Understanding and Connecting Smart Meters, Smart Grids, and Smart Markets.
- Lynne Kiesling
November 11th, 2011
Via GreenMonk, an interesting article on the potential for utilities to use smart meter data to introduce innovative revenue-generating services. While we are in full agreement that utilities need to start thinking of themselves as true energy service providers – with a full ecosystem of services alongside their core mandate of selling water, power, natural gas, etc. – the gap between today’s reality of digital readers and utilities’ conservative, generation-focused mindset is so significant that we wonder when this type of idea could ever be implemented. Perhaps consumers – perhaps consumers akin to having a choice of home security providers to choose from (ADT, etc.) – could choose to have their digital meter data directed to a provider of their choice who could monitor it on their behalf? Now that might be smart indeed.
Utility companies face significant challenges in the coming years, not least of which is the the need to increase revenues while helping customers reduce their consumption.
One trump card they will have is the data from their smart meter rollouts. This will enable them to offer energy services around the data which would not previously have been possible.
Simple examples of this are the ability to alert people if their consumption is about to tip them into a higher tariff band or, for people with holiday homes, a notification if the lights turn on when their property is supposed to be unoccupied.
These would be quite basic offerings – but with a little bit of thought one can imagine other higher value options.
Consider that according to the US Census Bureau:
The world’s 65-and-older population is projected to triple by midcentury, from 516 million in 2009 to 1.53 billion in 2050.
Further, there are currently 30 million solo-single households in the United States (more than the number of households containing married couples with children) and about one-third of these solo singles are men and women 65 years of age and older. The percentage is even higher in Europe.
Now, if I have an elderly relative living alone, wouldn’t it be a very useful service if I could receive a timely message from their utility company if there are deviations from the normal patterns of energy usage (if the lights aren’t turned off at 11pm or the coffee machine/kettle isn’t powered up at 8am)?
This kind of service should be quite straightforward for electricity utilities to provide once they start receiving the detailed energy usage data which smart meters will deliver. This will enable utilities to transition to becoming suppliers of energy services and open up entirely new revenue streams for them.
This entry was posted on Friday, November 11th, 2011 at 2:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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Based on decades of experience and interest in conservation, Monty Simus believes that a truly “smart” grid must be a “transactive” grid, unshackled from its current status as a so-called “natural monopoly.”
In short, an unlocked grid must adopt and harness the power of markets to incentivize individual users, linked to each other on a large scale, who change consumptive behavior in creative ways that drive efficiency and bring equity to use of the planet's finite and increasingly scarce resources.