MY GAPAW/ GA MAW. HAD NO CAR/TRACTOR/ LIGHTS/ GAS/ USED GAS LAMPS. WATER FROM A WELL. BOTH LIVED IN THERE 90S. HE USED HORSES/ FOR WORK/ AND GOING TO TOWN. THERE WERE NO NIGGERS AROUND EITHER. NO SPICKS/ GOOKS.NO INDAINS LIKE OBAMA/ THAT MUSLEM COMMIE BASTARD. SAID THE CIVAL KILLED ALOT OF YENKE BASTARDS. LIVEED IN MO/ WOULD SHOOT ANYONE THAT CAME ON HIS LASD/ YOU KNOW GOVENMENT ASSHOLES AND NIGGERS AND ALL OTHER MISFITS/ SAID GOV PRICKS CAN EAT THE CORN OUT OF MY SHIT/ INCLUDING THAT PIECE OF SHIT OBAMA

Am reading all these posts somewhat late to the convo---but being in ME, why can't I figure out who Cal for Gov. (of ME) is? Guess I need to check w/ tv stations--can't figure it from any other place-- unless it's you Kevin _______...??

"

RE: Cal for Gov. of Maine

I'm single and push 500kw a month and am hardly ever home. How do you run a house or apartment or whatever on a "generous" 200kW a month and still have water, light and heat not to mention cooking."

No kidding. We are two in a fairly weatherproofed 1 bedroom apartment, and we easily hit 350-400kw without turning on the heat much at all. Our apartments have an interior hallway that is very helpful in insulating the unit. The hot water heater is less than 5 years old, as is the refrigerator. Mostly, we run a laptop (less than a year old), a regular computer (custom built energy saving, less than 1 year old), and a few light bulbs. We rarely even have the TV on. There's really not a lot more we could cut easily.

As far as a penalty goes, no way. Those in apartments in particular have practically zero control over weatherization of their units, and there isn't really much of a financial incentive to owners to weatherize them either. Why should an apartment renter be penalized for things that are out of their control? I sure hope he meant 200kw per person at the least.

RE: Joe C, Lexington, KY (Sent Oct 9, 2009 6:47:07 PM)

maybe you should familiarize yourself with "BPL" ... Broadband over Power Lines ... before you tell us all how stupid we are.

It took me a few minutes to respond to the article, as I had to stop the giggle fits first. Not sure if we can trust the utility companies? That's like saying the same about a dog foaming at the mouth while biting everything in sight. (Even sounds like a utility company.) Big brother is watching, will continue to watch and it will be a cold day in Hell before a Smart Grid meter is hooked to my home.

Dear Peter from san francisco - Put the bong down and step away. Know what you're takling baout before you type frivilous drivel.

Don't hide nothing...hide something, if you have anything to hide

This new smartgrid should not be used to control someones home appliances or change a consumer more from having more power usage than a neighbor. Power usage comparisons cannot possible relate the power requirements of a specific family. The data should rather be used to make it easy to predict power requirements and how to properly upgrade the energy grid.

I've been working for some time now on a Smart Grid proxy simulator. Basically, you plug the Smart Grid connection from the utility into the simulator circuit board, and it automatically tells the utility whatever you want it to.

That way, you get the discounts without having the utility control your life or knowing any real information about you. By setting a few dip switches, you can create any "profile" you want and look like a model citizen. It randomizes the responses so the returned data looks real but not revealing...

The loss of privacy is scary enough, but combine that with the most overzealous, puritanical criminal justice system on the planet. The smart grid will be used to convict people for "crimes" that are none of the government's business.

I agree that privacy concerns are valid, just considering the hundreds of spam email messages I get each day. But there is another, larger, benefit to smart grids that needs to be pointed out. That is the ability for individuals and businesses to participate in the grid as energy entrepreneurs. You may have a wind generator and solar panels at your location. With a smart grid, the utility can manage peak loads by offering to pay more or less for electricity as needed. If they are offering twice the usual rate at high noon in August, then you may elect to shut off all appliances you don't really need and divert as much power as possible from your generators back to the grid. This might go so far as tapping extra stored energy in your electric car or a home backup battery. At 3AM, when the rates are perhaps half the average, you could elect to power up the washer and dryer or dishwasher and also recharge your batteries at a cheap rate.

Protection of individual rights, including the right not to participate in utility control of your appliances and your privacy rights are really the proper role of government. After all, we're the voters. If our liberties are being threatened, then it is up to us to make sure our elected representatives know that we will not stand for commercial intrusion or the misuse of our personal information. We've been all too passive on this over the last decade.

Trust us, we have you best interest at heart. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. ~ Bill, Houstron, Tx (Sent Oct 9, 2009 5:33:38 PM)

Amen, Brother Bill!!!

They already know how much power we use because they meter it and bill us for it. They already know if we pay them promptly or not. That's all they need to know.

it will be fine until people start dying from hypo / hyper thermia---dehydration or some other cognitive / temperature related issue. Personally I want OFF the grid

Perhaps someone in-the-know about how these "smart meters" work, could post something on YouTube on how to "outsmart" them. That would be really funny and fun!

Dear Jeffrey Doe, Norfolk, VA,
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide."

Oh great! Please provide: your ss#, date of birth, physical address, any health problems, your annual salary,your mother's maiden name, where you work, when you leave for work, when you come home, the number of people that live in your home, your bank account number, routing number, the car you drive and the the license plate number on that car.
You can provide that right here for all of us who are hiding to see. Thanks!

RE: Cal for Gov. of Maine

I'm single and push 500kw a month and am hardly ever home. How do you run a house or apartment or whatever on a "generous" 200kW a month and still have water, light and heat not to mention cooking.

Teach me!!

