Were smart meters about saving energy? I sorta assumed they were just there to make things easier on the power company. Although I suppose if it means that a person doesn't have to drive a car to every meter every month, that's probably a win.
I think they can help with saving energy indirectly: by letting power companies give customers more detailed information about their usage. But I don't know how often people take advantage of this.
I've shaved off around .15 kwh of energy that was used 24/7 ($25/month in California) based upon usage information from our energy company.
My 'smart meter' is Zigbee enabled, and I own an adapter that spits out data from the meter in XML format. I can see power consumption with ~400 Watt resolution every 10 seconds without messing around in my breaker box attaching things.
Downside is that we're a decade into net-connected thermostat and HVAC systems and none of them support any of this.
Smart meters in themselves don't do anything to save energy. However, they make your energy consumption level more visible, which in turn might encourage you to use less electricity.
