Which brings us to today. SDG&E is installing smart meters throughout San Diego County, and will be done by 2011. Once that is completed, you'll see Time-Of-Use (TOU) pricing (we already have tiered pricing) likely put in place (PUC-willing) which means customers will be paying much more during peak-usage times and consumers will be shocked by the bill increases, sort of what is happening on a smaller scale today with water usage.
Consumers are clueless today and its going to get much, much worse. (see here for an earlier note on consumer knowledge). They'll be looking for help and I've used all of SDG&E's energy monitors and trust me, they're clueless. Just try reading your bill. Seriously. If your brain is not scrambled trying to understand your bill, read their proposed TOU schedule.
So here's the idea: Offer to do a whole house electric energy audit for, say, $250-500 if you can't wait for the moola or, better yet, for $100 plus 50% of the cost savings for the first year. Schedule a time to spend about 60 minutes capturing the meter reading, last month's bill, and installing usage monitors at critical points of the home (see here for a sample monitor that costs less than $20). Come back 24 hours later, pick up your readings and monitors, do a quick Excel spreadsheet and auto-generate a report from within Excel, with recommendations. There's lots more details I won't go into here, as well as many more sophisticated options, but you can start this business with 10 monitors for less than $250, business cards included. Of course, it will open doors to things like installing solar panels (a reference sell, get paid $500 for every installed referral, etc.). See here. What you learn will be priceless. And for those of you that want a political affiliation with my good buddy Al (of green-washing fame), you'll be a hero.
So what are you waiting for?
