Nine Million Smart Meters Installed Nationwide
Worker for NV Energy installing a smart meter - Photo courtesy of NV Energy
As part of the Department of Energy’s Recovery-funded efforts to accelerate the modernization of the country’s electric grid, approximately 9 million smart meters have already been installed in homes and businesses nationwide. Ultimately, DOE’s goal is to have 15.5 million installed.
Smart meters are available at no charge to home or business owners through participating utility companies except in states where a small Public Utility Commission-mandated fee applies. Contact your electricity provider for details.
Smart meters give consumers access to near real-time information about their energy consumption, allowing them to make better-informed decisions about their use of electricity. The meters also provide utility companies with greater information about how much electricity is being used. Smart meters are just one among many advanced technologies used by utilities to sense, monitor, control and automate the distribution of electricity, collect and exchange usage information with customers, manage power loads more efficiently and reduce cost.
While smart meters have been deployed in every state, nearly 90 percent of those installed to date are in Florida, Texas, California, Idaho, Arizona, Oklahoma, Michigan, and Nevada.
For more information about DOE’s smart grid activities visit the Smart Grid Website.
As a home owner, I can agree it’s helpful to know what your energy use is at any given time. Being able to access the data and run your own reports would really be worthwhile. You could analyze your own usage and make adjustments to how you use energy in your home.
Working for an electrical distribution company, we deal with smart grids almost daily. They really offer a lot of nice benefits for homeowners, and businesses as well. I think it’s great that they’re becoming more popular, and 9 million is a great number. More states should follow this trend.
Smart meters are fine. But I’d much prefer that the power companies concentrate on energy deregulation. Consumers would save far more through energy deregulation than they would through the use of smart meters. Also, I’d like to see the power companies put greater emphasis on protecting the power grid from a solar electromagnetic pulse…