The Age newspaper carried the story "Plug pulled on smart meter plan" on 23 March 2010 explaining that it would be further investigating the impact on the poor and the aged. I have to wonder about the reason being given for the suspension of the project part way through the project which is supposed to be completed by 2013.
Part of the problem lies with the rather poor job the utilities and the government has done about educating consumers about the Smart Grid. Here are just examples to two of the utility company web pages describing smart meters
And here is the link to the Department of Primary Industries smart meters webpage
There is lots of information about why it is being done and a whole lot of information about billing and references to time of use billing which is fine but conspicuously absent from all the information is the real benefit to the consumer. All they know in reality is that there is now a new charge for "metering" and no real benefits from an energy consumption cost perspective.
Maybe the problem is that both the utility companies and the government cannot reconcile the initiative to the fact that most Victorians will be seeing massive increases to their energy bills even without the increased cost of carbon trading.
There is no doubt that smart meters are an essential element of rolling out a smart grid. But the consumers have not been educated about the big picture nor have they really been provided with any incentives. All they see is more costs for a commodity - power. I am an advocate for reducing carbon emissions and the use of renewable energy but these kind of bungles gives the industry a bad name. When are we ever going to learn that to change consumer behaviour requires much more than just dropping in smart meters.
There needs to be a more concerted and widespread education program. What can consumers expect to gain apart from real time reading and understanding of their energy consumption patterns. There has been precious little explanation about how they can cut their energy bills. Is it any wonder that the poor and disadvantaged are worst hit
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