EVB Energy Solutions - Smart Metering in the home: Experience with
variable tariff and load shifting
In Germany the rollout of Smart Metering is
politically decided recently, but to start concrete implementation is still
hampered by numerous open questions. These include many technical and economic
energy issues. Above all there is the question about the requirements for
customer acceptance.
It is also unknown whether a rollout contributes to an
increase of energy efficiency in homes and therefore opens up for new
activities, commercial as well as ecological ones. The project Intelliekon,
funded by the federal German Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has
focused their research on households, has subtracted complete new knowledge
based on data collected in a large survey. This knowledge concerns the
acceptance and attractiveness of electricity consumption information, as well
as their use, the willingness to pay and these effects on the electricity
consumption.
Intelliekon - this is the abbreviation of the research
project "Sustainable energy consumption through smart metering,
communications and industrial relations systems".
In the project research institutes like, Fraunhofer
Institute for Solar Energy Systems ISE, Institute for Social-Ecological
Research ISOE and Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI
work together with the smart metering provider EVB Energy Solutions, in
cooperation with nine German and one Austrian energy company, to develop
opportunities for feedback of power consumption and to investigate the effects
of this feedback on households in relation to their electricity
consumption.
An advantage of Intelliekon is the combination of a
scientific research with a practical approach. Moreover the Intelliekon project
has, compared with most other smart metering pilot projects, a
disproportionately large test group: About 3.000 households, all equipped with
digital electric meter. In the period April 2009 to October 2010 these
households received triggers for various feedback options to power consumption
and a multi-tariff pricing as an incentive use load shifting. All of these
households were interviewed several times, so that a systematic -
differentiated per social structure - evaluation of the consumption, and of the
increased orientation to sustainable energy consumption is possible.