Discussion on:

Consumers wary of utility electricity management plans

Well, maybe if the utilities didn't act like idiots most of the time,
it would be an easier sell.

The whole conservation effort has been undermined in ontario, canada
when the government owned utility decided that people conserved too
much energy and they needed to up the rates to meet revenue targets.
That kind of action relegates any desire to help save energy to the
dustbin.

Given the continuing monotonous litany of security breaches at banks, stores, government agencies, and every other kind of large institution that collects and stores personal information from us consumers, why in the world should I trust that systems to manage my personal electrical usage would not be vulnerable to hacking? Full disclosure of security breaches has pulled the curtain back to show us just how insecure every kind of information store is, and I for one am thankful to know that the emperor has no clothes.

The utilities can find some other way to manage power usage; remotely operating my house is not going to be one of them anytime soon, as far as I'm concerned.

bastien, most people do not realize that most of their electric bill
does not go to pay for the "energy" itself (be it derived from oil,
gas, coat, etc) but for the infrastructure that delivers it to their
home. Most of those costs are fixed, no matter how much power you use.
So even if I cover my house in solar panels and windmills and reduce my
demand upon the grid by 90%, the net cost to the utility of servicing
me as a customer remains nearly the same. It's even worse if you are
conserving water. The more successful the conservation effort, the
higher your bill is going to get.

Very very wary!

bastien - Have you ever listened to commercials for brokerage firms? They ALL say something to the effect that "investing in the market is a risk" and that you could "lose your principal" .
Well, the utilities have a "hostage base" so that their investors no longer take the risks! The utilities cannot and, indeed, WILL NOT allow their revenues to drop!

Computers are responsible for gobs of energy waste. Of all companies, HP is doing lots of work to reduce energy consumption in PCs - http://digital.newzgeek.com/its-green-revolution/