Smart Grid or Invasion of Privacy

President Obama wants us to have a smart grid; the smart grid will save us energy and save the planet. It sounds wonderful, but can it be an invasion of privacy. After reading this article, the next time you hear the term smart grid, you will know what they are talking about.

What Smart Grid Is

In 2009, President Obama has said he wants the United States to be on a smart grid. He has called for the installation of 3,000 miles of transmission lines and 40 million smart meters. This would turn our current power distribution system into one that is run by microprocessors, wireless sensors, software and computers. In other words, it would be an Internet of the power grid, supposedly being more efficient and intelligent. A more efficient grid system will reduce waste; reduce global warming and the greenhouse effect.

A smart grid will also be able to monitor your individual usage of electricity and natural gas. They tell us this will save consumers money. The consumer will be able to use appliances at times when electricity costs less. For example you could dry your clothes at 4 in the morning when electricity costs less to use than at a peak electrical usage time. Your home will have a smart meter, which will tell your utility company at what time you used what appliance and how much natural gas or electricity you used.

What is BPL

Your utility company will be able to monitor your energy usage by use of the smart meter, which will send this information to the utility company by what is known as BPL. BPL is Broadband over Power Lines. This is like the high speed internet you have now over your phone or cable lines, except this will be going through the power lines.

Some BPL use the 802 mhz WiFi frequencies over the air. And we have heard how easy it is for someone to steal information from a WiFi computer.

How This Could be an Invasion of Privacy

Your smart meter will be sending the utility company all of the information concerning your use of energy, whether it is electricity, natural gas or any other type, plus the time of day, the amount of energy, what the reason you used energy for and more. With computer programs, formulas can be inputted to deduce every bit of information of your daily life in your own home. Information about habits like when you take a bath, what time you take a shower, when you cook food, how many people you cook for, when you watch TV, how long you watch TV, when you do laundry and anything else that requires you to use energy.

You might think big deal; I don’t care if they know those things. But who gets to see this information and who gets to use this information, will the utility companies sell this information to other companies.

This information about our daily lives and habits will be going to the utility companies computers, supposedly safe and secure. Yet computers are broken into every day and the information stolen. Could criminals use this information? Yes they can. Criminals would know what time you get home every day, what time you are in the shower or maybe in the basement doing laundry.

Could a utility company determine your showers are too hot or too long and lower your hot water tank temperature? Could the utility company decide you watch too much TV or have your stove on too long and turn them off for an hour? They could do that with a smart meter connected to your house.

Threat of Identity Theft

Already we have a lot of information collected about our daily lives and there is always the threat of identity theft.  Whenever we use a credit card, debit card, what we Google and what web sites we go to, our habits are being stored somewhere so we can be targeted properly with just the right ads for our habits. This information could be sold for a nice profit to marketing companies just to mention one.

Consumer groups and consumer lawyers have been to court before concerning who can and who cannot have access to your telecom information. It is usually ruled that there has to be an opt-in, which means in order to have any information collected, the consumer has to say or sign a paper stating it is okay for their information to be collected. Recently some utility companies are saying they will collect this information regardless of opt-in or opt-out, or at least until someone takes it to court.

What About the Consumer?

Proponents of the smart grid say that this will save consumers money when the utility companies go to a tiered system of charging for the electricity and natural gas you use and at what times of day you use these types of energy. Utility companies are promising this will save consumers money. If you use energy at a low peak hour of the day, you will pay less than if you used the dryer at a peak energy usage time of day. As a consumer, every winter I have turned the thermostat below 64 only to have several rate increases passed per year. Someone will have to pay for the smart grid and that someone will be the consumer.

The term smart grid is going to be a big phrase in the next decade. Now you will have an understanding when you hear the term smart grid mentioned in the news.

Copyright © 2009 Sam Montana