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Renewable Energy
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Page 3 of 7
Since electricity supply companies don't like selling power for less than it costs them to buy, they are keen to be able to change the prices they charge their customers at least every half hour. This would ensure that they always got a decent margin on the price they paid to buy from the pool. But frequent changes in the price of power are impossible with existing electricity meters which only record the amount of power taken but not the time of day. All the country's meters therefore need to be changed and, in deference to the companies' wishes, the 2007 Programme for Government says that it will “Ensure that the ESB installs a new smart electronic meter in every home in the country which will allow people to reduce their bills by cutting back on unnecessary use of electricity.” For “Unnecessary” read “ill-timed”.
Early in November, energy minister Eamon Ryan announced that 25,000 smart meters were to be installed in a pilot programme beginning in the second quarter of 2008 and that all existing meters were to be replaced over the next five years. While manufacturers have been invited to tender to supply the trial batch of meters, estimated to be worth about e10m., no detailed specification for these has been published. All the tender invitation says is that “The meters will be required to include features such as interval and register reading, import/export measurement capability, remote reconfiguration, integrated switch which can be remotely operated, local area network capability and provision of a gateway to the home area network. A compatible in-home display unit for trialing in the pilot would also be desirable.”
The ESB’s Moneypoint power station - Photograph: Mark Waters
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