Whatever happened to the Fourth Ammendment? It is there to protect you. It can not protect you from yourself.

Off the beaten path...coul someone tell me how to make this blog ..... or whatever it is..read chronologicaly rather than have to read it bottom to top? I'll be hanged if I can figure it out.

There is no such thing as privacy anymore. Every aspect of your life is known by someone, somewhere. Data bases are filled with information about you, and regardless of how accurate that info is, it matters only to you. The companies use whatever is there and falsely assme the data is correct. The only way to avoid complete control is to become unplugged and live the life of a recluse with no touch with the world at large. And that's almost impossible.

The electric company sends a pulse signal across their electric lines to a device connected to the power on your condensing(outside AC) unit telling it to cut the power to your condensing unit, your interior thermostat is still calling for cooling so your interior fan is running. No signal goes back to the power company telling them that the condensing unit has cut the power, there'd be too many signals going across the power lines as they're single cables as oppose to the multiple strands of fiber optics for ethernet. A similar signal goes out roughly fifteen minutes later telling turning the power back on to the condensing unit. The system is not sophisticated enough to handle the number of signals required if the power company wanted to data mine the system. The paranoid ones thinking this is a big brother plot need a life, better yet they need to learn how electrical and communication systems work!

I think the idea of appliances being networked and sharing information is a good idea. The concern, like many other similar concerns, is who will have access to the data that's being collected.

Who cares what data they collect? Have you not noticed the ads for travel that pop up right after you do a search for airline flights on the internet?You have complete control of your life, UNLESS you are illiterate and ignorant and spend yourself into debt. The keyword is DEBT. If you have DEBT, it's because you are too lazy or impatient and sign yourself into the debt of another or some entity, thusby giving someone control over your life. Now you care about what information is collected about your life, though not for the right reason. Quit trying to demonize Capitalism, it's what makes this country great.

Trust us, we have you best interest at heart. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.

Can you imagine Pelosi or Reid or Obama using this information, presented in public to shame specific heavy users for not doing their part of supporting the needs of the many. For putting their comfort over the wants of the poor, unwashed and depraved. The day is soon, ...

When I lived in Florida I had one of theose peak use limit my electricity installed. Technology was no where near what it is today but if that system was used it was great. I recieved a 20% discount on the rate plus a flat $5 per month credit. Today I doubt I would take it unless it reduced available power to the whole house not just a certain appliance. The smart grid is never going to save power or money. Someone has to pay for the technology and electrical power is made, transmitted, used or lost, storage is available but still highly expencive. Usage, capacity of such items as electricity fall under economies of scale. If use falls below X level prices are forced up per unit of use because of fixed costs. The only known solution has been to create power closer to the use point. almost 50% of electric created in the USA is lost through transmission. To save elctricity and not build more facilities there is a clear cut option. Every street light in the USA should be hooded and made to be LED. Hoods prevent scatter meaning light is focused to where it is needed and LED use far less cost. We could reduce public area lighting costs and power usage by over 80% which translate into roughly the power used by New York City and Los Angeles in one easy step. Add in banning lighting of office and public buildings when they are closed would reduce power by the needs of New England. These two methods alone would cut the need for electrical generation by almost 20% for the USA. I personally hate conserving and seeing my rates increase so add a penalty rate for people who use more then a generous 200KW per month and this must be paid out of pocket for even those on welfare.

Sounds like cool technology. I would love to observer my power with that application. I dont have a problem with this as I run on solar power and I can turn the power company off as needed. I wonder how that will work with smart grid technology.

Come on- Big Brother aka Barbara Boxer and John Kerry know what you should set your heat and AC at and when you should do your dishes and wash and that you're staying up way to late watching letterman, so they'll just shutdown the TV. It's all called that Hope and Change you wanted and voted for. How do you like it folks? Just relax, sit back and enjoy the dictatorhip.

The majority of this article is paranoid bullcrap. Sure many of the details are correct, but taken to a extreme "They're out to get us!' lunatic fringe conclusions. Unlike the rest of the world; I know that the vast majority of people in Wisconsin are good hard working people. Perhaps I'm just spoiled.

For all of you who think that the "conspiracy theorists" are a bunch of idiots, turn on your smart grid controlled coffee pot and smell the coffee. All of your arguments are pretty naive; you better believe when big business gets together with big goverment with the help of big brother, the main one who loses is everyone else. For those of you who think that the power companies have too much to do to keep track of your personal information, someone who can make a dollar off of that information would be happy to pay a nickel for it and write a software program to make it happen. For those of you who think that picking up user patterns from this data is impossible, I guarantee you that somebody is writing a program to do it. Most likely a lot of sombodys. For those of you who think that the insurance companies would not pay for this information to set insurance rates, why do you think they demand your driving record now? They will look for any justifiable way to increase premiums and therefore profit. We live in a new world now and it isn't pretty. I suggest that those who still live in the licorice and lollipops utopia of yesterday google "data mining" and get introduced to who knows what in the digital age...

I for one do not want any utility collecting information on my habits. First of all, nothing is safe on the web. Data you thought is safe can be hacked by some enterprising person in some remote country and use it against you. I used to think the concept of one world government was nothing but a old wives tale. Now I am not so sure. Will I let them hook up a smart meter on my house. NO! If I want to be environmentally correct then I will do it on my own. I would sell my habits to the highest bidder, all they have to do is ask. Do you think they can track the amount of beer I drink? Not if you pay cash for everything. My mother-in-law (May she rest in peace) had the right idea. Keep your money in a safe at home and pay for everything in cash. Sounds like good advice to me. I really dont understand why every company a person deals with wants all the information they can get on you. Marketing my ass. They all are too lazy to do any real marketing. Oh Let the computer do it for us. I can see it now. A bunch of marketing people sitting in some dark room laughing at when some woman takes a shower and what time she gets home at night. Maybe they will even predict when she will have her next child. They will even make a joke about how long you spent in the bathroom or if you have holes in your underwear. Marketing. Yea right. They will even be able to tell when you have your first beer on evening. Which reminds me, I think it is time for one now. I may be out and if I have to go out and get some I will have to use my debt card. Oh No. They will know I bought some beer and my rates on everything will up because I am a loser. So What. Bottoms up.

