Thanks for that previous thread. I see you have had concerns from the start and IMO they're justified. I'm also familiar with the Standford students in Palo Alto and that case of increase in their utility bills after the new meters were installed. Since I'm in the power generation business it held particular interest since I have clients that have reacted to the new bills and would like to consider whether they could reduce their utility bills with peak shaving.
My company sells backup power generating systems. We specify, design, engineer and install these systems for high end residential to large commercial/industrial clients in North America. Fuels for our systems will be diesel, nat gas, propane or methane which when compared to the wattage and fuel price/consumption per hour may make it cheaper to run the generator then buy utility power during certain times of year or times of day. This is referred to as peak shaving.
California has strict air pollution laws that prohibit the number of hours you can run a generator in non-emergency conditions to under 8 hours a year. in an emergency there is no restriction as long as the engine is EPA - APCD compliant. So you don't see peak shaving in CA but it's used in Mexico and South America since the utility rates, service reliability and absent emissions laws, off grid solutions attractive.
That being said for the USA when coupled with wind and solar systems and the ABSOLUTE likelihood that there will be large scale electrical interruptions as the aging infrastructure and the need for increased rates (remember ENRON mark to market) will spawn a cry for 'I want my power back on'! What better way for a utility to 'manage' a quasi-governmental agency (PUC) then to show these increased costs as a need to justify baseline rate increases as well as exotic rate structures that eke out every last $ the public can bear.
I really feel bad for those on fixed incomes. You can elect to not drive when gas prices go up but food and power with a roof over your head are pretty much a must to an aging population.
Now the utilities will go to the PUC and show need to raise rates because there is more solar/wind/geothermal... and the infrastructure has to be improved as the population grows and they cannot lose money. period. They must make money for their shareholders. So in some respects the very energy savings programs that reduce the utilities mw/hr income must be reset with these different rate structures. Your bills are already evidence of that.
The only way for the average income person to cut this bill down will be by taking advantage of first reducing loads wherever possible. For lighting that may mean EFDL systems that don't require relamping and maintain 90% lumen output for 70,000 hrs. check out this link to learn more
http://inda-gro.com Plants do quite nicely under these and the energy savings should be factored as not only a savings in operational costs but when sizing any off grid supplemental system such as solar, generator or relatively affordable VAWT.
Vertical Axis Wind Turbines are also an affordable way to put 2-5K watts back in your property. They are much smaller in scale and are omnidirectional which means that the wind can be coming at the blades from any direction and at speeds as slow as 3 MPH. They also can be installed on top of existing structures. The market is going to grow for these and we see ourselves incorporating VAWT as an option to our off-grid and supplemental grid products and services.
Now the Stanford students had a situation where when their rates went up after the new meter had been installed. They simply shot off the main and the next month the bill was even higher. The reason for that is the ZIGBY wireless signal was being confused with the neighboring meter. This does happen on occasion and it resulted in a recall of 30,000 meters. I liked this method because it was cheaper then having a private metering service done.
Without having the utility walk through your property and do a load audit the next best thing to do is hire a private company that can do a submeter of the utilities meter. We use systems mfg by EMON that give historical, real time, and snapshots of the actual energy consumption that we can provide the utility to advance a case of incorrect billing. More often then not it's a case of proving to our customer that the utility is correct but we have seen occasions where our data did not reconcile with the utility metering and the meter was replaced. These are not cheap solutions and for most people will not be practical.
If I have to spend any money on electrical it's going to be getting less connected load, daylight harvesting and supplemental power generation.
