Keith wrote: > >At least where I live, we are charged the same premium rate( 16 cents/KWH ) regardless of the time of day. There is no off-peak hour for my residential service. > This calls for expensive and sophisticated meters.
Not necessarily, in the near furure. I think this metering capability could and will be done **very cheaply** (less than $25 capital cost) and without replacing the existing meter. One would need only to provide a tiny clamp-on current probe to one side of the existing meter, BUT this probe would be designed to have enhanced-RFID capability. When the meter-reader comes around each month, the enhanced-RFID wireless system reports the off-peak usage deduction- or alternatively the whole reading is completed, dispensing with the cost of a human reader, using cell phone transmitter technology. Once desingned and in mass-production this part is cheap and now in prototype stage. Some computer-on-a-chip enhanced RFID-units are said to have a cost of only a few dollars (presumably if you buy a million of them). Think of it as a single-purpose, miniature cell phone without baterries, glitz, and all the bells-and-whistles. Jones
