Do you know what data your electrical utility is collecting, how it’s stored, and how they might use that data? Want to understand how that data could help you reduce your energy use or save you money? Would it surprise you to learn that your utility may be sharing your data with various law enforcement agencies without notifying you? Read on for more info on this seemingly obscure but truly important topic.
What is a smart meter?
A smart meter is an advanced electronic device used to measure various aspects of electricity use at your home or business. The most basic smart meters can measure energy use (kWh) on a monthly basis, and transmit this information to your electric utility over a powerline signal, wifi network, or cellular connection. If your electric meter is digital, it’s likely that your utility provider has at least this basic “automated meter reading” (AMR) capability.
More advanced smart meters can do more—both in measurement, and in communication. Many can measure energy use in kWh hourly, and also measure electric demand in kW over the same time period. Some meters even measure these values every 15-minutes. With this advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), communication can occur in both directions, so a utility can “check-in” with a meter to see if it’s active, looking for power outages, or other problems on the system. Utilities may also be able to see other problems in the grid, such as lagging voltage, frequency dips, or poor power factor.
Why smart meters?
The benefits of smart meters have been promised for many years. Some have already materialized, others are a bit more tentative.
For utilities, the ability to automatically read meters remotely means they don’t have to send out meter readers. It also allows better monitoring of the grid, and better visibility into power outages or other problems.
Perhaps the larger impact is to allow more advanced rate structures. When it was only possible to read meters every month–or less frequently–the only practical rate structures were a mix of fixed charges that consumers pay every month, and charges based on the amount of energy used in kWh.
When it’s possible to see energy use and peak through AMI, it’s also possible to bill customers using advanced energy rates, such as Time of Use (TOU) rates. Under these rates, electricity is more expensive during certain times of the day, or “peak” times, which may vary by season. For example, Tucson Electric Power’s residential time of use plan has a summer peak period from 3-7pm on weekdays.
Beyond TOU rates, these meters also enable demand rates. In addition to other charges, demand rates also bill you based not only on how much energy you used each month, but how you use it. For example, with a 1-hour demand rate, you’ll pay a charge based on your highest usage in a 1-hour period during that month. (For more on the subject, see previous posts What’s a Residential Demand Charge? and Wait, TEP is Proposing More Anti-Solar Rates?).
How can the data be used?
Depending on the sophistication of your utility, they are probably getting many of the benefits of the smart meter that they installed on your home, for metering, for system monitoring, for advanced rates.
You and your fellow ratepayers have paid for that infrastructure plus your utility’s approved rate of return. So what are you getting? Depending on your perspective, you may already be receiving the benefits of advanced rate structures, which can help save money for customers who have specific energy use patterns, or install technology to help them manage their energy use.
But what about the data? Is this your data? What access should you have to it? What should your utility be able to do with this data? What are the issues around data privacy? These questions bring up a variety of perspectives, from utilities, consumer advocates, solar installers, privacy advocacy organizations, and so on
Getting access to your data
I believe your own utility energy data should be entirely free and available to you. Not only have you paid for it, but you have few realistic options for opting out of collection of that data. For example, Tucson Electric Power customers who don’t want to have a smart meter on their homes must pay an additional $26.00 fee each month! If utilities are going to collect this potentially-sensitive energy data, that can tell them when you are home (or on vacation), what types of loads you are using, and so on, you should be able to see that information too.
Fortunately, utilities are making strides in providing energy data to their customers. Tucson Electric Power is now providing a significant amount of information on their online portal. If you log into your TEP account, select “Billing and Payment,” then “My Energy Usage,” a helpful dashboard will come up. In this view, you can see your energy usage for up to 24 months.
The default view shows energy use in kWh and peak use in kW for each monthly billing period. Click on any of the bars, and you can zoom in, seeing the same information for each day of the month. If you click again, you can see hourly energy usage for each day. If you check the “ Show on-peak and off-peak usage” box, you can even see how much of your energy use is during “peak periods” that apply to some electric rates.
For solar customers, the portal does have some odd behavior. Although TEP does have access to information on how much power your solar array is producing, it isn’t integrated into this portal. For example, on my usage above, it looks like I had no grid usage for most of the months out of the year. But this is simply because I wasn’t billed for that usage, because my net-metered solar electric system offset all my electricity use, and I had some credits banked. If I click on the bar graph for my August 2017 usage, I find see this:
So far, so good. In fact, this is actual grid usage for each day, regardless of how much energy I have “saved” using net metering. What is odd is that because there is no bill usage for my previous bill, I can’t get to this view from the monthly display. But if I click on a month where I have usage, I can then click “Previous” to see use from other months, such as July 2017. The data is there, it’s just a bit hard to get to.
Since early 2016, Net Zero Solar has installed Enphase Energy’s consumption monitoring system as standard. Their monitoring portal provides a clearer view in terms of energy use, solar production, and grid imports and exports. However, it does not provide information on on-peak and off-peak energy use, or on demand.
Sizing a new solar electric system requires load data
So if you want to understand your energy use, TEP’s portal can provide some good insights. But what if you want to decide the size of a new solar electric system? With new “export rates” in Arizona, this process is a bit harder. With export rates, solar customers are paid less for energy they send to the grid, as compared to energy they buy from TEP. This means that to understand savings from solar, your solar installer must understand how energy flows each moment in your system. For more information, see our recent infographic, “How Does My Solar Electric System Work with the New Export Rates?”
