Fresh AIRE

Smart Meters come to Arlington!

Smart meters have made their way from rumor to reality here in Arlington as part of Dominions Smart Grid pilot. More than 32,000 customers in the Northern Virginia area getting smart meters installed.  See the chart below to see the breakdown of meter installation across the region:

       Customers by Municipality  Installation Timeline

• City of Alexandria:        4,115              Jun-Oct
• Arlington County:        19,221              Jun-Oct
• Fairfax County:            4.499               Jun-Nov
• City of Falls Church:     4,969               Jun-Oct

What is a smart meter and why is it important?  

Smart meters are the next generation of electricity and gas meters. They will bring about the end of estimated bills and meter readings, and provide Arlington resident and Dominion with accurate information on the amount of electricity being used. Smart meters will empower Arlingtonians to make choices on how much energy they use. 

This pilot will help Arlington residents in a few ways.  It will allow for wireless remote meter reading.  Previous meter reading required a truck to drive down your street to get your meter data.  Put simply, remote meter reads will reduce the number of vehicles on the road, fuel used, and pollution. That's a good thing all around.

The smart meter deployment will also allow Dominion to  remotely turn meters on/off and notify them of power outages, which would come in handy these days with so many epic storms in the region.  

The ultimate goal is to create a grid that manages electric equally between the peaks and valleys of use, increases reliability, manages the rising cost of electricity, and reduces the associated environmental impacts.  Smart meters won't solve all of the issues plaguing extraction, production, transmission, storage, and use of electricity in Arlington.  But it can be one part of the solution.

Learn more on page 35 of this link about Dominion's Smart Meter pilot program, and see how Arlington County's Community Energy Plan is shaping up to transform our energy future.

More Resources:

Arlington's July Community Energy Plan Presentation - http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/DES-CEP/CommunityEnergyPlan/documents/file77584.pdf

Dominion's Smart Meter Program - http://www.dom.com/about/conservation/about-smartmeters.jsp

Thermostat Tweaks

To kick things off with a bang, let’s see how Arlington fared this past July compared to years past in terms of energy requirements for air conditioning or refrigeration. (Deemed ‘cooling degree days’, CDD are calculated as how much warmer the average temperature is compared to 65°F on a given day.  For example, if a location experiences an average temperature of 75°F on a certain day, there were 10 CDD on that day because 75°F - 65°F = 10°F.)

  

  

 

 

 

July	CDD
2010	566
2009	378
2008	495
2007	451
2006	487
2005	491
2004	419
2003	400
2002	499
2001	323
2000	307

 

Not into charts?  On to the written analysis: This July was hot. Really hot.  Heat waves like these are sure to test even the most energy-conscious resident’s thermostat etiquette, beckoning the questions – will raising my thermostat a couple of notches really make a difference?  Will it really save me money?  Will it really shrink my carbon footprint?  Are small changes to the thermostat worth the blood, sweat, and tears?

  

 

 

Luckily, there are handy calculators out there to help answer these questions, one of which hails from ENERGYguide.com.(https://www.energyguide.com/audit/haintro.asp)  This calculator allows you to input specific housing characteristics and calculate how going from one temperature to another (daytime, evening, overnight) will affect energy and cost savings.

 

  

For example, for a 1350 sq. ft. one-level detached single-family home, going from 78°F to 81°F would save a resident about $45-76, 454-756, and 702 lb CO₂ annually.  Broad ranges, yes, but this gives you an idea of what kind of savings you might expect to see with just small tweaks to the thermostat.  Here's another rule of thumb.  The average AC emits about 2,200 lbs CO₂ every year. During the summer, raising an AC’s temperature 6°F can save 10% on cooling costs.  For every degree the temperature is raised above 72°F, cooling costs drop by 3% and CO₂ emissions drop by 120 lbs.

 

Has anybody else come across any handy tools to help gauge energy savings?  Please share!