Discussion on:

Utility industry bets on smart grid by 2030, but concerns remain

All of this would be great but it is an invasion of my privacy and lifestyle by an outside (my house) party. Consumers may like all of the fancy, frilly things that the market offers, but I prefer my right to maintain my privacy and really don't care to have intruders in my house in the disguise of a refrigerator or thermostat! What guarantee is there that my information would not be sold to anyone or used by anyone outside the power company. I say let the power companies trim the fat (there is quite a bit of it here) and be prudent on the expenses and get on with new installations for the future.

Sounds great. There are so many benefits, including automatic sensing of low electric rates during the day. If I could actually see when I'm saving money, that would help me decide when to do high energy use things like baking or using big power tools. The utility company would have quite a bit more efficiency, too, allowing it to produce less excess power. But I think utilities should focus a lot on more efficient and upgraded transmission lines asap.

I'd like to save money! I guess I'm not worried about the privacy thing. They already know how much energy I'm using, just not the time of day. But I think more time and money should be spent on upgrading transmission lines and technology.

I'm also in favor of using smart meters to save me money. Heck, even just having access to the usage data is probably enough to create some incentive. Think gameification. I watch my father with his Prius trying to get his MPH as high as possible each month. I imagine I'd have the same reaction with a smart meter.

Still, geofer brings up a good point. There should be some privacy assurances, particularly as smart meters let utilities collect more detailed data on personal usage.

I live in Boulder, CO, the site of Xcel's pilot smart grid city project. It was a complete failure, and now Xcel is trying to recover its losses by increasing rates.

The city-wide smart grid installation entailed putting in place a fiber network to every residence and installing smart meters. For a city of 100,00, it was supposed to cost $15 million, but wound up costing $45 million. At some point it was supposed to involve putting some kind of smart grid devices on each major appliance to monitor power, but that never happened. There were always major concerns about security, and also the question of who was going to pay for these smart grid devices. For this failure and many other reasons, Boulder is now in the process of withdrawing from Xcel and forming its own power utility (the fiber network will likely go dark, a huge waste).

Any huge savings from smart grid can already be achieved by a little common sense. Buy something like a Kill-a-Watt meter which allows you to measure the energy use of each appliance. By putting the Kill-a-Watt on each appliance for a few days, you will quickly find any power hogs (hint: start with your DVRs and stereo equipment -- programming a Harmony remote to turn all that stuff off will reap huge savings). It doesn't take a genius to know that power is cheaper at night than during the day. If you need to know when the wind is blowing before running your washer, you can probably get a tweet from your power company. Cars are increasingly connected to the internet, so the power company could also tweet your car to tell it to start charging. And so on.

Smart grid will be useful at the utility level, to monitor the overall power grid. For the average home user, not so much.

Fiber is massive overkill for most consumer smart grid applications. If it's there, great. But low-power wireless works just fine. I'm amazed a project like the one you describe got funded. I hope for the city's sake someone comes in and makes use of the fiber now that it's installed.

I don't get it. What do I care if the power company knows how much energy I use at different times of the day? I have nothing to hide.

Personally, I would love to lower my energy bill by 20%, even if the power company knows that I turn up the thermostat when the temperature is lower outside. It would also be great if the power company could say "Hey, we noticed your refrigerator is using twice as much power as it was a year ago. Maybe you should think about repairing or replacing it."

zackers, we have smart meters now here. No fiber. The signals are sent right back over the power lines.

Next time your house is unoccupied while you're on vacation, how about posting that info online for everyone to read along with your address?

I tell the post office to hold my mail, and my paperboy not to deliver my paper when I am on vacation. I really doubt that anyone (except someone that is super paranoid) would think that someone at the post office is going to post online when someone is on vacation.

take the smart meter off the homes now it is not safe has caused fires and more money from the people bills have gone up big time and the power companys are getting away with in the usa put a stop to it now