My Sioux Valley Energy March newsletter comes to me... slowly. Their fancy page-turning animation is cute, but it uses so much bandwidth that those of us reading on Sioux Valley's rural wireless Internet must wait a frustratingly long time to get to page 15...
...where we find this really cool map (which could have been delivered more efficiently in good old HTML, or even a static PDF):
Sioux Valley Energy reports that it has installed 4400 smart meters. Sioux Valley and contractors from Chapman Metering are working in Moody and Brookings counties this month and next, then working their way out here to the lakes (that wait is fine by me: they don't want to come squarshing through my muddy yard right now!).
I do look forward to being able to log in to my electric meter and analyze my home electrical usage, not to mention Sioux Valley's being able to gather some useful data and improve efficiency across its grid (these things will save us money, right, Don?). But let's see if anyone around here starts comparing smart meters to DDT....
Black Hills Power installed a smart meter at my house (and all the neighbors' houses, too, I guess) last December.
It's sort of cool; I can see what the peak power demand has been during the 15 minutes of heaviest usage during the past month.
That gives me pretty good proof that, if I were on the prairie, a 10-kW Bergey wind turbine with a grid intertie system could actually turn me a profit!
I've read about some of the physiological complaints that people have gotten after installation of those meters, and that they've blamed on the meters ... arthritis, diabetes, cancer ... everything but the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
I noticed a gadget at the local Radio Shack affiliate (Nelson Electronics to give a small plug) that might be useful and interesting.
I think the brand was Killer-Watt. It is a meter you can plug between an outlet and an appliance like a refrigerator, etc. Then you can determine usage for that appliance. These might be interesting for seeing if completely turning off devices that "standby" like computer monitors and TVs, etc would make economic sense.
I plan to buy one tomorrow and see what I learn.
See? That's the kind of data that could keep guys like us occupied with spreadsheets for hours! And Doug, I always unplug my computer at night.
Douglas, it's called "Kill A Watt". I have one and it is fun to find out how much electricity things use. I got mine at http://www.x-tremegeek.com/catalogsearch/result/?q=kill+a+watt I got the $49.95 one because with that one you can program your electric rate into it to give you the cost per hour, day, week, month and year.