you raise a good point but something like this would be straightforward enough to prevent.

As well as price, devices should also be listening to the grid frequency – devices would chose suppliers with higher frequencies and purchase their electricity in 30 minute chunks – this will avoid the scenario you correctly paint.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting (and for the cool photo!).

And I agree that the meters should be really smart. But there may be a problem with dynamic pricing… all the meters choose the cheapest price, so the producer sees increasing demand and increases the price as the generation capacity is fixed, suddenly everyone switches to another cheapest producer and the system the starts occillating…

Hence the drive to “Buy Green” or “Buy Clean” power though on the surface a delightful proposition generally does NOT provide the purchaser with any “green” electrons. It does however force the utility to source more energy from green providers than they would have without your designated purchase so in the grand scheme of things this is still a VERY GOOD idea as the net impact is to derive more and more of the grids energy from green sources.

Now to truly go with “green” electrons one can install their own wind/solar/hydro power systems ideally with excess capacity to be a net producer and sell the excess back to the utilties. Sadly the utilities in many parts of the world have such a regulatory lock on the market and have placed such onerous restrictions on interconnection and the free-wheeling of electricity that it is almost impossible to install a local, campus or village-wide renewable energy based power system.

JP

Cian – I prefer to use the mobile network analogy (simply because people are more familiar with switching mobile networks, roaming, and having unlocked devices – for roaming think charging your car when out shopping and having the charge appear on your utility bill!).

I agree with what you are trying to achieve but it doesn’t have to be done by the meter. If a Smart Meter records your usage then you can get another service to meet the extra requirements. Unbundling the control part from the measurement part might give you more options.

Your meter is not your property. It is belong to the distribution system operator (DSO) and cannot be tampered with by you. It would be very limiting in the marketplace if you could only get your DR services from your meter supplier.

I prefer the unbundled option.

I was having a hard time coming up with a relevant photo so I thought I’d go with this one for a change of pace.

May need to review if it is confusing people

So do you have any smart meters you would recommend?