Unfortunately the TED devices cannot be set up to display the price of a real-time pricing program (or one that uses day-ahead prices). Their office claims that the expanded service could be available "soon." However, the device would still be an excellent way to manage your household energy usage. If you continued to check prices through our already available channels while then using TED to get up to the second usage data, then you could be assured that the steps you are taking to conserve your usage are working.
Currently you have to wait until your billing period is up to examine your hour by hour usage through Ameren's Energy Saving Toolkit, but this product would be a dramatically more effective tool to make the most cost cutting changes. Some Power Smart Pricing customers have said they like the program because it's feels like a game to see how much they can save and how much they can shift. With a TED device you could get a high price notification or receive the Daily Price Report from twitter and know exactly which hours you should conserve and then get the immediate feedback that you are doing it properly.
The cost of the device ranges from $100 - $250. It has to be attached to your circuit breaker and wired into your home so unless you are comfortable with that kind of work you will probably want to hire an electrician. Ultimately the cost seems small enough that if you actively used the newly available information, along with the price signals from Power Smart Pricing, that you could make up that initial investment in a relatively short amount of time.
For more on the TED-Google Partnership.
For more information on a TED device.
The Ted Store.
2 comments:
Can Google Powermeter access the hourly data collected by the new meter that the utility installs in order to enroll in the PowerSmart Pricing? There are other regions where the Google service work automatically through the utility instead of requiring a 3rd party device.
I am not sure if the Google PowerMeter software can access hourly usage data, but you can find it using Ameren's Energy Toolkit.
Although the TED device can handle a bunch of different rate options, it is not yet equipped to handle hourly pricing. I called to ask them about it, and they said they hope to have that option available soon.
Google has made some direct partnerships with utilities and that's why they work automatically. The TED device allows the service to be available to everyone.
In the meantime, Ameren's Energy Saving Toolkit offers a similar product that does work automatically, but your hourly usage data is not in real-time. You can only use it to examine your past billing periods.
Post a Comment