Saving energy by knowing your consumption isn't a new idea

I work for Tendril Networks, Inc. - an energy management start-up company. We work with utilities on various technologies to reduce the use of electricity (typically at peak load times, but the details aren't relevant here). One of the devices included in our Home Area Network is a display which shows your currently energy usage and what you are paying per hour at that very moment. The utilities think that just showing users the immediate costs will prompt a 10-15% reduction in the use of energy. It sounded like a reasonable theory, but was there any data to support this? Turns out I found some data in a book I was reading.

I'm currently reading "Empires of Light" by Jill Jonnes. It's about the electrification of the world and the battle between Edison (DC advocate) and Westinghouse (AC advocate). AC won out, of course, mainly because of it's easy ability to change voltages through transformers and hence can be transmitted over great distances with negligible losses, but it had some major problems initially. One was the lack of an AC motor, but that problem was solved by Nikola Tesla. The other fundamental problem was the lack of an AC meter. Without a meter customers were charged a flat rate (based on what I'm not sure, but probably the number of devices hooked to their network). Working for Westinghouse, Oliver Shallenberger solved the AC meter problem and the results were very apropos to today power industry and to Tendril. I'll quote directly from the book:

"As soon as customers saw bills based on usage, they began turning off lights. Westinghouse central stations equipped with meters now had to generate only a half to two-thirds the amount of electricity as those central stations operating still without meters. The savings to the company were dramatic."

This was in 1890...

Obviously we all have meters, but most customers don't scrutinize their bills much. I think we have an analogous situation with our IHD's and our web portal as when people initially got meters. There will be a reduction in electrical usage and there is precedent for it.

Bill