This week, research company Berg Insight predicted that installed smart meters will shoot past the 300-million mark worldwide by 2015. That’s a lot of meters. A whole lot. But, are we circling, here? Smart meters may be the heart of the smart grid, but where is the rest of the infrastructure we were promised? How is it developing? Are we going to get that intelligent overlay all the way up the path to the power plant, or is the concept of smart meters the only bit of fruition in our smart grid dreams?
The smart grid, overall, has had a lot of setbacks here in the U.S. recently: Boulder’s SmartGridCity project is facing serious doubts and extreme cost overruns (not to mention regulatory issues), utilities like Baltimore Gas & Electric have had their smart grid dreams shattered by public utility commissions that don’t share the vision, and many other utilities have significantly scaled back their smart grid plans to reflect growing consumer fears and economic issues.
But, apparently, the meter is just gonna keep on keeping on, keep on beating. It’s going to shed its problematic smart grid outer shell and emerge new and fresh and victorious.
According to Berg, during the next five years, penetration rates for smart metering technology are projected to increase from around 15–20 percent today to nearly 50 percent in Europe and North America, while Asia-Pacific is projected to soar from less than 1 percent to 25 percent by 2015.
Granted, a lot of this is helped by two things (at least in Europe and Asia): state-run utilities (especially in China and Korea) and regulation. While the regulatory bodies here in the U.S. balk, the regulatory bodies in Europe push. As even Berg admits, the key role in this meter overload is government. Even here in the U.S., while we don’t have the EU legislation demanding change, we do have an administration investing in grid technology as part of the stimulus, a suggested path, if not a push. And, the single most proven part of smart grid technology is, indeed, the smart meter.
“Smart metering is now a globally accepted mature mainstream technology,” said Tobias Ryberg, senior analyst with Berg Insight and author of the report on this meter influx. “All over the world we can see how IT and telecommunication has transformed the metering industry from a business of mechanical devices and manual labor to an arena for state-of-the-art technology in everything from wireless networking to data warehousing and complex system integration.”
Additionally, Berg Insight believes that a number of places around the world may near the 100% smart meter mark by 2020. While that’s all fine and dandy, it still leaves us to wonder where the rest of the smart grid tin man resides. Smart metering may be the heart he’s seeking, but it seems like the bulk of him is still significantly lost, running behind, forgotten along this yellow brick road to meter penetration.
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After smart meter deployment, the next logical step is time of use pricing. Do you think the PSC's will be amenable to TOU and the added complexity (and possibly higher bills for some customers)inherent in TOU pricing?
ReplyDeleteI have to say, personally, that I doubt TOU will happen for quite awhile---until we can prove with stats the efficiency of a upgraded grid network (which BGE ran into when they brought their first attempt at smart grid to a PSC). If there are enough pilot programs with good stats, we may get somewhere. But, TOU goes against the American grain of "cheap and in bulk." So, it could be a really hard one to manage.
ReplyDeleteEveryone talks about smart metering however what exactly is it capable of doing? What functionally can it do for the customer and the utility? Does it simply collect data and forward it to the utility or can it do command and control? NOT what could it do in the future; what can it do NOW? (with added the infrastructure in appliances etc.)
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with Michael the consumers need TOU forced on them because implementation will not happen without it. TOU represents real world costs. If those costs are passed along consumers will react and take measures to conserve and save.
I'm with you Jim, we need more clarity around terms like "smart metering" and "Smart Grid" as well! The DOE defines an "advanced" meter as a meter that can log energy intervals onboard and has some sort of communication capability....which is not all that smart in terms of what is possible with modern digital metering. So if consumers are resistant to TOU pricing, then the hope must be that the incentive for reducing peak time usage will be good stewardship of the planet. Perhaps a good first step would be to let people elect their billing plan, flat rate vs. TOU. Just please keep it simple, I don't need another cellphone-like bill to try to decipher!
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