The Smart Meters are Coming. The Smart Meters are Coming Pt 4

My personalized smart meter (it has my personal ID number and I taped my high school student card to it so there’s no mistake when new rates are charged starting in a few months) is now installed, and if the pictures in my free (insert laugh track here) smart meter answer book are any indication, I’ll be smiling and laughing all the way to the bank.


Currently, as a residential hydro user, I pay 5.8 cents per kwh every hour of the day, every day of the week, whether it’s an off-peak time, e.g., 4 a.m. when 92 per cent of Ontarians are fast asleep, or an on-peak time, e.g., 6 p.m. when that same 92 per cent of Ontarians are turning on several appliances at once in order to eat supper and watch Coronation St. on TV.


["I'll just do laundry at six." "You realize that's 6 a.m.?"]

While I pay a fixed rate (for now) commercial users of various sizes pay the volatile spot market price, i.e., 3.37 cents per kwh at 1 p.m. today, and an average of 3.65 cents in February, 2010 and 3.14 cents average since Jan. 1, 2009, along with a variety of costs, some higher than my fixed costs.

In the near future my fixed rate of 5.8 cents will give way to three Time of Use (TOU) rates, an off-peak rate (4.4 cents per kwh), a mid-peak rate (8.0 cents) and on-peak rate (9.3 cents), and I’ll be charged the three rates depending on the time of day and season. (The times of day that we’ll be charged the three rates change between summer and winter timetables).

As I looked at the timetables in the booklet and on the smart meter website I noticed that they are not fully identical.


However, since London Hydro delivered the booklet into my hot little hands, I’m going to assume the booklet - this is the good news - is right for Londoners.

The bad news is, after looking at the rates and timetables, I came to the conclusion I’ll be paying more for hydro for 92 per cent of regular activities that involve a plugged-in device.

I’ll share a few gory details asap.

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Check out the websites to answer the question:

Are you smart enough to save money with the smart meter?

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