Michael Giberson
According to Accenture, 46 percent of consumers surveyed said they didn’t want smart grid-based energy management systems if it leads to higher electricity bills. My guess is that the other 54 percent of consumers didn’t understand the question. The summary distributed by Accenture contains several other bits of should-be-obvious information – consumers are concerned about data privacy, consumers want to be compensated if utilities can remotely turn off appliances, consumers want to be able to locally reverse remote utility cut-off instructions – but even as many of the results seem obvious, it still adds up to some more-than-obvious insight into what consumers want. The FT Energy Source blog also comments on the report.
At the Searching for Insight blog, Gary Hunt offers a consumer’s perspective on smart grid developments informed by years working in energy and information technology businesses. See his: