Do You Know What This Is?
If you answered a "hydro meter", you were partly right.
What the picture is, is actually a brand new SMART METER, that was installed at our house yesterday. Not just any old hydro meter, let us tell you.
The old meters could only measure the amount of electricity being used over an entire billing period. The new Smart Meter will record the total electricity consumption hour by hour. And it is capable of sending that information wirelessly to the utility company. This new meter makes time-of-use pricing possible.
They say by the end of 2010 that every home and small business in Ontario will be equipped with one of these meters. This meter will allow you to manage your power consumption. The goal is to get us to adjust our habits and use the power in off hours putting less demand on the system.
They have developed daily and seasonal time-of-use periods. The cost of using the power will depend when you use it. There are three different times of use: on peak, mid peak and off peak. By using power in the off-peak times you would be able to take full advantage of the best prices and also help the system by using the power when demand is at it's lowest. In general, weekends, holidays and the hours of 10 pm to 7 am on weekdays will be rated as off-peak times.
By setting your timers on your dishwasher, washing machine and dryer you will be helping yourself financially and at the time putting less strain on the power systems.
We all have to do our part to help Mother Earth, there are many ways of reducing our waste to put less strain on the enviroment. This Smart Meter will help all of us do our part.
To learn more ways of helping the enviroment, check out fellow rainer Chris Smith's recent blog.
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