Smart consumer vs. smart meter

Bad news confirmed
Three months after the installation of Mainova’s smart meter at home, the rise of my electricity bill is definitively confirmed. Extrapolated on one year, the smart meter increases my bill by 31.5 €/year.

As explained in a previous post, the main advantage is to be able to monitor the consumption of my family.  If I want my money back, the only option is to modify our consumption behavior. We have to shift a part of our consumption from costly slots to cheaper ones. Before I start bothering my family with changes regarding our consumption behaviour, it seems astute to carry out an analysis. Thanks to the monitoring, I can retrieve enough data to make likely calculations.

The following graphic illustrates how peak consumptions may be shifted in order to reach for maximum savings.

The black horizontal line represents my household’s minimum base consumption, or base load, (fridge, heater, appliances on standby, etc.), that can be neither reduced nor shifted.

Considering all the peaks above the base load since my smart meter is installed, the savings would reach about 14.4 €/year, which doesn’t compensate for the additional monthly charges for the use of the smart meter (50.32 €/year). The tariff difference between off-peak and peak periods is too small (8.5% discount).

As a conclusion, it is not necessary to bother my family for a few euros a month. Unfortunately I was right about the fact that installing a Mainova smart meter is not profitable. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t accept a smart meter in your home. It depends on the tariffs proposed by your utility and on your consumption behaviour.

Think smart before installing a smart meter

The political circumstances are such that sooner or later, you will have to make that change (see the EU recommendations on smart metering systems and the EU directive for electricity, Annex I-2). I hope at least that through this article, you will take good care at checking the tariff conditions.

Concerning consumption behaviour, it is obvious that my family is not a standard household. As a professional in energy efficiency, I am aware of available technologies and good habits to limit our consumption as much as possible. I don’t need a smart meter to monitor our consumption to know what to do to be a model family in energy efficiency. My kids turn off the light when leaving a room. Simple, but efficient. I’ve installed LED. Also efficient, but expensive.

If it is not your case, a smart meter could help you to identify savings you could implement. You could show to your children the consequence of not acting like energy efficiency recommends. You could analyse your consumption measurement and make a small analysis to estimate potential savings, to select the best tariffs scheme that is proposed by the utilities in your region, etc. Be smarter than your utility.

Flavien Port / Gauthier Dupont
Dupont Energy Consulting GmbH