Smart meters have been around for years, however, the technology has been restrictively expensive for a wider uptake. Recently the government unveiled plans to have smart meters installed in every UK household by the end of 2020.

So what difference will they really make? Well, once the initial joy of turning your kettle on and off to see how much it is costing you subsides, what they mean in terms for the consumer is information.

At the moment, many of us pay according to estimated bills by the utility companies, which many times can be wildly inaccurate. If we don’t know how much energy we are consuming both in terms of kWh’s and £’s, how can we alter our behavior? Studies have shown that consumers with smart meters installed save an estimated 7% off their bills in the first year.

Replace individual households with businesses (or kettles with servers) and the savings can be substantial, both in monetary terms and in cutting carbon emissions.

Electricity once produced, cannot be stored – supply and demand have to be matched instantaneously, as a result, electricity companies offer what is known as “demand response” whereby at times of peak demand, companies are offered incentives to reduce their consumption either through cash incentives or rate reductions.

Most datacenters have back up generation capacity in the event of blackouts – this is one method that can be used to participate in such a scheme. But what if we actually knew that in terms of server capacity that we could switch the load to different servers and power down?

If you're interested in this space, take a look at our Sustainable IT and Capacity Planning solutions - they allow IT to know exactly when peak demand times are most likely to occur, which allows a smarter way to manage your energy costs and reduce your carbon impact.

Posted by Lynn Harper, Sumerian Analyst