To complete this analysis, your solar installer needs to know your energy usage for each hour of the year. This is often called an “8760” file, because there are 8,760 hours in each year (except leap year). Your installer can then compare this against the predicted output of a proposed solar electric system over the same time period to figure out how much energy is imported from your utility, how much is exported, and what your savings will be.
Although all the information is technically available, at present, TEP’s “My Energy Usage” doesn’t let you download a 8760 file. To get the same information through their portal, you’d have to download 365 separate files, then put them all together! Clearly, that’s not a practical solution!
Instead, you or your solar installer would have to complete a Customer Usage Data Release to request your interval data. When I submitted a request this data for my own home, a friendly TEP representative emailed me fairly promptly, but it took almost a week for me to receive the data file. Part of this lag was due to the fact that TEP made me pay a $30 fee for data from the meter on my home, and I had to approve this fee. This current system means that it would probably take 7-10 days for our estimators to quote a solar electric system for a new customer, since they would have to wait for the data from TEP. Of course, it also seems odd to pay $30 for this simple data.
For these reasons, I made a strong case in my testimony in TEP’s rate case that they should supply this data for easy download. I’m pleased to note that TEP didn’t object to this request, and the judge in the case has recommended that the Arizona Corporation Commission order TEP do so. Although the ACC still hasn’t acted on the judge’s recommendation, we hope that that data access will be part of their final order.
Current policy continues data privacy and data security challenges
We’ve all seen a lot of activity around privacy lately. From Facebook’s “partnership” with Cambridge Analytica, multiple data breaches from large corporations like Equifax, the Home Depot, and Target, and the recent rollout of the GPDR, the way data is collected and secured is on the minds of many consumers.
It’s worth considering privacy issues around smart metering technologies as well. Measuring your power usage can provide a lot of visibility into what’s happening inside the home. Based on your electric usage, it’s not hard to tell when you’re likely to be home, what types of loads you have, or show that you’re on vacation. In one case, power usage data shared from a utility to law enforcement resulted in criminal prosecution for growing marijuana.
With any provider that collects data, it’s important to understand how our data is collected, who it is shared with, and how it is secured. The Electronic Frontier Foundation has advocated on these issues for several years, including this interesting case.
In Arizona, consumers are provided some protection by current ACC rules, but there’s a lot of wiggle room for utilities. In January of 2014, the ACC opened a docket to consider more comprehensive solutions for smart meter privacy. The ACC staff provided a solid set of draft rules, incorporating more strict opt-in provisions for customers, better data privacy protections (such as universal encryption for smart meters), restrictions on giving customer information to third parties, and requirements that utilities provide customers access to their data.
Unfortunately, the ACC never acted on this docket, despite the vigorous discussion in the proceeding. Chapter 2, Article 22 of the ACC’s rules remains blank. Despite this, looking at the response to the proposed rules by TEP (and sister companies UNS Electric and UNS Gas) gives us some insight into their perspective on these matters.
It would appear that TEP and associated companies were concerned about how these proposed rules would affect their business. Instead of an opt-in model for use of customer data for new purposes, they proposed an opt-out model.
Other comments referenced law enforcement data requests. In their initial comments in July 2014, they shared:
“[In] the last month alone, the Companies responded to nearly 1,000 requests for customer information from law enforcement agencies and other authorities. These requests were issued by agencies including the Tucson Police and Pima County Sheriffs Departments, Internal Revenue Service, Pima County Attorney’s Office, U.S. Marshall’s Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Drug Enforcement Agency, Department of Economic Security and Pima County Adult Probation Department.”
Personally, I was very shocked to see the number frequency and scope of these requests, even back in 2014. It would be interesting to know if the volume has changed in the intervening years.
Their filing also touched on privacy of customer energy usage data. Although TEP (and sister companies) state that your privacy is not affected, because data is not identifiable to particular customer, they note:
“The Companies currently employ automatic meter reading (AMR) meters that lack the two-way communication capabilities of so-called “smart meters.” These AMR meters transmit usage data wirelessly via a fixed network that associates interval readings with unique meter identification numbers. These wireless signals are unencrypted, and the technology employed by the Companies cannot be upgraded to provide encryption.”
Toward a brave new data world
Smart meters, like any other technology, are just tools. The extensive data that they provide can help you change your energy use patterns, size your new solar electric system, or specify an energy storage system. Or maybe they will be used by utilities for purposes that don’t fit your values, or given or sold to third parties. The best thing we can do is become informed. I’d encourage you to advocate for easy access to your own data, appropriate security and data protection, and transparency about how your data is used. Perhaps it is time for the Arizona Corporation Commission to consider these important issues again.
Do you have thoughts? Please continue the discussion in the comments below!
It was helpful when you mentioned that the peak times at which electricity costs more can actually vary depending on the season. Saving money on electricity is something my husband and I want to prioritize in the next few months, but first I need to learn more about the factors that affect energy rates. Thanks for sharing this article and helping me understand some of the reasons that electricity prices can fluctuate.
Thanks for explaining that the data from metering your energy can help you change your use patterns to save money. Lately I’ve been curious about how energy rates are calculated and what factors affect them. I’m glad I read your article because it was interesting to learn about the data that energy metering provides.