Baby Boomer Family – Home Power Hogs
Welcome to this weeks edition of Baby Boomer Family – Home Power Hogs
Show Notes:
With inexpensive electronic devices you can now monitor what is using the most electricity and when. With that knowledge you can adjust your use of electricity and save money. Today most of us have no real idea about what uses the most electricity and if we try to manage it, what effect will it have. So for those of us looking to reduce our use of electric power, these inexpensive energy monitors will help. The price for this automation is coming down. It has dropped from $30,000 to $5,000 and is still dropping.
The power companies are starting to look into smart meters. Smart meters will monitor your electricity use. It will be able to help you control your cost. During emergencies it can selectively reduce the power supplied to your home, preventing a power outage. California is looking into a trial of these smart meters. If this and other trials work, perhaps we will see tiered pricing for electricity. Higher during the peaks and lower on off peak times. With a smart meter and a home monitor you could save even more money.
Filed under Baby Boomer Family by 
Leave a Comment
Comments on Baby Boomer Family – Home Power Hogs
This is only the first step in the Utilities' scheme of boosting rates through the proverbial roof. There are already bills in the NYS Senate and Assembly to allow the PSC to mandate Time of Use rates. The last time they mandated TOU rates, the peak rate from 10-6 during the day was a whopping 38.70 cents a kwh. The ability to mandate was legislated out of existence in 1996, and the Utilities are trying once more to institute this program. People's rates will rise 3-4 times the current rates, and unfortunately, there are just too may appliances which can not be turned off, and too many people who must be at home during the day, such as the elderly, and mothers with small children – they can not do without some air conditioning in the hot summer months. This program DOES NOT save energy – it has already been proven with the fiasco in the early 90s. What it DOES do is line the pockets of the Utilities with windfall profits.
Thanks for your comment. Very interesting information I was not familiar with.
Does anyone else have a comment on this important topic?