Summerside City is preparing to buy smart meters to help 5,000 customers of the local utility grid to know when they can achieve savings from a future wind farm which will be erected soon.

A 12-megawatt wind farm is in the planning to be completed this fall and electricity produced by the farm will be cheaper to buy then from New Brunswick. The smart meters will enable the utility customer to share the savings and the meters are planned to be connected to the utility. Once up and running, the customer will be able to see in real time when electricity is cheaper.

The advantage of the smart meter is the ability to see when the price is down and the consumer can then use the electricity at higher levels when the wind is blowing.
It will be much easier to make decisions about when to do the laundry, do the vacuum or the baking for the Sunday cookies and this is just the beginning. New appliances are being developed that have the ability to communicate with the world wide web or even the local electricity board to determine when the prices are much lower and then switch themselves on at the right time.

The $2 million price tag will be shared with the local province and the federal government. The city is still waiting for the money to come through and is confident that it will arrive shortly. “We think there is a 90 percent chance of getting this project realised,” the chief administrative officer for the city Terry Murphy said. Once completed, the new $30 million wind farm is expected to produce more than 50 percent of the city’s total electrical needs.

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