Be Smart - Conserve energy wisely on your own!

I don't understand why Americans are so perenoid about their privacy of their information. The USA has the most LAX privacy laws from all the industrialized countries. Stealing a little more shouldn't make one bit of difference. just as Americans are so set against a national ID card, because they don't want the Gov to know where they are. Silly isn't it. In America when you go to open a bank account, before you can get out the front door the bank has allready sold all your private info to anyone who will pay their price. If you don't believe that just ask them. You have to opt out with a written letter of you don't want them to sell your info. The national ID card OH!! GOD the COMMIES want our info, hell every Tom Dick and Harry has your info where you live how much you make all your info everytime you buy a car or anything on time you have to give them your SS# and you do it no problem. You sign up for cable they want your SS# so everyone already has your info in this country. In Europe non of that happens Germany has the strictest laws from any country, you never give out your SS# except when you put in for retirement or your employer so he can pay in to it. America the GREATEST COUNTRY in THE World, where the average joe gets one week vacation no medical insurance and if he is lucky enough to work for a large company his deductable will BK him should anything terrible come up, low pay and when he retires he can plan on eating dog food and live in a dumpster or under a bridge. What Americans should do is ask to get part of the money companies get when their private info is sold to third parties. But Americans are OK with that you never see them really protest about anything, just tell them there are death panels out there who will eliminate you if you don't want to give up your private info. He!He!He!

You can accomplish many of the energy saving features of a smart grid through a decentralized process - the mechinisms that control electricity of our AC and what not will be installed in the home rather than on a massive mainframe. That way, you get all the supposed benefits of a smart grid without the potential for privacy violating data mining. In a decentralized process, you even allow clients some customization so they can decide for themselves what the trade off is for convenience vs. cost.

“Maryland residents this month received fliers offering annual discounts of up to $100 in exchange for allowing their power company, Pepco, to occasionally shut off their air conditioning units during hot days, when demand is high. Pepco says consumers will hardly notice the change, and the two-way communication between utility and appliances will go a long way toward preventing brownouts. “

Riiight… and PEPCO gets to decide this? it’s obvious to me that somebody has never been to D.C. and Maryland in July – August, because the last thing anyone who has would do is surrender control of the thermostat… what next, they want to turn of the heat in Minnesota when the temp drops down to -20 or so in the winter…? Besides, $100.00 ain’t even enough to consider such a dumbass request.

As usual you have people who are making a living by keeping people paronoid acting as though they have the facts. Power companies have been studying power consumption for many years and haven't used the information to spy on the public. In fact all they want to know is how much homes use and at what time so they can better supply the power needed.
I suppose the experts supplying the facts about privacy concerns never use there credit cards online. Sorry folk but I worked for a major electric utility for 22 yrs. and the only reason any information of any kind was used was to adjust load. If you feel your privacy is being invaded by all means call your local utility and talk to them, but for God's sake don't listen to these individuals who make there living making you nervous over your privacy.

Nevada Power has a good compromise on this. For their AC shut-off program, participants have the option of overriding the shutoff if they want to. At the end of summer, the amount of rebate they get back depends on the number of shut-offs that they let go through.

I think the gist of this story is right. Who would ever have thought that your FICO score would effect your car insurance rates? Let's see, I have an unblemished driving record but just went through an ugly divorce which wrecked my credit and now my car insurance rate is jacked up? Who knew? Now this story is just saying that yet another tool will be at the disposal of car, home. health, et al insurance companies. Can't you just see it? you're health care premium went up not because you're obese, or smoke, but rather your electrical usage signature is similar to someone who lives an unhealthy life style.

Maybe I've become too jaded through the years, but I don't see this as being an impossibility at all.

I can see it now. Anyone who does not operate on a "normal" 9-5 schedule will have their utilities turned off when they are still home "for the good of the community." Also, I am perfectly able to control my own thermostat. By setting my AC at 85 in the summer and using window fans and other fans, my electric bill was &65. The same will apply in the winter. I will have my thermostat between 60 and 65 and wear a sweater. With this smart grid, I can see the electric company raising my temperature settings so I have to pay them more. No thanks!

Oh noes, teh internetz will kill us all!! Did you hear that? It sounded like FUD. Those of you who think this "Smart Grid" thing is some kind of conspiracy by the power companies, need to do some research into the industry. The simple fact is we are using more electrical power now than we ever have and we will continue to use more and more. The electric companies here in the US are woefully incapable of the upcoming increase in demand. Yes, they are business and they want to make money. However, they aren't stupid. These companies know that unless they can do something to mitigate usage during peak times, they will lose a BOAT LOAD of money if they start experiencing blackouts due to overloading. Hence the rollout of the "Smart grid" to try and control the bleeding until they can get past all the red tape and start building more plants (nuclear) to compensate for the increase in demand.
Should we stop all innovation and live in the dark ages? Then just say no to smart grid technologies.
Should we advance society, work on things like plug in electric vehicles, then say yes to these sorts of technologies.
Is there a risk of privacy violations? Of course there are, any time something new comes around the risk is always there. This is why you play smart, have your congress-critter put regulations in place that outlaw mining or sale of this data before it becomes a problem. But for the love people...don't stop our progress because you don't understand it.

