Our local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, just started a 500-household pilot program to install these devices. We were chosen and this is our little real-time meter. I am pretty good about saving energy. This entire summer, I turned on the air conditioning only once.
The tech who installed this told me that my 0.3 kW baseline usage is the lowest he has seen. When I turn on the TV and DVD player, it goes up to 0.6 kW. Baseline + microwave oven = 2.0 kW. Can you guess what I'll be doing for the rest of the evening?
Algorithms programmed into the device can guess which appliances are using how much energy. A lady who watched 10 hours of TV everyday learned that she was spending $40 a month just from leaving the TV on.