Smart metering.....do you really know the implications.....?

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Smart metering,in case you are unaware of it,is slowly being rolled out throughout NZ by all the power companies.....you have no choice,and already its affect is slowly dawning upon the general populace.It is being marketed as the ultimate way of saving power costs as a choice to the consumer.....which is true in a somewhat twisted fashion in that it is purely logical in its application when applied to the "perfect world" scenario.Put simply,it measures in half hour "slots" whatever electricity you are using at any particular time of day and night and transmits that info wirelessly and continuously back to your supplier.
And it gives you,the customer,the availability to also see your useage simultaneously at any time via internet,and the COST of each of those slots whenever you want.And to put it even more simply,there are known time slots or "envelopes" when everybody knows they are quite likely to be using electricity more than usual during the "peak times".........that of between 6am to 10am,and 6pm to 9pm during the normal working week.
I dont know what the weekend envelopes would be but any Saturday morning is quite likely to be a "peak useage" time slot.What it means is that you will pay more for useage during those peak times and less during the off peak times in terms of cents per kilowatt hour consumption instead of the previous average rate that was spread over a 24 hour period multiplied by the number of days in any month.
Are you still with me here?Fortunately us here on this site are of that age group that dont have all the tribe crowding us out of the house and bathroom and fridge,so in many ways we are in the position of being able to "choose" (for that is the marketing ploy,that of "choice") WHEN we can use power cooking,heating,etc.....but start feeling sorry for your children,grown up they will be,and faced with unalterable time slots because of work,school,meals,hot water,requirements.And the only suggestion I can make that can lessen the impact to us,and perhaps them,is to manually switch off your water heating during those particular times of 6am to 10am and 5pm to say,10pm.
At least you can control about 30 to 50% of your power bill by that alone.
I say "control",not "reduce" by that amount for it still takes a certain amount of power to heat up a certain amount of water....you are just moving that consumption to a cheaper "zone" that could reduce the power bill.If you dont know where the H/W switches are or dont want to bother with the nuisuance of starting yet another new "habit",then it's all a matter of choice for you........isnt it?
Welcome to the new world folks.
Pete 

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