Turn off your own stuff. You can cut your bill in half if you try a bit.

I am not so much concerned about loss of privacy, (since the Patriot Act did a good job of taking it away), as I am about the power of huge corporations and utilities to manipulate prices. Losing control of your own light switch means losing control over your own bill. As it stands, I set my thermostat at 78 degrees every morning before I go to work,and when I come home, the house is unusually cool. However, at night, I have to recalibrate the thermostat to a much lower temperature to achieve the same level of coolness that I find in the house during the day-time setting of 78 degrees. My utility bill increases monthly, despite the fact that all aspects of my lifestyle remain unchanged. I don't understand why I am consuming much more energy from month to month, all things being equal. I really don't have my hand on the light switch.

I wish I could get paid every time my information was sold.

As an alternative energy engineer and inventor of one so called gadget that is designed for the grid and electric cars, I have been warning people for YEARS about what is about to be foisted upon the public. It is no less than the END OF FREEDOM.

Oh you have the OPTION to feed your family dinner at 3:00am to save a buck.

You'll have the OPTION to call a cab to drive your wife in labor to the hospital because the utility sucked your car battery dry @ one in the morning.

Oh yeah, and the discounts? Hasn't anyone ever learned? Discounts for using power at non peak is clever-speak for jacking rates during peak usage.

The main point people need to remember is that this is merely a method for utility monopolies to burden consumers with higher costs by shifting a pricing scheme onto them made available by mass data collection RATHER than spending the billions needed to BUILD NEW EFFICIENT POWER GENERATING SYSTEMS. Its a win win for the power companies. Their data collection costs go down after initial investments, their pricing structure goes way up, and they're off the hook for more infrastructure investment.

The lobbies that are all for this are tied t meter manufacturers, power companies, and massive start up firms like Gridpoint that mysteriously moved from Seattle to? You guessed it...Virginia near all government NSA and IT security areas..with its 200+ million dollars of seed money.

This thing is coming hard and heavy and the public is going to be steamrolled right out of their basic rights.

Conspiracy theory? Right. Just like anyone that thought ATT was listening in for Uncle Sam wa considered a nutjob, and now, guess what.

The public needs to start building their own lobbies to fight against abuses that will be inherent with these new systems, and private industry needs to start up investment into methods, formats, and power alternatives that solve the same problems without costing us our freedoms.

You've been warned.

First no one guards your privicy except you. If you think any company has your best interest in mind your mistaken. Greed runs this world, just look at the banks(one example out of many). I have my own company. When I need to expand or replace equipment I pay for that equipment. I don't pass this cost on to the consumer. If I did I would be out of business. Utility shareholders have been reeping profits for decades and when it comes time to upgrade their equipment they pass it on to the consumer. If a company needs to expand that means more business is coming in and more profit. Why should we foot the bill for an upgrade. Did no one at the utilities for see this happening. They have known for a long time this was coming and knew they could past the cost on to the customer/gov. Why don't we the people stand up and say no more. Oh wait a minute I forgot we have become a country of ME!ME!ME!

So this is supposed to save us money when? Installation of smart meters will cost money and I'm sure the power company isn't footing the bill.
It will require constant power to send this information back to the power company year round. How much energy are we really saving?
When they start shutting down power to my electronics will they have someone over to reprogram everything?
Will we shut the lights off in Vegas?

Give the criminals more data to make their lives easier, not to mention terrorists.
Power company makes my nights sleep miserable because they turn off the air conditioning and then I will have to fold myself up in the morning to fit in my energy efficient car.
There will be no such thing as getting away from it all because someone will always know where you are and possibly what you are doing.

All this because we as humans think we can control the cycle of a planet that we really don't have much control over. What's next, changing the weather?

Dan from Ohio - please stay where you are. We'll take care of the complicated stuff.

I like the idea of just purging the data after it's served its use. Can't see why that is "unlikely to happen"...we, the people, could lobby to have it mandated. Yes, Americans are weird in that we take our rights for granted and are generally too lazy to protect them.

Xcel Energy recently upgraded a large substation in a residential neighborhood in St. Paul with smart grid technology controls. Whatever those controls are doing positively, they are hurting the neighborhood with a new annoying and sleep-depriving electrical hum that's just a hair below a regulatory violaton. And Xcel won't fix the problem, even deny any new noise is coming from the station's noise pollution. A smudge on the new trophy?

Want to save 20% on the annual power usage in this country and not spend an extra nickel to do it? Round up all the illegals and send them home. That way you also get to keep your privacy a little while longer.

Anyone who actually thinks they have any privacy left is deluded. If you have a credit score, use credit or debit cards, own a home, or any of hundreds of others factors, Big Brother already knows all there is to know about you. If you have a Facebook or MySpace, you gave it away yourself. Think not? My M-i-L refused to use the internet because of her "privacy concerns" and swore that as long as she did nothing online, her information was safe. Uh-huh. I work in computer security and know what's really out there. To prove a point, and using only her street address as a starting point, I found pretty much everything worth knowing about her, including birthdate, mother's maiden name, DL and SSN in less than 3 hours and I spent well under $100 to get it. I even found out a few things that I didn't know and she didn't want me to, including records of brief teen-age marriage. Had my intentions been larcenous, I could have used that info to get many times my investment back very quickly or, if I had a vendetta against her, to totally mess up her life. The information is already out there if you know where to look. If you're just now worried about losing your privacy, you need to realize that you gave it away a long time ago.

