![]() “I don’t expect the minutiae of what I did in my house to be fair game,” Shear said. This detailed data could be sold to outside companies for marketing or other purposes, he said. For example, a refrigerator could use information from a smart meter to cool down at a point in the day when energy is relatively cheap.īut bringing appliances online will just give utility companies and potential hackers a more intimate portrait of what’s going on in a person’s home, Shear said. She said utility companies have had no data breaches, and though she expects they will eventually, she says consumers are at very little risk because the meters aren’t transmitting personal financial information such as credit card numbers.Īnd, proponents say, criminals looking to rob a home are much more likely to lurk outside someone’s house than they are to hack their network.Įventually more people will have appliances that hook into a home’s smart meter to use power more efficiently, saving them money on utility bills, Harnish said. ![]() Patty Durand, the group’s director, said the meters don’t transmit that kind of data and only send information about how much electricity is being used. In fact I see them becoming more complex as more utility companies install these technologies,” said Shear, who also worries that hackers could steal customers’ personal and financial information.īut advocates for smart meters - such as the nonprofit Smart Grid Consumer Collaborative, which is supported by utility companies, and consumer and conservation groups - say those worries are misplaced. For example, by looking at when power is being used, a thief could determine when a house is empty, said Bradley Shear, a Maryland-based privacy lawyer. But few people actually choose to opt out of smart meters, said Marc Harnish, an analyst with the EIA.īecause smart meters convey information over wireless networks, some opponents worry the data they transmit could be stolen and used by criminals to target individual homes. Maryland residents who reject smart meters pay a $75 one-time fee and an additional $5.50 each month. Glen Glass, a Republican from Maryland who plans to introduce legislation that would prevent utility companies from charging extra to customers who refuse smart meters. “There’s no reason to charge someone for something they don’t want,” said Del. Eighty-nine percent of those were installed in homes.īut opponents say the meters have been forced upon consumers who don’t want the digital devices and the fees many utility companies charge those customers are unjust. The meters are touted as a way to cut energy use and save customers money by allowing better monitoring of consumption so utilities can adjust production and consumers can change their habits.īuoyed by $200 million in federal funding in 2009, utilities had installed nearly 52 million smart meters by 2013, according to the U.S. And energy industry representatives say the devices make it easier to pinpoint and respond to power outages, and could lead to more accurate pricing that reflects how gas and electricity costs fluctuate throughout the day. Only 8% of households reported being aware that they had access to hourly or daily data, and just 4% said they had accessed or viewed that data.The meters also allow consumers to track their own energy use. In that year, 22% of households reported having a smart meter, 49% reported not having one, and 29% responded that they did not know. EIA last conducted the Residential Energy Consumption Survey (RECS) in 2015, a year when residential smart meter adoption was about 44% nationwide. Many residential customers may not be aware that they have a smart meter. The Smart Electric Power Alliance publishes reports on state-level actions on advanced metering, among other topics. In 2016, Texas added the most residential AMI meters of any state, installing smart meters on more than 200,000 customer accounts.ĭifferences in smart meter penetration rates are often driven by state legislation and regulation, as some states require that regulators approve utilities’ cost recovery mechanisms for metering projects. Six other states had a residential AMI penetration rate higher than 80% in 2016: Maine, Georgia, Michigan, Oklahoma, California, and Vermont. Washington, DC, has the highest AMI penetration rate at 97%, followed by Nevada at 96%. Residential smart meter penetration rates vary widely by state. Energy Information Administration, Annual Electric Power Industry Report
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |