I used to work for a smart meter manufacturer. There were lots of discussions on how the information collected by the meter/system could be utilized and possibly sold as other revenue streams.
One particular meeting involved a couple of reps from an insurance company. Their interest was about developing patterns of homeowners. One of the possible scenarios was identifying people that consistently saw a spike in power usage in the home around the 2am to 3am timeframe on Fridays and Saturdays only. Something that could be triggered by a person coming back from a bar or club.
While there are some benefits that could be gained in certain areas such as remote shut-off valves in the case of an earthquake, a sudden spike in usage which could be a sign of a leak, etc.; I personally wouldn't be interested in having one om my home.
Unless it's a main-line (i.e. between cities) such a infrastructure would be ridiculous (just in the number of [possible] points of failure) -- a better system would have automatic mechanical shutoffs installed on the lines (a) branching from the main [city-to-city] line, and (b) branching from the city-line to the house -- this one is apparently fully mechanical -- and have some sort of way to check pressure on each side of the shutoff.