OK, you conspiracy theorists, listen up. Assuming that Smart Grid devices eventually become available to all, the device would meter your total usage just like it does now, but the utility would have the ability to send YOU information about when electrical energy is cheapest during any 24 hour period. Pricing structure could be refined to reflect the cost of generating it. Morning rates, midday rates, afternoon rates, evening rates, overnight rates. Generators have to make electrical energy in the moment you require it...it isn't sitting in a warehouse waiting for you.
In a fully-wired smart home network, YOU would have the OPTION to program YOUR major appliances to run only during the cheap rate periods or NOT. Again, the utility doesn't give a damn about your personal life...they're just giving YOU tools to manage YOUR electrical usage more smartly. As an added benefit, they will have faster notification about YOUR loss of power in YOUR area when storms knock out specific areas of the electrical system. This helps them get on the fix sooner.
The electric utility does not have time or resources to be concerned with YOUR personal life.

PEPCO has had a program like this since at least 1994 when I signed up for it while living in Maryland. It saved me about $100 per year and probably prevented some power outages. I guess the real point is just the privacy of the data and it has nothing to do with smart grids.

If your appliances can talk to your meter, so can you. It's a potential hacker paradise!!

My worry is not just losing privacy, but how interconnected everything is. If terrorists want to do some major damage to us, they have less work to do when everything is so connected.

Americans are weird. All these problems exist in the world, and yet so many people actually FEAR something as safe and simple as a smart power grid - which is designed to help us save money, be more efficient and green, and make our lives easier. Conspiracy theories abound. Big Brother wants to talk to my refrigerator! OMG, the HORROR! The FBI can figure out my drinking habits! Oh NO!

Just stop and really think about it for a second. No one cares about your miserable lives. It isn't going to come anywhere close to happening as you apparently fear. I mean if you novices can dream up, it's already been planned and accounted for the engineers and designers. One of my relatives still refuses to get an internet connection AT ALL because it's "just another way for the government to get into our lives". He just doesn't get what the internet is about or how it works, and doesn't even want to try to understand what it is he's so scared of. When it comes to the smart grid, neither do many of you, apparently.

How is the power company going to turn off your air conditioner,water heater or any other unit unless each applince is some how individually controled? Power to the whole house would need to be turned off,that would cause power surges throughout the home.And I hate when some one says "if you didn't do anything wrong you've nothing to worry about" can you say "holy-er than thou". And talk about big brother, it's all ready happend with car insurance,if you have a low credit score your auto insurance goes up.

The Smart Grid will save Billions of dollars costs for consumers in the long term. It will allow us people to drive electric cars and slow our reliance on foreign oil by providing a way for home users to put power back on the grid. It will also slow the need to build new power plants by a decade or so giving us enough time to get approval for Nuclear Power plants. Lastly, it will create hundreds of thousand if not millions of jobs in the U.S. and make the U.S. the leader in Smart Grid technology.

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I agree with EVERYTHING you say, but I also have to agree with this article.

Look, this is just another slice of our privacy being taken away. Because of the discount cards we carry on our key rings, companies freely exchange information about our buying habits.

Credit./debit card companies know where we shop, how much we shop, where we have been due to purchase's of gasoline, where we sleep when we are away, when we are away.

There is no privacy left. None. This would be the final breakin to the places we call home. It will let companies know when we sleep(lights are out), what we watch on tv(already knew that didn't they), when we eat(gas/electrical usage). There will be nothing left about our personal privacy that companies won't know.

And people complain about the goverment. Wake up people. It's big buisness that know everything about us. EVERYTHING. And we gave away that information all on our own. Every single one of us.

Some of your comments are funny. some of you are genuinly scared. The ones that mention liberals, obama, hackers, big brother, are real nut jobs.

Tax any monetization of data at 95%. If the compnies was a 5% retention of their data (which grocery stores wouldn't mind, at some 1% profit on sales) fine. But the thing that will kill this is to make the compnies lose so much income in their transactons, and count on their greed to make them decide it is too llittle return for too much effort (marketing and all). Or require anyone buying information from a company that reasonably identifies an indivdual, service location, or family, to get express, written consent to receive that information, and prohibit service dependent on a customer agreeing tht ny personal information becomes the property of the company providing the service. One time period in which the customer can opt out of any such agreements with a service provider by a simple form. Just like do not call lists, only tighter.

Answer to companies that it will cut into profit: Tough. Businesses adapt to changing market conditions, do not expect the Government to guarantee your profit margin. Don't like it? Get out of the business.

Simple law, sharp penalties, and problem solved.

How many elderly will freeze to death in the winter when the heat is turned off due to "high use"? How many ill persons will get even more sick due to overheating in the summer when the AC is turned off? You KNOW it will happen...

How will charging my home-built Electric S-10 affect the data? Make it look like I party all night?

If Europe can do it, why not us also, are we still that behind the times as a world leader. Wake up, technology is leaving the U.S. behind. We have been dragging our feet for too long.
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Eurpoens also gassed jews. Should we have follwed in their footsteps then also?

Christ, your an idiot. They do it, I want to too.

your a liberal arn't you. I want, I want, I want. I don't care about the fall out. I just want.

Off grid and sellinge the extra to the electric co. Can I now collect data on them and sell it!

To those with "Nothing to Hide."

It has nothing to do with the power companies knowing your habits and routines. It's the fact that the data is stored somewhere which WILL be found by criminals. Banks and credit card companies have already shown that stored data is available for everyone if you have the know-how and where-with-all to get it. And criminals seem to have those abilities.

We don't need the fact that every Friday no one is home from 10 to noon at a particular address to be stored on a server farm somewhere. A quick shut down of the power and your security alarm is disconnected. Fifteen minutes later your house has been thoroughly burglarized.

I'll keep my Smart-grid free home (stupid-grid?), thank you very much.

