Southern California Edison, a utility company, has recently begun a campaign to install smart meters in the homes of its customers.  The meters allow the homeowner to monitor his or her energy usage in real time, which should result in a decrease in energy consumption.  SCE projects that after the planned 5 million meters are installed, approximately one gigawatt of power will be saved, which is equivalent to the output of one power plant in a year.  The energy savings will correspond to a decrease of 365,000 tons of carbon emissions per year.

The smart meters are part of SCE’s $1.6 billion SmartConnect program, which will improve the energy grid in a variety of ways.  SCE is transitioning from manual grid management to a computerized system and providing its operators with advanced sensors and computing systems for improved monitoring.  The program is only one part of SCE’s efforts to promote energy saving practices, which initially seems unusual for a company that sells energy.  As it turns out, it is more financially beneficial for SCE to invest in conservation measures than to build, staff and run the additional power plants that will be necessary if California energy consumption continues to increase at the current rate.