<rant>
To most it is no secret that I spend a lot of time following the news, especially with regard to the web and energy. I’m a geek for that – and is my job. I was thrown on the topic about one and a half years ago, and I couldn’t resist it. That was the time when the now soon-to-be-abandoned “social media” was still called Web2.0 (yeah, seems like forever ago, doesn’t it?), the iPad was still a year out, Android and Google were still good, in short, all was well.
It was an exciting time to jump the Smart Grid Bandwagon, as it wasn’t huge topic (it still isn’t, but the area has grown considerably), the tech seemed convincing and the prospect of the market was immense.
Fast forward 18 months and frustration mounts, as the most promising projects suffer under mismanagement and higher-than-anticipated costs, the press are suckers for every story that portrays the downfall of hyped-technology, especially in the context of energy. And then there’s the studies, as the latest by German market research firm Forsa for the German consumer protection agency saying that less than 50% actually know what a smart meter is, and even if briefed, most of them wouldn’t bother to have one. They fear additional costs.
Costs has been the predominant argument against any progress in the field. State regulators in the US fry utilities for their proposed smart meter rollouts, and the only successful widespread roll outs (Italy, I’m looking at you) have been justified with the ability to detect and prevent electricity theft.
The core of the problem: as the forsa study rightfully points out: the consumer doesn’t care. He never does, and especially not so in terms of energy. He cares when there is no electricity in his home, and he cares once a year when he get’s the bill and is enraged for the amount he is supposed to pay. But there’s a chicken-egg problem here. We clearly need to help educate the consumer, even some knowledge about the consumption levels would help. Ironically, the very means of achieving this education, a visualisation of consumption, is blocked by that very fact that this education is lacking.
Usually this would be a chance for the geeks. Build their own devices, building software on top of that, watching and waiting for the market to mature. And there is experiments. There is homesense (backed by EDF) which gives participants of its project Arduino kits and let’s them do whatever with them (arguably, their focus is on homeautomation, not smart metering) but that’s not enough.
Sure, it’s a tough market, dominated by oligopolistic players, heavily politicised and un-sexy as hell.
But when we want to talk about the internet of things, don’t we need to talk about energy? This is the prime implementation. Where are the geeks?
</rant>
∞
I guess it really boils down to a mail-order apparatus for 30 EUR which you actually can plug-in in your regular switch box and get a reading with the free iPhone app. Or something like that. A little DIY, a gaming factor (like “I bet I can drive this Touran in the city with under 10km/l”). I am going to move into a new apartment in October and we’ll have some interface options. Maybe Wattson can be a solution, but I don’t even know what we’ll get, specifically. However, what frustrates me even more is the “global” perspective in Germany. Why so little (brain) energy is spent on optimizing the grid. Make sure power can be stored so that wind and solar power don’t go to waste and are there for peaks (or for switching off nuclear power plants for that matter). Maybe the customers think as long as “they” don’t get their shit together my little home energy saving plans don’t amount to much.
You’re probably right about the monitoring solution. Add another box (unfortunately, a lot of people can’t do that, esp. so if the meter is in the basement) to measure your consumption. There are some solutions like that out in the market. However, they’re mostly targeted at the American or British market. The problem with most of these solutions is, that they silo your data. We’re having the same issue here as we do with Facebook, for instance, only that for most people energy data is more severe.
For a global or even just German perspective, I’m desperately waiting for the “Energy Paper” of our dear administration. But my point of view is: as long as we allow nuclear power to stay on the line for even longer, the transmission lines will be clogged, new transmission lines are incredibly expensive, and thus renewables will get bogged down. (please note that this is my personal opinion as is everything I write in this blog.) Regarding customer attitudes, I have been in customer support long enough to realize the cynical truth that most people indeed do not care as long as they don’t feel it in their wallets. Social pressure might work to convince people to adapt their consumption habits (OPower is doing amazing work on that) but neither of these solutions are particularly uncontroversial as to many energy is a basic right (which it should be) but this makes any efforts or legislating or innovating for change incredibly hard. (I think I should write more on that later.)
[...] had a rant of my own on that topic, because unfortunately the truth is: most consumers simply don’t care about [...]