However, I disagree with the thesis that consumers won’t benefit much. The trial in Canada didn’t go far enough. Yes consumers need hot water but water heating is a movable load, as is refrigeration, as is charging plug-in hybrids, as is cloths washing/drying, as is dish washing, etc. Many of these operations can be controlled automatically i.e. have the smart meters be programmable to talk to domestic appliances and have them come on/off or shift thermostats based on electricity pricing.

Also, at nighttime electricity is free in France because the country is 70% nuclear and they have more electricity than they know what to do with. As renewables like wind penetrate the grid further, similar situations will occur. Electricity will become cheap/free/maybe even negative in price to stimulate demand.

When this occurs, domestic savings will be very real.

But building real time systems for the consumer market is entirely different matter. Despite all the hub bub about smart meters and so forth, the potential savings of using real time systems is very small. In a recent trial in Canada using smart meters and real time energy pricing, the average monthly saving was less than $8. The reality is that real time energy systems are largely only of benefit to the utility in terms of load averaging.

Consumers dont have much leeway in terms of eliminating loads. They still need hot water. They still want to watch TV etc. Real time systems allow them to possibly shift the peak load and save a little bit of money in using off peak rates – but the savings are miniscule.

Bill