Smart energy tracking is all the rage, and my kindly old utility company keeps sending me statements that have graphs in 'em, over all kinds of time courses.
Here's the thing: I don't care. It doesn't interest me at all that we use more electricity in July & August than January & February, or that our personal energy demands tend to hit peak around 8 pm. Because there are obvious and not at all useful explanations for those trends; I could probably draw those graphs myself with tolerable accuracy. Time-based analysis of energy usage seems to me a complete misunderstanding of the energy consumer experience.
What I want to know is appliance-specific, or outlet-specific, energy use. How much a month is leaving the desktop on costing us? The cable box/DVR? Which of our lights are the most energy-greedy? That's actionable, and until they give actionable information, "smartmeters" are just more information noise.
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