The Oil Drum: Canada | How Smart is Ontario's Smart Metering Plan?

37 comments on How Smart is Ontario's Smart Metering Plan?

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Amy on October 27, 2006 - 6:04pm

"besides won't $500 pay for 6 months worth of electricity for many folk?"

I don't know about Canada; I live in the U.S, in GA, in a fairly small house for the area (1200 sq. ft.). Our annual electric bill runs about $600, but we heat with nat. gas and pellet fuel, and the hot water tank and stove/oven run on nat. gas; the annual amount we spend for nat. gas plus pellet fuel has been about $950 the last two years. In other words, our total household fuel bill is closer to $1500 annually than to $1000.

I have friends whose furnaces and water tanks are also natural gas appliances and who routinely spend considerably more than $100 per month on electric alone (they live in bigger houses and are less fanatical than I am about turning things off). If we all had "all-electric" homes, we would spend WAY more than $500 in 6 months. Of course, that might be incentive to find ways to cut back!

-Amy W.

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Valuethinker on October 30, 2006 - 9:56am

I would imagine in Georgia the key is what is your electricity for air conditioning bill? ie for most people, air con is the big consumer rather than heating?

Have you looked into air source heat pumps?

http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=airsrc_heat.pr_as_heat_pumps

given your bills are small it is probably not worth the capital expenditure unless you are due a revamp already.

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