The 15 minute reporting is also nothing to play down, being that resolution before the ‘Smart Meters’ was 30 days, or roughly 3000 times as long. What 15 minutes means is that anyone that can access your meter’s data will likley know the following:
a) When people go to bed at night
b) When people wake up in the morning
c) When people go to work in the morning
d) When people come home from work in the evening
e) When people leave to go on vacation
f) When people return from vacation
That depends. If you use electric heat, or during air conditioning months, the high draw appliances will dwarf a typical electric light. If you have gone to mostly florescent and LED, it would be very difficult to tell when the bedroom lights went off. Other high draw appliances (e.g. dehumidifier, refrigerator, electric hair driers, electric clothes dryers and stoves, toaster ovens, microwave ovens, coffee makers, some power tools, would be impossible to separate from each other in a house with standard wiring, and hardly worth the trouble. A typical light bulb draws 60 watts, an equivalent flourescent 20 and an LED less than that. The dehumidifier in the basement and the refrigerator will draw 1500. That hydroponics operation will draw more still.
On a scale of 1 to 10 for concern, I give this a 2, and that only because of what they MIGHT build off of from this in the future. I think the free market idea would work. $5 discount for those who want the smart meter so that they don't have to send a man to check your meter every month. I gladly pay $2 a quarter for a paper bill from my garbage hauler because I want a tangible bill from the source. We can do the same with electric.
“That depends. If you use electric heat, or during air conditioning months, the high draw appliances will dwarf a typical electric light. If you have gone to mostly florescent and LED, it would be very difficult to tell when the bedroom lights went off. Other high draw appliances (e.g. dehumidifier, refrigerator, electric hair driers, electric clothes dryers and stoves, toaster ovens, microwave ovens, coffee makers, some power tools, would be impossible to separate from each other in a house with standard wiring, and hardly worth the trouble. A typical light bulb draws 60 watts, an equivalent flourescent 20 and an LED less than that. The dehumidifier in the basement and the refrigerator will draw 1500. That hydroponics operation will draw more still. “
You may want to look at the plots they already have on residential power usage before getting too smug. It’s MORE THAN OBVIOUS when activity is going on. And, as the meters get smarter and smarter, it only becomes that much more obvious.