Electricity or gas can be easily deemed as the Messiah of the modern world. They are such an intricate part of our daily life, that without them our life would practically come to a standstill. There is hardly any aspect of life that is not fueled by electricity and gas.
Needless to mention, just like any other services, they are paid services as well thereby incurring bills on regular intervals that need to be paid for the services to keep continuing.
Wherever there is the generation of bills of some kind, a measurement system is implemented to calculate the usage of those services for which the bill is to be generated. Electricity or gas usage is no different. Hence, to calculate the amount of usage devices called meters are installed at the establishments. The reading provided by the meters forms the basis of bill generation.
We live in an era of smart technology. Almost all the gadgets that we use daily are smart nowadays like our phones, televisions, and even our homes. The good old meters are also encompassed in this so-called ‘smartness’. Today almost all establishments have adopted smart meters. One should not be confused by the fact that smart meters are only used to measure electricity usage. They can be used to measure the usage of any utilities like water, gas, or even the consumption factors of district heating.
The aspect that makes smart meters different from their regular counterparts is the real-time tracking of utility usage. The prices per unit might vary with different companies, like the Utility Bidder. However, the tracking system remains the same with the aid of smart meters.
What is the hype about smart meters?
The USP of smart meters is the real-time data tracking of utility usage. The real-time tracking helps to lower bills considerably, thereby making smart meters the best choice. Several studies have contributed to the fact that power consumption is reduced by almost 3 to 5 percentages when smart meters are introduced.
However, the other qualities of a smart meter are often shrouded by this side of its benefits. The other cost factor the smart-meters can boast of is their ability to work remotely, thus reducing a large chunk of labor cost.
Different smart meters for different utilities can be customized to make their lives better. For example, they can detect leakages in case of water or gas supply thus averting dangerous accidents. In the case of electric smart meters, they can detect cyber-attacks and hence can cut off the electric power supply of the whole house to safeguard precious data.
Smart meters not only track real-time usage but also store the usage data. This data can be analyzed for many beneficial projects, for example using the utility usage data; power consumption details can be obtained which can provide the foundation for creating power plants or gas supply plants at relevant locations so that more and more people are benefitted.