own size

Mon, 27 Apr 2009 22:22:13 +0000

[...] http://earth2tech.com/2009/03/27/opinion-smart-meters-are-not-the-answer-to-the-us-power-problem/ [...]

By: Hint, Smart Meters Aren’t Just For Your Energy Bill

Hint, Smart Meters Aren’t Just For Your Energy Bill — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 16:49:36 +0000

[...] But as benefit to the consumer, the jury is still out. We received a lot of strong reactions to Subodh Nayar’s piece, “Smart Meters Are Not the Answer to the U.S. Power Problem,” and the Wall Street [...]

By: Could rural America use a smart grid? « Climate and energy

Could rural America use a smart grid? « Climate and energy — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 07:03:55 +0000

[...] Unlike using the infrastructure of large telcos such as AT&T, the arrangement gives utilities complete control over their networks, turning them into “virtual Internet service providers,” according to Subodh Nayar, president and COO of Great American (Nayar recently wrote a guest column for Earth2Tech entitled “Smart Meters Are Not the Answer to the U.S. Power Problem”). [...]

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 23:08:41 +0000

Jeremy: A “smart meter” does nothing in itself. You need controls to perform any kind of action. That means relays or “smart breakers”, etc. Who is paying for that? Will you as a home owner? It’s one thing to replace incandescent lights with CFLs – please do it! It’s another to install a new breaker panel, rewire your appliances, etc….. And then for what? If it shouldn’t be on, why is it on. If it should be more efficient, replace it with something more efficient. For AC, smart thermostats have been around for a while – nothing new there – no metering necessary. Google simply wants information about EVERYTHING, including your behavior patterns and your electrical usage tells a story. If they could sift through you garbage with a scanning device, I’m sure they would.

By: Great American Offers a Smarter Grid to Rural Utilities

Great American Offers a Smarter Grid to Rural Utilities — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:01:32 +0000

By: Jeremy

Jeremy — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:44:12 +0000

This information is not exactly correct. Google is working on a smart meter that would measure your usage in zones, thus allowing you to control the usage in your home in zones instead of as a whole, much the way breakers allow you to shut down only parts of your electric at a time instead of the whole home.

By: Rich

Rich — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 06:50:36 +0000

Unfortunately, I don't think there has been much debate. Our fearless leaders were convinced and our money is being spent as we speak! I was in a workshop last Friday. Folks are lining up with their proposals to receive this money. And the money must be allocated by Sept 2010 - not much time to deliberate on the best engineered solutions for something this large.

By: Who Will Win Big In the Smart Meter Rollout?

Who Will Win Big In the Smart Meter Rollout? — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 04:01:29 +0000

[...] by Katie Fehrenbacher No Comments Posted March 31st, 2009 at 9:00 pm in Energy It might be up for debate whether smart meters — electricity meters that provide real-time information about energy [...]

By: Rich

Rich — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:51:59 +0000

This POV brings up some excellent issues that are not being discussed. Are rate and tax payers funding a huge bailout for the IT, meter manufacturing and utility industry? We’ve been implementing “smart” metering at large industrial/commercial/institutional customers for years. I was also involved with utility demand side management decades ago – you can do it without millions of meters. It DOES NOT improve the end user IQ. If the end user ignores the information, there is little benefit. How many residential customers will have the time/interest to watch their power consumption in “real time”? Or analyze the vast stores of historical data this will accumulate? Negligible. If you want people to change their energy consumption behavior, change the rate/tariff. There is great potential to improve the efficiency of the grid but millions of meters are not needed. I’m afraid these meters will simply be IT nodes as a platform for the utilities to sell you additional services you don’t need. Maybe we’ll be watching HDTV from a meter connected to a WiMax cloud. Or be able to order our pizza and see how much we saved by not using our own oven…. Look who is sponsoring these efforts – IBM, Cisco, Nortel, etc. (http://www.ibm.com/ibm/ideasfromibm/us/smartplanet/topics/utilities/20081124/index2.shtml) …. How many new data centers will be built to support this change? – I can tell you it is huge!

By: Roland

Roland — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 16:40:32 +0000

Smart metering and direct device control are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, they both require bandwidth, and that is the problem. Power companies run wires, why not add fiber. People are abandoning their phone landlines and yes, even TV. Bandwidth is a natural Public Utility.
http://www.cringely.com/2009/02/power-to-the-people/