cheap electricity at night

[squeeker]

What gets me are the shopping places who leave their huge signs lit all night.  If your store is closed, turn them off.  I can understand some interior lighting on for safety reasons, but I really think it should be "illegal" to have the store sign on when the store is closed.  It would save a lot of power.

[darkdep]

The average person would use most of the energy between say 5 and 10 in the evening. We can't change our schedules to really accomodate the use of off peak rates. Sure we can conserve where possible, but you will be paying more for the majority of your household energy use. I can't see these smart meters saving anything for the average residential consumer.

However, why don't they nail places like Bayshore Shopping Centre and so on, who have 50 billion watts in lighting alone on each hour they are open. But as usual, the government goes after you and me, who have no power to fight back. :evil:

The amount of power used by commercial and industrial dwarfs residential use by a rediculous amount.  You hit the nail on the head mentioning Bayshore...Stores, companies, etc all use massive power during the day when you're at work, then you stop and come home to your much lower usage house.

Keep in mind that your house uses power when you're not there.  Fridges.  Heating (it's lower, but in use still).  Plus, seemingly every single device on the planet doesn't turn "off" anymore, but goes into some kind of "standby" mode instead (look at your electronic devices that have an LED on when the device is off.  That device is still pulling power...and sometimes more than you think.)

An eye opener...Go into your house and turn off all the lights.  Go look at your meter run.  Then go unplug your Fridge, any freezers, and turn your heat off (don't touch anything else).  Go look at your meter and see if it's still moving...most of the time it will be, which proves how much power is "wasted" by modern devices that don't truly turn off.

Smart Meters will not save you money.  They will encourage you to think conservation by costing you more money.  This, IMHO, is the correct thing to do to show a society the things it does not want to see.

[darkdep]

What gets me are the shopping places who leave their huge signs lit all night.  If your store is closed, turn them off.  I can understand some interior lighting on for safety reasons, but I really think it should be "illegal" to have the store sign on when the store is closed.  It would save a lot of power.

I agree.  Interestingly enough, this statement completely goes against the statement gvv made about having the right to get power.  It's hard to go from our current system to one where power is much more regulated.

[Nerine]

that's why I unplug everything...or at least most things! microwave, toaster, coffee pot, computers, game consoles, anything that isn't used a lot is also unpluged, lamps etc. and I really wish companies would turn off some of their lights, it really pisses me off that they waste so much electricity!! petsmart on merivale just changed all their lights, they are SO much brighter than the old ones and they keep EVERY one of them on all the time now, why can't they turn off half? the store is still very bright! I know some malls turn off half their lighting and there are signs saying why. I'm from California and we're used to brownouts/blackouts and the amount of eletricity and water wasted here is amazing to me!