Smart Meter

Since I am/was home alone - B. arrived home around noon after camping with friends for a few days - I had to bring the yard waste and trash bins up and back into the side yard. They didn't pick up the yard clippings bin 'cuz someone (who will remain nameless but is in North Carolina right now - it was either him or the gardener) put a plastic bag (from compost or mulch or something) in the waste bin with the clippings. Since yard waste goes out to the bio fuel plant to be mulched to bits and sold as yard mulch (or burned for energy), they won't empty a bin that has plastic in it. That's my theory. Either that, or it's another budget reduction the city has implemented to cut down on expenses. It's possible......

OK - back to my point - as I was bringing the bins up to the side yard, I passed our PG&E meters and noticed we finally have the new 'smart meter' for electricity. We received a notice quite awhile ago and noticed the gas meter was replaced with the 'digital' smart meter - but not the electric meter. It's finally here. I just looked at last month's bill and it was swapped out the first of May - but as reported here, this past month or two has been a whirlwind and I didn't notice the new meter until today.

The great thing about it is: it's very easy to read. I know exactly how much power we're 'drawing' at any moment. I know what our meter reading was last month and what it is today - so I was just able to roughly sketch out what our expenses will be. The meter will be 'read' (via the Internet, I think - no more 'meter readers') in a few days - so I sort of have an idea how we're doing.

A friend went through a divorce recently - and she shared how she and her kids cut their electric bill by about $100 per month just by unplugging things that weren't being used. Even when something isn't 'on', it' s still drawing power. So along that line of thinking, I've been unplugging the espresso machine and the milk frother after I use them. Unplugging things in H.'s room while he's away. Unplugging other little things that we aren't using. Not sure it's helping - but I can literally plug them in, go look, unplug them, go look and know exactly how much extra power we're using to keep things plugged in we don't need to have plugged in all day, everyday.

There's been a fair amount of controversy about the smart meters. Many people claim their power bills have absolutely sky-rocketed since the new meters have been installed. My theory is that for older homes, that's probably true - it's not a defective new meter. It was an older defective meter that was not measuring usage correctly. Now that the older home is updated with a new meter, the power usage is being measured more accurately - which is why PG&E did it. Not only are they saving the costs of the 'meter readers' they don't need anymore, they are also more accurately measuring the usage of thousands and thousands of homes who haven't been metered correctly in a long time.

I was nervous about the new meter - but I just did a rough estimate of our bill this month and it's what I would expect. We haven't run the A/C all that much - mainly at night for a few hours when we first go to bed - but we have been using the ceiling fans and floor fans more. So it's higher than last month but still well within the 'low' range of a summer power bill. I suspect we're going to have a freakishly hot September/October since May and June have been so incredibly 'mild'.

It's back down to 80 degrees outside - a nice breeze (really close to gale force wind) just kicked up so it's cooling off even more - YEAH!

And I'll be getting a lot of exercise running back and forth to the meter to calculate 'usage' of A/C, etc.

Next, I'll master the gas meter and figure out how much it costs to run the (gas) dryer. I see a clothes line in our future! We really WILL be the greenest house on the block - recycles everything possible; composts; two hybrid cars AND a mom obsessed with learning to read her own power meters!