Smart Meters
Most of America has a smart meter installed which replaces the meter with the rotating disk with five rotating dials which reads the kWh usage of your home or business. The smart meter is all digital with no moving parts. It is more accurate in its reading and performs more functions than the meter with the rotating disk!
The following are the new featured functions:
- A cell phone which can communicate to a computer in the Utilities control center.
- The control center can read your meter remotely.
- The smart meter can read your kW demand every hour.
- The control center can tell if there is an outage at your house or in the neithborhood.
- The control center can shut off the meter for non-payment.
- The smart meter elimates the need for meter readers.
The smart meter is primarly used for providing the Utility the kWh’s for billing. It also has a feature that can provide the monthly demand (kW) on an hourly basis in the month. By knowing the monthly demand (kW) the Utility could design a new rate which can help customers in reducing their electric bills. This new rate could be called a Time of Day rate or TOD. It would allow customers to use appliances during the off-peak period ata lower kWh rate than when on an on-peak when the kWh rate is higher. This type of rate is all ready in place for Commercial customers in many Utility companies. The lower kWh rate would be in places from 6 PM to 5 AM (off-peak time) and a higher kWh rate in place from 5 AM to 6PM (on-peak time). This time may vary in same Utilities. When the smart meters were installed in the AEP electric companies service areas, a router was provided to customers who wanted to monitor their usage on their smart phones. They could then watch their kWh usage on a daily basis and make necessary changes in electricity usage to reduce their bill. This program has since been discontinued due to budget cuts. This program is only mentioned as a feature of a smart meter. It could possibly be used again