However I still believe very strongly that arguing in effect that "The smart grid can offer a more efficient pricing structure" is simply in accurate and unfair the readers of the Gazette. Why?

There are many options available NOW that can provide the same significant energy savings without the need for TOU pricing and smart grid. In the Northwest Energy and water conservation efforts have been significant and they have done a lot to flatten the demand.

There are many "internet ready" thermostats that could already communicate with utilities to obtain rates or requests to adjust thermonstats... all possible without the smart meter. Most have been available in one form of another for perhaps ten years!

The power of the OPower reports when used subscribed by utitilies is pretty amazaing. Using good analytics from the existing power useage - homes that need significant improvement in insulation could be done fairly easy. Air sealing of ducts and the building envelope would make huge differences on many of the homes. As well as HVAC upgrades.

TOU and smartgrid - provide the incentives to upgrade the residential infrastructure - that is where the savings occur. But that information is already available.

The sad part is that those individuals that need help the most with improving energy efficiency are typically low income and the elderly. The elderly are not going to spend $10K-20K for upgrades that will payback in ten years - when they figure they may only live 5 years. The low income owners/renters are just trying to keep their head above the water. TOU rates hurts both of these groups because they generally do not have the ability to change.

Those of us that do have the money to do the upgrades have been doing so for the last ten years and have adopted the smarter thermostats, better windows, more efficient appliances and HVAC.

Another argument against the utilties in this case is that for ten years I have wanted to get a better API so I could pick up my utility bills at least once a month and track them... the utility backend systems for customers are so primitive that hasn't generally been possible. Those systems could have been improved long ago -- and the improvements are a necessary step for smart grid delivery to consumers. Most haven't done it yet.

Instead they are making their case for TOU - which translates to rate increases.