Shedding Light on Right to Know Bill

摘要

One of the big challenges facing the utility industry when it comes to smart meter deployments and advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) are the questions of who owns energy-usage data, how it will be protected, and how privacy will be administered and secured. With that in mind, U.S. Representative Ed Markey introduced a bill this spring designed to give consumers the ability to track and manage their energy consumption. As smart meter technology continues down the road toward becoming ubiquitous, the technology will have to clear some roadblocks on the way. The goal of the bill is to allow consumers to view energy usage in real time, either directly through the utility or some form of third party, such as Google or Microsoft. Among other things, the Electric Consumers' Right to Know Act, or e-KNOW Act, requires the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the U.S. Department of Energy to issue guidelines for data security and consumer privacy.