RFID, GPS Technology and Electronic Surveillance

California's Latest Revolt: Against Smart Electric Meters

July 19, 2010

Daily Finance - Sometime in April, Pacific Gas & Electric (PCG) put a brand new "smart meter" on the home I rent in Marin County, Calif. We were never notified or asked if we wanted one. The installer just came one day while we were out, and it was a done deal. As a confirmed environmentalist, I thought this should have been a good thing. Smart meters will, in theory, play a key role in managing energy consumption by households like mine.

The devices are wireless, so they eliminate the need for meter readers and save companies like PG&E money while reducing the carbon footprint and pollution resulting from running fleets of trucks to tally power usage at millions of homes. Smart meters also can show a homeowner patterns about energy usage and even notify them about energy usage anomalies or spikes in power demand.

Smart meters will ultimately allow for more dynamic pricing in electrical power and for communities like Southern Marin, where I live, to make a choice to reduce power on days when the grid is near capacity due to a heat wave, while it remains reliably cool in my neck of the woods.

Dangerous Side Effects?

All of these goals seem laudable and logical. Yet there is a brewing smart meter revolt across the Golden State. Last week, the Marin Realtors Association called for a halt to all new smart meter installations in Marin County. Their rationale? They feared the smart meters would increase the levels of electromagnetic radiation around homes. This would give buyers pause and reduce real estate values in the already depressed (by historical standards) market. The former hippie enclave of Fairfax, located in Marin, has passed an ordinance to ban smart meters.

This revolt, however, is hardly the exclusive province of the NPR set or the real-estate mafia. In several counties in the politically conservative Central Valley, thousands of homeowners have claimed that the new smart meters caused rapid spikes in their electrical bills, even though their power consumption remained relatively constant. (The utilities blamed those spikes on fast increases in the cost of power during particularly toasty periods.)

Other homeowners have said they don't want another source of radiation (meaning, radio waves) near their homes, considering the steady increase of all manner of electromagnetic-emitting devices from WiFi routers to cordless phones to garage-door openers. These are often the same homeowners who react suspiciously to new cell phone towers in their neighborhoods, a topic that has become increasingly contentious. Even though engineers generally say there's no risk, at least a handful of influential doctors have chosen to reserve judgment on the topic.

Privacy Invasion?

Running underneath many of the objections is uneasiness with the "Big Brother" aspect of smart meters. Do we really want the utility company to know when we're home, when we're washing or drying our clothes, whether we're taking too many showers (or not) or probing for other "energy saving" insights that could eventually come from smart meter technology as it heads toward a logical conclusion of monitoring every electrical outlet in a home?

This has resulted in some surprisingly strong reactions from homeowners. Some have put locks over their electrical meters to prevent the switch. Others call the smart meter push an invasion of privacy and "Un-American."

The California Smart Meter Revolt hasn't slowed the rapid development of smart-meter technology, with dozens of companies bringing to market smart-meter systems that provide more granular detail and instant-message reminders, or consoles showing real-time energy usage to homeowners. Those include stock market titans such as General Electric (GE) and Cisco Systems (CSCO).

But Next Time, Please Ask

Smart meters will eventually prevail. But visceral reaction against these gadgets, particularly by the Prius-driving, tree-hugging set of Southern Marin County -- arguably one of the more liberal parts of California, if not the country -- certainly hints at the high barriers smart meter makers face in gaining acceptance and overcoming a wall of suspicion and fears of invasions of privacy.

As for me, I didn't make much of a stink about the new meter. These things are, after all, good for the environment. Glitches are to be expected. I realize most of my privacy is already gone. But anytime a big company comes and installs a wireless device that measures what's going on inside my home without notifying me or explaining what is happening, that's a different issue. And in this case it's enough to make me want to tear the thing out and toss it on the trash heap.

What the Smart Grid Stimulus Funds Will Do for Startups

September 1, 2009

earth2tech.com - Scan our list of the companies lining up to get a piece of the roughly $4 billion in stimulus funds for the smart grid and here’s what you’ll find: utilities far and away dominate the queue. But dig a little deeper and you’ll see that a growing number of startups are finding a stake in the smart grid stimulus funds, either by joining up with various consortia to jointly apply for the grants, or by working on projects with utilities that are contingent on the stimulus funds. For startups that played their cards right, the boost could enable young firms or companies with new technology to leapfrog the competition.

Take the case of 4-year-old home automation company Control4. The company only recently started focusing on utilities as its customers, and raised $17.3 million in July to launch a division to focus on home energy management. But this morning Control4 said it will supply its home energy management products for Texas utility Bluebonnet Electric Cooperative’s smart grid project — its first utility customer — if Bluebonnet manages to secure an $18.8 million stimulus grant for which it applied.

Control4 might have a substantial amount of home automation gear shipped and established dealers for distribution, but in the utility energy management space, it’s a newbie (albeit a well-funded newbie with financing from big names like Best Buy Capital and Foundation Capital).

Then there’s 1-year-old Viridity Energy. The company wants to take demand response to the next level, and its software dynamically manages loads on the grid in terms of energy pricing, renewable energy generation and energy storage. Yesterday, New York utility Consolidated Edison said it has applied for $46 million to fund a smart grid demonstration project in conjunction with a bunch of firms, including Viridity.

Viridity Energy is pretty much the only tiny tech startup mentioned in Con Ed’s announcement yesterday — other names include Boeing and Columbia University — and Audrey Zibelman, president and CEO, tells us it’s “thrilled” to be in such company. Viridity only closed its Series A funding (the size and investors weren’t disclosed) back in February and will be looking for more funds next year, Zibelman says. In the utility sector where, bigger is usually better in terms of partners, that’s a rare deal.

For other, larger startups, the smart grid stimulus funds could offer a way to test brand new markets. Lithium-ion battery maker A123Systems is building a sizable grid-based battery project for utility Southern California Edison. While A123Systems has mentioned the grid market before, the bulk of its focus is on plug-in vehicles and power tools. But for a utility that wants to test out cutting edge technology, paid for by the government, why not take the risk?

So, now that the deadline to apply for the first two waves of smart grid stimulus funds are over, what’s the lesson here? If the government sets out a massive chunk of money for a nascent sector, with undefined leaders, it doesn’t matter if your company is tiny, unproven or normally sells into a different market, jump in there — it’s a land grab and the larger companies (in this case the utilities) will be willing to take more risks to navigate the grants.

This is also just the beginning of the effects of the smart grid stimulus funds on startups in the space. First off, this is only the firms applying, so we’ll see who emerges successful in securing these funds, likely in November. Secondly, these projects will create a snowball effect in the U.S. smart grid market and will deliver market opportunities directly and indirectly for many more new firms selling consulting, software, networking devices and consumer electronics.