A shift to real-time pricing, expected to save consumers $338 million, was derailed by a billing debacle and a lack of competitive energy suppliers.
The promise was that smart meters would give home customers real-time information on electricity costs, so they could shift power use to when it’s less expensive. Dry your clothes at 10 p.m. and save a few cents. To encourage that outcome, taxpayers chipped in $96 million to install smart meters.
But what few people understood at the time was that the potential couldn’t be realized until CMP upgraded its vintage billing system. Additionally, CMP only delivers the power to 620,000 Mainers’ homes. The companies that generate electricity also had to buy-in to real-time pricing.
Maine isn’t alone in its stalled plans for real-time pricing, according to Cameron Brooks, a Colorado-based energy consultant who works with utilities on grid updating and smart meter deployment. Technical barriers, as well as finding a way to help customers save money that allows providers to make a profit, have been hard to design. Outside of Texas, he said, few states have found that solution.
“There are many benefits smart meters can bring,” Brooks said. “But many of them are unfulfilled promises.”
The trade group representing private energy companies says the residential market just hasn’t developed yet. Conversely, commercial and industrial electricity consumers have the scale to negotiate pricing options.
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