About Smart Grid Watch
“The Smart Grid has the potential to transform our personal relationship with electricity and gas. Public policy makers have the obligation to nurture these technological capabilities and match them to wider social objectives of energy efficiency, peak demand reduction, renewable energy integration, and consumer empowerment.”
Smart Grid Watch seeks to rise above the clatter of press releases and cleantech articles about Smart Grid. My blog is about provoking thoughtful consideration of new ideas, policies, technologies, and business processes to make real the promise of the Smart Grid. The Smart Grid should be driven by good public policy, and that policy should be driven by good data and information.
Chris King
eMeter
A nationally recognized authority on energy regulation and competitive energy markets, Chris King is widely recruited by regulators and legislators to consult on technology issues in electric restructuring and grid management. He has testified before Congress and was instrumental in crafting the Smart Grid language in the Federal Energy Acts of 2005 and 2007 that paved the way for advanced metering initiatives in the USA.
Anticipating customer choice before its time, Chris was CEO and founder of Utility.com, which provided electric, gas and telecommunications services nationwide. Chris joined Cree Edwards and Larsh Johnson at CellNet, where he served as Vice President-Regulatory Affairs and Vice President-Sales and Marketing. Chris has also directed various energy efficiency and time-of-use pricing programs at Pacific Gas and Electric Company, the largest utility in the United States.
Along with Cree and Larsh, Chris planted the seeds of a Smart Grid vision early. He is glad to see utility capabilities, customer choice, and conservation awareness converge to create a grid that is powerful, efficient, and clean. Chris was an early adopter of time-of-use pricing, beginning with PG&E’s residential pilot 25 years ago. His family still shifts laundry, dishwashing, lawn mowing, and hair drying to off-peak times, saving money and helping the environment.
Chris holds a B.S. and an M.S. in Biological Sciences from Stanford University, and an M.S. in Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Smart Grid Watch 
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Kevin Dickson | December 14, 2009 at 4:48 pm
This comment is aimed at the “Visionary UK Smart Meter Policy”:
“the average dual fuel customer will benefit by £28 per annum.” ($47 USD)”
Big Deal.
$2/month per consumer is huge for the utility, but it won’t get the attention of 90% of the ratepayers.
What to do? Promote true off-peak heating, DHW, and cooling. There are off-the shelf technologies for each.
Back in the ’70’s, off peak kwh’s were about 1/10 the cost of peak kwh’s, which is plenty of incentive to change to a 120 gallon heat pump water heater.
If this approach were implemented, the program would have to be limited to prevent overshoot, but that’s a small problem compared to eliminating the need for new generation.
I’m sure this is old news to you, Chris, but there are very few homebuilders in Colorado who are aware of this potential and how it should affect HVAC design for homes. Even the Energy Raters are unaware of this lowest hanging fruit that seems to be in the hands of the PUC.