SmartGridCity(tm)

It's coming to a city near me and I'm trying to understand the implications of such a system, especially for a grid tied PV system. On first read, the White Paper (pdf) rings of the patter of the Snake Oil Salesman.

I'd love to have some realtime monitoring and data collection of our power consumption and production. Our system has all kinds of readouts on the inverters, charge controllers, and main digital meter (wireless, the utility company justs drives by and picks up the signal). But if I want to get a-retentive about the data ( making charts and graphs and running them through the statistics), I have to record all that data by hand. Or invest in some inverter monitoring software/hardware and the time to mess with it. It'd be great if I could just go on-line and get this data.

Or would it? Part of the plan is to use plug-in hybrid batteries to feed back to the grid at peak hours. Wouldn't that decrease the life of the batteries? Would they control our little battery bank? Could I over-ride that control? I've resisted the SaverSwitch(tm) because I don't want to have the air-conditioning under some company's control.

The question in my head: "Should I join the pilot program, or wait 'till they make me?" I haven't digested all this info yet, nor contacted the local PV group to get their opinion. Still researching....

(I confess, there is the dark corner o' my brain that recalls Varley's short story "Press Enter")