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Wake up! Big Brother will be Reading your
Electricity Meters
By the year 2012, the UK Government’s Smart Meter scheme is due to be launched and every UK home will be fitted with its own meter which will stand out by having one easy-to-read monitor. The importance of the meter installation has been overshadowed slightly by discussions of the wide range of advantages that self-reading digital monitoring that these smart meters will bring, and how much money they will save for the average householder. To begin with, the average cost per home to install a new smart meter will be just £15, while installing a smart meter today independently will mean a layout of at least £100.
It is expected that by the end of 2020 all 27 million homes in Britain, even the most remote, will be have been fitted with meters that will monitor electricity use. Detailed information of every UK family's energy use behaviour will be use transmitted in real time to the supply companies who provide electricity on a localized basis. This information will then pass through an ever-widening series of data gathering points till it eventually reaches "big brother" - The Government's Department of Energy. Sources say that the advantage of having access to national energy consumption will bring with it the ability to anticipate peak and troughs of demand.
From the consumers view point, estimates are that the average UK household will save around 2% of their average energy bills each year. The theory behind that piece of think was based on the projection that most families will be able to clearly see that see that they are going over their monthly budget and start to curtail their daily use of gas and electricity. Trials in the UK have stated many positive examples of energy savings, while there were widespread reports of people failing to take the meter reading exercise too seriously, with many not bothering to change the meter's auxiliary batteries once they ran out.
On a larger scale, critics were no slow to point out that the projected £8 billion scheme would only save around £30 for each of the 27 million families who ware due to be hooked up to the smart meters, meaning that it will take around ten years before the costs are recovered, with most of them falling eventually on the consumer.
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