Posts Tagged ‘Smart Meter Upgrades’

How Can a Smart Meter Help My Home?

Friday, March 6th, 2015

A big part of reducing your energy usage is knowing how much energy you use on a weekly or monthly basis. But ascertaining exact numbers on your utility usage can be a challenge. One new tool that is making it easier for homeowners to get a handle on their energy usage is the Smart Meter. In fact, these meters are so helpful that in 2012, they became mandatory throughout the state of California. So what does a Smart Meter do that makes it so helpful? Let’s take a look.

What It Is

You are probably wondering what makes a Smart Meter so different, and here is the reason it is different: it reports on your electrical and natural gas usage daily. For residential properties, a Smart Meter reports on electrical usage every hour and gas usage at the end of every day; in commercial properties, electrical usage is reported every 15 minutes (gas reporting stays the same). The Smart Meter reports all this data to your utility company over a secure wireless network, and you can access your energy usage information right online. The Smart Meter can also work with solar energy, so you’ll be able to see in detail how much energy you are using from the power company and how much is generated by your solar panels. This specific information provides a baseline of your energy usage, which allows you to create a plan to reduce your overall energy usage.

What Are the Benefits?

Here are some of the benefits a Smart Meter can offer:

  • Instant outage reporting – because of the two-way communication between your Smart Meter and your utility company, any outage will be reported immediately by the Smart Meter. This helps provide better service from your utility company.
  • Reduce energy usage – having a direct reporting system allows you to see exactly when you may be overusing energy, which will help you to create an effective energy plan for your home or business.
  • Instant notification of over-usage – the Smart Meter can email you, text you or phone you when your energy usage goes too high, alerting you to potential problems with your energy utilities before they can become serious.

A Smart Meter upgrade for your southern Vermont property may be just the tool you’ve been looking for to help reduce your energy usage.

Professional Smart Meter installation is required, so call the experts at HB Energy Solutions today and see how a Smart Meter can help you!