Reality Check | Ephraim Schwartz » Electric utility providers going digital

December 14, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Electric utility providers going digital

TAGS: Green IT

The combined reach of the electric power utility companies and IP technology are making for some interesting services.

First, remember that the utilities have a built-in, government approved, right of way for just about every location going back in some cases almost 100 years.

The utilities also have the infrastructure, the telephone poles and the wiring so to speak to go everywhere.

What may not be widely known is the fact that many utilities also own lots of fiber, some already lit and some still dark, i.e., unused.

I spoke with Dianne Lachel, a spokesperson for Click! Networks, a division of Tacoma Power. Click, is the telecommunications arm of the power company.

Smart meters, a digital power meter with a cable modem built in, is one of those services that comes about due to the combined right of way and IP technology.

These IP-enabled electric usage meters are in place in about 9,000 homes and businesses.

For the utility smart meters obviously save them money on sending out meter readers once a month or every other month. Also they don’t have to do estimated readings as many power companies do.

The meter also allows the utility to start and stop power delivery, also a money saver for the company especially in big apartment complexes where people are moving in and out on a fairly regular basis.

To me one of the most unusual services is called Pay As You Go. Yes, just like buying a prepaid cell phone card, users can buy a prepaid amount of energy.

A home or business gets an easy to read output device so that they can manage their own power consumption and cut back or buy more power as needed.

Pay As You Go has a great many social implications and the administration of this service probably needs to be regulated closely.

What it is actually doing is making the individual or company more responsible for its own consumption, but by doing that it also gives the utility an out when they cut power to a family that doesn’t pay up.

Add this capability to one already being used by other utility companies on an opt in basis at the moment, where the utility can actually measure the individual usage of each appliance in the home, and you can end up with the following scenario when power company is called in to explain to the local governing body why they shut off power to a particular home:

"Yes, we cut off such and suches power, but we know for a fact they had the air conditioner on every night and the outside temperature did not warrant it."

Lachel tells me Click doesn’t monitor individual appliance yet but with the smart meter the capability is there.

Click and other utilities also now offer VoIP and broadband.

This is a topic that deserves a lot more coverage and I will be doing just that in 2008.

Lachel tells me Click is at the forefront of the movement and I’ll be checking back with her and others in the very near future.

Posted by Ephraim Schwartz on December 14, 2007 08:46 AM

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