Where will it end? When will people wake up?!
Boxes in our cars to record everything we do, online services that keep track of everything we buy and search for, Smart Meters to control our power... even rfids in currency and grocery discount cards... Do we have no sense of our own identities any longer to fight for them? Why not just allow a camera crew into your home to record everything your family does? At least you'll get paid for your "reality TV" performance! With the debate going on over allowing the government into health-care (which is already happening due to the VA/Medicare programs)... How is it ANYONE thinks this level of intrusion is acceptable?! There are enough devices available that allow you to monitor your own energy use without handing over control of your life! Think "Kill-o-Watt" devices... How about instead ending the manufacturing of devices that use stand-by power even when the appliance is OFF!! We are being tricked into swallowing this huge load of BS so that we can lose more privacy, have our lives controlled more by outside corporations, and some of us are signing it all away for $100 discount a year! Skip the latte in the morning and fight the way this switch is being handled. We deserve better legislation to protect US! Not big industry!!! I think I'm "smart" enough to turn off my AC if I don't need it! How about you?

It will not result in lower bills even if it reduces useage. Companies will not accept making less money. In the SLC Utah area, they did a great job reducing water usage, so much so that the utility asked for a rate increase since they were making less money. As for privacy, what would the Enron energy traders have done if they had access to information that was worth money? Yep, lined their pockets.

This is old news. You never heard of "Total Information Awareness". Its one of the fears of Patriot Act protestors, that unscrupulous politicains will (and have) abuse(d) their access to previously unheardof military/law enforcement grade technology and use it not to defend us from terrorists, but to give political favors to their cronies that will eventually cause the US to spiral down to a fascist totalitarian nation of Kafka-esque and Ayn Rand-ian "economies of pull" on a level only dreamed about by the USSR's KGB. Especially while the guardians of law and order, our law enforcement agencies, are distracted by unnecessary wars of aggression in Iraq. And persons who become aware are told they are paranoid by their oppressors. While the cat's away fighting the war in Iraq (and their traditional law enforcement budgets are slashed) the mice shall play. Maybe it is already too late. Eventually they can breed us like pedigree dogs for doscility or controlability with the commodification of social interaction through on-line dating-and internet filters. The world is run by OCD freaks & corporate criminal thugs who'd love nothing better than to return the world to a midievil state of Lord's Vassals, and peasant/surfs. OFF WITH THEIR HEADS !

Kudos to Max, Hartford, CT, 10/9 10:58:18 - I want the information from the Smart Meter and maybe I choose to sell it to the Energy Baron. I'll wait until that model comes out.

If Europe can do it, why not us also, are we still that behind the times as a world leader. Wake up, technology is leaving the U.S. behind. We have been dragging our feet for too long.

In a world of Blackberries and IPhones, Twitter and Facebook, Most people are already ready and willing to sacrifice any level of privacy for little extra convenience or to save a buck.
Common, Burglars planning heists based on information from the electrical company that says you might not be at home????? Or, they could just look in your window!!!

To the person who just posted the following:

"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide."

Please re-read the part of the article dealing with banks lowering credit score of people based on where they shop. Consider the fact that your insurance rates are based on your credit scores because the insurance companies theorize if you have a lower credit score you are a greater risk. But also consider that MILLIONS of Americans fall out of those 'so called' standards. Just because a millionaire may shop at WalMart does not give the bank justification to lower their credit. And just because an individual does not have a credit card, and therefore a lower credit score, does not make them a greater risk.

In the end you have EVERYTHING to hide regardless if you are doing right or wrong.

I think that while this has the potential to save a lot of electricity, I think the invasive privacy issues are going to be keeping a lot of people away. You can offer the rate reduction or benefit and see who signs up.

What I think the money invested in this should be spent on for both short and long term electrical efficiency is improving high power transmission efficiencies. Most people don't know that literally 20% of the electricity our nation produces is lost between the power plant and your house. Transmission losses like this can be all but stopped by using superconducting transmission lines, atleast at the regional scale level.

Yes, it would cost hundreds of billions of dollars to completely rewire the nationals long distance high voltage lines, but considering the tens of billions a year worth of electricity that is literally lost every year, the return on investment by all conservative estimates would be less than a decade.

Just think of the environmental impact of not having to build another power plant in the US for 20 years

Though I agree with the sentiments, I hate to bust your bubble about the accuracy of the story. It's not the power meter that is smart, it is the thermostat on your A/C. Texas Utilities is offering the same kind of rebates if you take on an Internet connected thermostat.

some of these comments are troubling. It reminds me of the old saying about how they came for the "insert label here" (red heads) and I wasn't one so I said nothing, and so on this goes until noone is left but you and it's too late to say something..
It's bad enough car insurance companies pull your credit report and penalize you for that. Like how does a credit report give any indication of how good/bad of a driver you are..
Ignorance is bliss, my fault is I'm not ignorant..

I guess you had nothing to write about so made up a story. Maybe you should quit and start writing fiction, as this story is baloney. My Electric co-op has been on smart metering for over a year, and we love it, more accurate up to date billing, and they know instantly when they have an outage and where it is located, for that we are very happy as the power outage is much shorter now. As to what "might" happen, if you have something to hide, then move to the boonies and have no power at all, you bum

To Jeffrey Doe of Norfolk, who said "there is no worry if you have nothing to hide."

The problem with that thinking is who decides that what you are doing is right or wrong. If you are willing to allow the powers-that-be to monitor your actions, then I just hope you never have a disagreement with those powers.

If DOE and utilities act smartly, there is a better solution; Smart Grid must be connected to an advanced consumer side load management system not to a thermostat directly, such system smartly collects all your discussed information and corrects consumption habits towards conservation automatically but keeps every bit of that info in the consumer site discretely and only sends a lump sum figures (not the detail) once a month to the clearing house for billing, click on smart grid at www.sdrt.net; when demand and supply affects the dynamic real time rate there is no need to beg the consumers or bribe them with $ 100 to reduce their consumptions.

