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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brutus on October 27, 2006 - 2:16pm

It's totally smart. The cost of IT is negligible compared to the cost of energy. One hope we have is being much much smarter about how we use energy. The grid is a monopolistic controlled dumb animal. It's amazing how almost unanimously people in the industry fight the idea that more information can help the process become more efficient. We actually haven't even begun to think of ways we can better generate, distribute, and consume electricity if we had more information, yet the utilities and "consumer" advocates bitch and moan about how more information is too expensive. I even know people in the solar industry, who at this point will benefit most, who oppose it. That we have a monopoly system that wants to charge ridiculous prices for this information technology is a different matter and that's what people should be fighting.

Everyone needs to create and learn news way of using energy. Information is infinite, fossil fuels aren't.

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Stoneleigh on October 27, 2006 - 4:11pm

I am no advocate of a monolithic electricity system, nor of ill-informed passive consumption. I am not saying that more information is too expensive. In fact, I don't think this system gives consumers enough information and it doesn't give it to them when it would most benefit them from the point of view of making consumption decisions. The alternative will be discussed in Part II.

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brutus on October 28, 2006 - 1:54pm

Except you're using utility numbers to justify your conclusions, that's the problem. The grid is such an information free zone as to be criminal, everyone talks blind about electricity half the time, as they do about oil, how do you make decisions on things with such garbage information? You made a statement in a previous post about solar TOU meters costing 3 grand, at least you brought these down to 3 to 5 hundred. Think about it, you can buy a full scale stokin desk top for 3 hundred bucks today. For this, all you need is a digital clock, counter, and hook to phone line, the cost of this is in the tens of dollars not hundreds, thousands is ludicrous. This isn't just the utilities fault, all the IT folks are trying to profit as much as they can too, and who better to fleece than the utilities.

I remember the Y2k idiocy and the utilities were the first industry to claim compliance, why? there were no computers in the system. The guy running the grid at PGE in CA told me in '97 they would have problems if the, "Phone system went out." - hah!

The system needs more information to evolve. Consumers, farmers, everyone are going to be paying more for energy, so we have to figure out how to use it better. If you have an egalitarian/democratic ethic, we have to figure out how to do that most equitably, but consumer groups stick to their failed policies of promoting low cost as their only justification. If you care about consumers or farmers think about changing the system, and the first step to that is more information, period. I'm all open to debate on the best way to do that, but I'm not starting from utility bullshit.

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