Wall Street Journal: Watch Your Energy

New monitoring gadgets may help reduce utility bills

By Cassandra Sweet

The smart grid is coming. But not from the direction everybody expected.

Over the years, utilities have promised consumers savings of energy and cash from smart meters. These gadgets, which would be installed in every home and business, would let people monitor and control energy use much more closely.

But officials in some states have balked at the high price tag of installing the devices. And consumers in other states where smart meters have been installed have complained the devices haven’t lived up to their billing.

Now tech companies are trying to succeed where the utilities have so far failed. They’re looking to sell off-the-shelf energy-monitoring products to cash-strapped consumers looking to lower their bills. For the most part, the devices don’t do everything smart meters can, but they promise to better control the appliances and devices that use the most juice.

See how EnergyHub helps tackle these problems. Read the full article from the Wall Street Journal here.