If folks really don't like Big Brother, but want to be free, then they can get off the grid. Nobody is forcing you to live hooked up to power, water, sewage, phone and optic connections to the rest of the world. There are still cabins in the woods to be had.

It is quite disengenuous for some folks to spin this Big Brother activity by private utility companies into an act of Government invasion of privacy.

I would be willing to bet that that harbinger of individualism - the National Chamber of Commerce - would be very much in favor of such cost saving actions by reminding us that there is no Constitutional right to "privacy"

Meanwhile, those collectivists of the American Civil Liberties Union would be storming the barricades to oppose such free market collection of individuals' data, by claiming some esoteric "right to privacy".

If you freely choose to live a collectist life on the grid, then don't complain when the collectists providing your electricity decide to turn the lights off.

If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to hide.

My idea of a smart meter would be a digital meter visable in your home that tallies use and cost of your energy per month. The way utilities are now is similar to driving a car without a speedometor, and getting pulled over all the while not really knowing how fast you are going. With a speedometor, yes you can still speed, but at least you are informed.

On a 75 degree day with a slight breeze in my 3rd floor apt, I would probably be inclined to go flip on the AC. If I had a meter that told me how much electricity I had already used for the month, and what my bill is so far I may think twice and take my butt for a walk instead..

Read comments far enough to get to Max, Hartford, CT, 10/9 10:58:18 AM.

Read it if it's still there. Imagine the consumer actually getting a benefit. Lots of points before, but this one should hit home to the consumer.

I would encourage everyone who owns his/her own property to get off the grid by switching to wind/solar power/geo-thermal. We need to stop relying on the government for our daily needs and get back to living indepndently and more simply. We need to start growing more of our own food also, keeping it local uses less oil.

As usual, the secondary consequences of invasive monitoring and its subsequent invasive meddling in the home far exceeds the benefits - benefits that can for the most part be achieved without the invasiveness. But, since the monitoring and meddling are based on software, we will also be subject to software progranning errors. Appliances will quit working for no apparent reason. Doors will lock and unlock without the home owner even being aware. Alarms will sound in the middle of the night. Police will arrive looking for the invader when there is none.
If you think will not happen, just check with any user who has an email account which they access through their Verizon phone line. Last weekend any email they sent to an msn or hotmail account was rejected by the Microsoft email software with no possiblity to correct the problem.
It is unfortunately true that, independent of the motives of the programmers or companies, ALL software programs contain errors. Software that works with hardware makes more errors. Worse, any software program that takes action based on inferences it makes by observing behavior will inevitably make hundreds of little mistakes and at least one SERIOUS mistake leading to someone's demise.

This constituted a search without a warrant.
If the Power Companies need information to better govern usage they can have meters that monitor general areas such as a certain number of square blocks of large cities and a single meter to monitor small towns.
Appliances Do Not need IP addresses; this is much too intrusive.
We need a way to effectively Disable talk back in personal appliances.
We also need technicians that can successfully refurbish Old Appliances.

The Smart Grid will save Billions of dollars costs for consumers in the long term. It will allow us people to drive electric cars and slow our reliance on foreign oil by providing a way for home users to put power back on the grid. It will also slow the need to build new power plants by a decade or so giving us enough time to get approval for Nuclear Power plants. Lastly, it will create hundreds of thousand if not millions of jobs in the U.S. and make the U.S. the leader in Smart Grid technology.

The only experience I've had with them cost me $70 more each month. I was living in an apartment complex that had the "smart" thermostats installed. My electric bill went up $70 the next month and stayed there in that range. There was a website I could log onto to adjust the settings, which I did a couple of times but still I was paying $60-80 more each. Smart did not mean energy efficient or cost savings in my case.

Okay here is my idea about privacy stuff on this smart grid issue.

We made our lives so complicated such that each and everything we do in our life has some relation to the other living or non-living.

This is the base for our current social dynamics. Since human is a social animal there would be very thin line between privacy and public.

sometimes the line is so blurred such that we cannot separate both of them.

This is all about present way of living. If you worry too much about your privacy you can not come into this huge world and spend your life peacefully because fortunately or unfortunately technology made it already possible to track each and every activity in a day of a normal human being.

When we think about privacy we have to think little bigger. Sometimes privacy for two persons may interfere. Just take the case of Google. It tracks every activity you do using their services. They feel it is their responsibility to make sure users do not invade their systems and manipulate the functionality by doing some malicious activities. That is one reasons why they track activities and marketing is another reason. They feel like they have right to invade your privacy because they are providing all their services for free.

I always see the privacy as two-folded issue you have to check it from both the parties.

There is a big debate running in the smart grid industry about providing security and privacy for the smart grid participants.

When we think about smartgrid from both the sides, actually this is three-folded.

1) User stand point: He is saving some money on energy bills, he is improving the equipment life time for about two years and he is getting something out of this.
2) Utilities stand point: They are trying to manage the future power needs with out putting much investment into building power plants and they are trying to stop releasing green house gases into the environment.

3) The Nature: I have nothing to say about this because. We have been surviving from thousands of years because we peacefully lived along with the environment. Because of increasing population and human activity made it such that future prosperity is on stake. In fact this even comes back as benefit to ourselves not a single human being but to the entire mankind.

So we have to move in the direction to contribute our part to make this work.

Even though we care much about the privacy and stuff they have to provide their contribution for this spoiled environment.

I do not know much about the things here in the US. Marketing people make life so complicated (:-)). They try to sell ice to Eskimos.

If you don't want to do this for yours. Keep out of this. Some time in future you DEFINITELY will come back into the loop.
That was how Google is now. You cannot live without it. If you want to you are out of the hook.

