Andrew Fry: The Utility is the owner and caretaker of the data

This posted to smartgrid@ostp.gov by Andrew Fry

Q1-2: The home energy usage data would be the property of the utility. Were it not for the servers that store the physical data, on their memory, such record of usage would not exist. This is not to say that is theirs to disperse and share, other than for in-house analyses. Because of the personal nature, energy usage data should kept by the utility for only the use of the consumer and the utility.

Several interesting situations arise from the gathering of such data and it being owned by the utility. First upon service termination, does the utility immediately delete such information, or if the customer remains in the utilities service area, do they carry it to the consumer’s next residence or habitation? To further that example, if the consumer has difficulties paying bills promptly or with regularity is it appropriate to attach a data trail to them for their past transgressions? It would seem that the deletion of such data would be at the judgment of the utility based on a multitude of factors.

Yes, both the consumer and the authorized third party service providers should have the right to access the energy usage data directly at the meter. It is to each of these parties’ benefit that the other has access to it. The consumer can help the utility, by curbing demand, through altering their behaviors related to energy, once they’re able to see their usage via the meter. In comparison, the utility can provide the consumer assistance in various situations related to outages and identifying times of peak usage to help the consumer save in their monthly electric bill. In each of these instances, allowing the meter to be accessible to both the consumer and the service provider is beneficial.

Q3: My understanding of the current technologies is that it could be technically feasible to access real-time data. Doing so would require a large amount of processing resources, which in turn dictates a larger financial investment than a data offset by an hour or next day data. If the smart grid technologies hold true to previous computer-centric and electronic devices, it will be a matter of time before some private entities have developed a more efficient process for manufacturing the device or assimilating such data. At this point, real-time data would be more readily available.