Smart metering and in-home energy feedback; enabling a low carbon life style

Henk van Elburg, SenterNovem, The Netherlands

Keywords

smart metering, feedback, consumer’s behaviour, direct display

Abstract

Backed by raising energy demands, volatile oil prices and threat of climate change, the use of automated meter management (AMM), often referred to as ‘smart metering’, is rapidly gaining momentum across the world. Europe is expected to become a world leading centre of this development, thanks to the European Services Directive (ESD) of the European Commission. This Directive requires energy suppliers to provide consumers with competitively priced, accurate individual (smart) meters with information on time-of-use and accurate billing. Large scale deployments of smart meters have already been decided in Italy, Sweden and The Netherlands. Serious considerations of implementing full smart metering penetration take place in countries like France, Ireland, Denmark and Finland.

Oddly enough from an energy efficient life style point of view, a residential smart metering coverage alone does not automatically mean successful consumer involvement in general and enabling a lower carbon lifestyle in particular. These advantages require additional automation technologies ‘beyond the meter’, such as intuitive, aesthetic and affordable in-house displays and customized applications on web pages, cell phone or TV.
To accelerate the development of contemporary ‘add-on’ information systems to keep pace with the deployment of smart meters, the technical and commercial in-home feedback innovations are being permanently reviewed in a worldwide selection of pioneering countries. At the eceee 2009 poster session, the latest insights regarding in-home communication to facilitate a modern energy efficient lifestyle will be revealed and an appealing, trendy and above all enabling in-house device will be presented.