Cheers,

More scare tactics from idiots. Utilities have been offering rebates in return for control of major residential appliances (water heaters, air conditioners, etc.) for over 30 yrs. Appliances are controlled only on the days when peak loads really matter. I should know. I'm a professional engineer who ran one of these systems from '77 to '87. As for remote meter data info, few utilities have infrastructure to do that well, but they could probably operate their systems more efficiently if they had better feedback on AGGREGATE load profiles of their customers. Utilities have neither the comm bandwidth nor the time to be concerned about what the hell you're doing with your personal time. Get over it.

Simple solution. Use the one way smart disconeects. I have had one for 5 years. The local coop sends out a page to all units Peak coming shut down for a 15 minute interval. No data back to Power compnay. It can be bypassed in about 5 minutes for those who don't want to help out. In exchange for having the unit I received a free 80 gallon water heater. I have never ran out of hot water nor missed the AC. We control our peak load and don't realize a alrge charge for exceedign peak load. Another solution is to give a better rate for people who use less. Then subsidise a smart thermostat. Those who want to save money can login from work and verfiy the laod and turn up the temp to save energy. Decide youa re comign home eraly login via whatever emans you get internet and bump down the temp so you are comfy.

By the way we have enough power for everyone. We jsut can't delvie rit no transmission lines. THe wind won't stop blowing anytime soon.

Well I for one have the smartest power grid of all, my own.sure I have a power meter,but only after i bought my own,to monitor how much solar and wind power I create and use. No power bills at my house so noone gathering any info from me..... I bsit back and laugh....

We're all screwed! this so called "smart tech" is comming whether we want it or not. it's Big Brother right up our A$$e$!

Big Brother is coming - time to switch to cash only purchases and live off-grid. So, are my grandparent's going to be forced to live in the hot, humid MN summer if the electric company decides they've used too much AC? How will they know if I leave my living-room and leave the tv on? Cameras? Sensors? Who the f@#$ do these people think they are?! Get ready for a fight.

What happened to basic economics? Has anybody ever heard of supply and demand? If you use less of something, driving demand down, manufacturers will make less of it, and it gets more expensive. RIGHT NOW, there are plans to build 28 nuclear power reactors in the US, because the demand for electricity is so great, and is increasing at about 12-15% a year. If they all come on line, that will solve our power problems for some time. (YES, whack-jobs, I know about the waste problem, etc, but that is another story.....) Seeing as that is the case, I would rather I keep my privacy. It's bad enough with the banks and the data miners sticking their hands down my shorts.....I'm waiting for the cameras on appliances, broadcasting back to the government what I'm doing in my own home....I think the motto is "JUST SAY NO!!"

THE CABLE COMPANY BOXES HAVE BEEN TRACKING FOR YEARS!!!

All of these companies amassing the most personal kinds of information need to be held fully accountable. Currently when this information is breached all the company has to do is report it, and possibly pay for credit monitoring for up to one year. Instead, they should be required to be held financially liable for any damage caused, or may have been caused, because of their inability to protect this information. For far too long insurance and other companies have been gathering information and using it for their own ends.

My 'black box' to prevent computer hacking...A black
box connects between 'the wall' [world] and a computer
and is very simple but effective: Inside, only the 'in
coming' [receive] traffic is allowed INTO the computer
as the 'outgoing' [transmit] data can ONLY pass out of
the computer thru a one-way 'repeater' stage...The in-
coming data displays--one-line-at-a-time--on a single
light [optical] character display, or [at most] a sing
le line of text. Facing this display of all incoming
traffic is an optical-reader which [at a slower rate]
downloads thru a simple computer that 'sees' only the
TYPEWRITTEN text [alpha-numeric characters and simple
punctuation ONLY...Several 'tables' of 'pass/deny' dat
a allow ONLY innocent plain-language or numeric data
to 'pass-thru'--ANY other functions, viruses, 'invisib
le' stuff is deleted! NO computer commands, operands,
programming or hacking language or signals 'get-thru'!
Repeated 'hits' by the black box drops the hacker by
disconnecting, waiting, then restoring the black box.
Think of this system as an online computer displays
[and absorbs invisible 'hack-code'. An obedient clerk
looks at the screen and RETYPES only plain-text traffi
c into the 'real' computer. If an obviously hostile at
tack is noticed, the 'clerk' makes an orderly shutdown
then waits a few minutes with the power unplugged, then restores operation...Will it be s l o w? Yes, but
who needs to be hacked and possibly destroyed quickly?
Not me! One of my black boxes wud cost about as much a
s a cheap printer or kiddy laptop...Now, one can leave
their computer online--or make the in/out link to the
world a port on their local in-office server or router
and enjoy real security?..Aaron Allen..

This article doesn't even mention the types of "smart" power meters which have the ability to disconnect the customer from their electrical service REMOTELY. This is a potential nightmare scenario as there is nothing to stop a meter from being hacked by people with such abilities. Imagine your home or business churning along merrily and then -poof- your power goes out (while all your neighbors' power is on). Not sure what the answer is, since there are some benefits to these "smart" meters in general, but it must be well thought out before it is rolled out en masse.

Yet another set of data to be sold to the highest bidder.

The Minneapolis area power co (NSP at the time) installed one of the smart meters on my A/C unit WITHOUT my permission.I tried it, my A/C unit did not work well with the unit. I called, had the service removed but not the physical box. Some years later, came home on a hot day, no A/C. It seems that the power company had turned the box on and the A/C off without my permission AGAIN and without offering me the discount for using the service. Almost cost me an A/c service call on a hot day. The smart box was physically removed a few days later. If they want the box back they can pay for the cost of the electrician to remove it.

Amazing that we have "progressed" this far.

Wait til the liberals realize what they can do with the data.