By Carl

If you want to conserve energy, a good way to start is by understanding how much you currently use, and what you use it on.

A classic example is the MPG indicator in many new cars, such as the Prius. There is a wealth of anecdotal evidence that this indicator alone increases gas mileage by changing driving style (although this has never been formally studied, AFAIK). People try to get the best mileage they can, family members compete against each other, etc.

There is now an analogue for electricity use. A Smart Meter is a device that measures your instantaneous electricity use. The wide-scale use of Smart Meters, was in Woodstock, Ontario, where they were introduced as part of a prepayment plan. According to one account:

The utility soon noticed that consumption had fallen for those on the program by an average of 15%. This had not been anticipated as no conservation information had been provided. Indeed initially, the utility thought the reduction must be some sort of technical problem and attempted to solve it. Eventually they realized that the effect must be real and began to study it. The program was opened up to the whole customer base and has become so popular that there is a waiting list to be part of it. Customers typically save more per month from reduced consumption (15-20%) than they pay (as a small daily supplement to actual consumption) to be part of the program.

What Woodstock Hydro had inadvertently discovered was that they had managed to design a program which tapped into customers’ psychological drivers for conservation. With real-time feedback, consumers could immediately see the price consequences of any given act of consumption. By watching the display unit in their kitchen, they could see the balance on their card decrease at different rates depending on their own actions. As a result, they quickly learned for themselves how to keep that decrease as slow as possible. In short, they had been transformed from passive consumers into active consumers.

Since then, Smart meters have been widely deployed. The largest utility in Italy deployed Smart meters to 27 million customers between 2000 and 2005. In various publications, it “estimated the cost of the project at approximately 2.1 billion Euros and the savings they are receiving in operation of 500 million Euros per year, an astonishing 4 year payback.”

Here in the US, they are just beginning to be deployed. One of the very first deployments in the nation is right here in Massachusetts. (NStar calls it the first in the nation, even though PG&E appears to already have a similar program in California.)

NStar will be selling Blue Line Innovation’s Power Cost Monitors for $30 to the first 200 customers who sign up. (It costs $135, if bought directly from Blue Line). Technically, the Power Cost Monitor is not a Smart Meter, since it doesn’t connect to the Net, but its pretty close.

Mine arrived a week or two ago, and its very nice. I installed one unit on my meter, and put the display on my kitchen counter (the two parts communicate wirelessly). The display is about 6 inches tall; it gives the rate at which I am currently using electricity (in kwatts or $$), the amount of killowatts used since I last reset the counter, as well as random pieces of information like the outside temperature.) I have learned quite a bit about how I use my electricity.

For example, by using the Power Cost Monitor with my trusty kill-a-watt (which tells how much electricity a single device uses), I learned that my refrigerator 1) uses almost as much electricity as the rest of my house put together, and 2) uses roughly 5 times as much energy as a new energy-star fridge would. (I also estimate the payback time on a new fridge at 3 to 5 years.)

Its also fun to walk around the house watch in real time (ok, 30 second delay) my electricity usage change as I flip lights on and off. Easy to see that, yes, CFLs really do save electricity and money.

And I now have a pretty good understanding exactly how I use all my electricity. This makes it easier to focus my conservation efforts on the low-hanging fruit (i.e., biggest energy wasters).

The $30 price (which includes shipping) is only available to the first 200 NStar customers. NStar is planning to see how much electricity these customers save. If results warrant, the monitors will be rolled out on a larger scale.

At $30, I would definitely recommend buying one. If the average customers uses one to cut electricity use by 1% (much less than the average), it will pay for itself within a few years at most.

If you’re an NStar customer, go to http://www.save-electricity.ca

and click on “Buy now” or call 1-866-607-2583. You’ll need your NStar account number.

PS Late-breaking note: See this DailyKos post describing how WBZ-TV ran a segment on a feature on an early adopter of this program earlier tonight. The two minute video is here. (NStar is working closely with local TV stations.. they also contacted me, but unfortunately I’m generally not in Sudbury during business hours).

(Disclaimer: Despite the fact that this may read like an advertisement, neither I now anyone I know personally has any financial interest whatsoever in any of the companies or products mentioned in this post.)