[ScoopLV]

I have a feeling time of day billing will become mandatory in the near future -- it will pave the way for solar. And then everyone is going race for all my desert energy-saving threads on this board.

Putting the smart meters in is step one. If they announced it, the public outcry would be such that they wouldn't be able to implement their strategy. This is just a guess on my part. But I'd bet a dollar that within five years, time of use becomes the norm.

[lvoc]

Originally Posted by braindead0

The 15 minute increment is only what they claim. Many 'smart' meters have been found to be storing and transmitting data in 5 second increments, which is what I'd call excessive. Many utilities have been caught doing this, not sure about NV Energy.

Couple that with the time of day billing being optional doesn't justify forcing these on everyone.

I don't know the technology well but I do know a bit about the generic problem. Used to work on internet type systems before the internet.

These systems are probably not deterministic but statistical. So the have significant variation in timing dependent on topology and distances. And they may also have picked something a good bit better than they need for the classical argument of doing it right rather than having to do it over later.

I think there is a strong likelihood of time of day billing becoming standard. It may be resisted successfully in some cities but most will adopt it over the next years. Particularly in the Sun Belt and with the addition of the gas turbine power plants for peaking.

I would also note that the technology type used is likely to eventually get a really big play. The way to get broadband everywhere is simply to put a gigabyte router in every house that talks to its neighbors...pretty soon the whole neighborhood has huge bandwidths coupling the individual houses through each other to central nodes. The old packet network guys would be pleased.

Interesting in a way as the communication utilities become virtual...