chaniarts wrote:

Is there any reason to reject one?

The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save
manpower costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

The real savings (manpower mostly) will be enjoyed by the utility
(say, $100) at the expense of the home owner - a much larger
expense (say, $500) than the utility will gain.

Utility companies want smart meters because they reduce their
meter-reading costs, plus they can do more with the meters
(remote disconnect/reconnect, offer pre-paid electicity service,
etc).

The time-of-use aspect of billing for residential electricity is
bogus.

Time-of-use electricity billing for residential customers represents
a false economy, when the cost of the metering systems and software
are taken into account.

The home owner can never realistically change their life-style to
the point where they time-shift enough of their electricity use to
recoup the extra new costs of paying for the meter that is imposed
on them by the utility.

again, you're mostly wrong

But you won't speak to these facts will you:

- Utilities are installing meters at the customer's expense that
will cost customers 4 to 8 times what the utility will save
in reduced operating costs (meter-reading mostly).

- home owners are unlikely to shift electricity usage or change
lifestyle to compensate for extra charges designed to cover
the cost of the meter, billing systems, etc.

- Utilities want smart meters to reduce manpower costs (meter
reading, automated connect / disconnect, new services such as
pay-as-you-go, pre-paid use, etc). The utilities are not willing
to pay the full up-front cost of new meters out of their operating
profit, and so they use politics to force new meters on residential
customers AND get new / additional tarrifs or fees imposed on monthly
bills so that customers bankroll the new meters, billing systems, etc.

Now I will address you extremely weak counter-arguments:

in the case where the home is generating power during the day, it
is critical to know which way power is going when.

A very big piece of horse-****. Why?

Because any customer co-gen system will by law have it's own meter and
will feed any power generated by the system back into the grid through
that meter. What-ever meter the customer has for his existing
residential load would remain in-place.

And a second reason why your example is horse-**** is simply the
numbers. The numbers of residential co-gen systems (solar or wind) is
EXTREMELY small, and hardly a factor when considering why TOU meters are
being deployed for residential use.

in the case where you have a very new energy efficient home, it
is critical to know the difference in power being used between
other nearby homes when.

Again, here's where you don't understand what's going on.

If I have an energy-efficient home, I'm already going to use fewer KWH
compared to my neighbor. So if we were both billed only on total
monthly KWH, I would use less electricity, and my bill would be lower
than my neighbor.

Now, if I and my neighbor both have TOU meters and we are billed based
on TOU rates, then if the percentage break-down of our usage is the
same, then there is no advantage to TOU measurements and billing. If we
both consume 25% of our total KWH during prime-time, and 75% of the rest
at "cheap-time", then it makes no difference if we are billed based on
TOU or by flat-rate.

Now if I shift any percentage of my prime-time use to cheap-time, then I
would theoretically benefit if I'm billed under TOU vs flat-rate. The
more I shift, the more I benefit. - The more my house is energy
efficient, the LESS I benefit. !!

Now, do the math.

Regardless if your house is energy efficient or not.

Unless you are willing to consume NO electricity during prime time, you
will not save enough under TOU metering to compensate for the additional
charges the utility is saddling you with to pay for the ****ing meter in
the first place.

That is why it's a false economy.

Same for hybrid or electric cars. An electric car *might* cost you less
to operate on a per-mile basis, but the up-front cost of the batteries
will far exceed the operational savings. It's a false economy.