On Apr 16, 11:11*am, Home Guy wrote:

One thing I agree makes no sense to me is the idea
that these smart meters are going to communicate with
appliances, thermostats, etc. I can see billing at different
rates during different time periods to encourage consumers
to shift what demand then can. And I can see substantial
savings from not having employees driving cars around to
go read meters each month, which helps pay for the
deployment. As I pointed out before, my water company
did that a decade ago to save on meter reading.

But, I'm have a hard time figuring out why the electric
meter needs to talk to the thermostat or the AC. As
a consumer, knowing that the rates are cheaper at
night, etc, I can just set the thermostat myself. About
all you could really do would be some slight manipulation
anyway. Like if you wanted the AC to go down to 72,
you might set the thermosat to do it after 6pm, if the
rate went down at that point. But it would seem I need
to make that decision, not the meter.

I guess it could communicate with maybe the electric
water heater, to make sure that goes on mostly at
night. The pilot program idea, like CT is doing sounds
like the right approach. That way they can find out
how much energy shift is possible, how much it saves
or doesn't save consumers, etc. The idea of a
display inside that shows how much energy is being
used and a colored light for the rate changes, etc
is interesting. If people actually had something like
that visually to look at it would be interesting to see
if it did impact energy usage.