With all the talk in the news at the moment around Google entering, in beta form at least, the smart grid/power meter market, I thought it would be a good opportunity to provide some details of my experience using a smart meter.
Having spent a significant amount of time researching and reading around the subject of smart metering for the work I undertook for the World Economic forum, I decided to purchase a Wattson—one of the first consumer-type devices in the market. First off, it is a very smart-looking device that can be left anywhere in the house, providing a changing color display and LED readout. I have mine in my home office/study area so when I am working from home I can keep an eye on what is happening.
The device connects to the house electric feed, so although it does not provide a breakdown on specific appliances it does give an overall reading. The software provides data in three key views: electrical usage, financial cost for the electricity and carbon emissions.
I had always thought that I was pretty good at keeping things switched off. I always turn the television off at the wall rather than using standby and lights are not left on when leaving a room, but the smart meter quickly showed that the base load was actually quite high. I spent a few hours going round the house, turning things off and watching the reduction in power usage in real time.
Toothbrush and mobile phone chargers were identified as larger-than-expected unnecessary power draws as was an outside light with a movement sensor. Specific items also give a real shock when the amount of electricity they are using was shown. The kettle, toaster and oven provide an amazing response on the device with the LED display adding extra digits while the small electric room heater has been banished in shame with extra jumpers now considered a far better solution.
Even starting from what I thought was a pretty good position, the device should have a payback within the first year if we can keep the changes made in place (which is clearly helped by having constantly updated data), but I am sure for others the payback could be significantly less. I was very tempted to take it round and loan it to the neighbours who leave their lights on all the time but was not sure how well that would go down.
I will be interested to see how the result actually plays out when the next electricity bill arrives when compared with the same period last year. I might have to try and find a smart water meter next to keep track on all those showers and baths!
By Andrew Skinner, UK Data Center Technology & Operations