Smart Meters Saving Families Money on Utilities

By Colleen Chen, NEWS 9

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Smart meters are saving money and conserving energy for Oklahoma.

The tasks of life, including running the dishwasher, watching the news, making coffee have changed recently inside the Frankfurt home.

"It's almost like the knowledge is power kind of thing," said Allie Frankfurt, who is testing a smart meter.

The knowledge is in the smart meter outside the home and a little white smart box on the counter from OG&E. It displays the thermostat, energy use and money spent in real time, causing customers to rethink energy consumption.

"It became almost like a contest to see how long you could make that usage go," Allie's husband Ed Frankfurt said.

Laundry is now done at 10 a.m., instead of during a peak hour like 2 p.m. Lights are turned off more, and using technology to tweak habits is something the Frankfurt grandchildren never thought they'd see.

"They wondered if Grandad or Grammy might be too old to change and we proved them wrong, which is wonderful," Allie Frankfurt said.

The Frankfurts have just one of 25 test homes in NW Oklahoma City. It's been so successful OG&E has plans to expand the project by turning Norman into a smart city. They'll install 45,000 smart meters and 2,500 smart boxes in the next year.

"Our ultimate goal, our stretch goal is to defer having to build a new fossil-fueled power plant until 2020," said Brian Alford of OG&E.

On average those in the smart power test group saved 10 to15 percent off their utility bill by using the information to change their habits.