The U.K. is facing this issue right now as that nation continues to make good progress on rolling out smart meters. This includes addressing several important policy issues related to functional standards.

U.K. policymakers could choose to prohibit interval billing. However, that would be an expensive mistake — and it would significantly reduce the benefits that consumers would realize from smart meters.

To understand why interval billing is so important, it helps to understand how utilities have historically read meters and billed customers for energy use — and how smart meters revolutionize these functions.

Utilities can calculate electricity bills using either “register reads” from older meters, or “interval data” from smart meters.

Register reads go back to the invention of the electricity meter in 1873. The first electromechanical meters — which incidentally are still used by most customers — accumulated consumption (kWh) in the same way a car odometer accumulates miles. The “register” is the meter’s memory, in the form of a mechanical display. It shows only one value: total cumulative consumption from date the meter was installed.

A “register read” is the number that human meter readers manually record when they visit the customer’s premises each month (or quarter, or other period). Meter readers used to write those numbers down by hand; today, they enter readings into a handheld computer.

Interval data is time-based information about a customer’s energy use. In addition to recording a customer’s cumulative energy consumption, smart meters also record energy usage every fifteen minutes or hour. This interval data can support billing for time-based electricity rates (time-of-use, critical peak pricing, peak time rebates, hourly pricing, peak demand, etc.).

Interval billing isn’t new. Utilities have collected this type of interval data and used it to bill large commercial and industrial customers since the 1950s. But smart meters make interval billing available and cost-effective for any customer, even residential users.

Some policymakers are debating whether interval data should be allowed for billing domestic customers who have smart meters installed.

Relying on register reads poses many operational and policy problems. However, utilities can’t be expected to change overnight. Since register reads have a long tradition in the industry, their continued use should be permitted.

At the same time, not permitting the use of interval data (which also has a long history) causes problems for both utilities and customers.

If utilities are not allowed to generate bills based on interval data, then inconsistencies will arise between consumer bills and other data uses such as web presentment, load forecasting and settlement. This, in turn, leads to higher bills, more estimated bills, reduced flexibility, increased complexity and other serious problems.

Why would policymakers NOT want to allow interval billing? Their main concern is transparency. Customers should be able to look at their meter’s display, and thus validate the values shown on their bills — even though it is impractical to view interval data on a meter’s display.

In the U.S., regulators have addressed this issue by requiring the cumulative register value to be displayed on both the meter and the bill. The bill also offers more details. Of course, very few customers actually check their meter’s display, but at least they can do this if they want to.

The benefits of interval billing far outweigh this concern. The key arguments in favor of interval data billing are that it is significantly less expensive and much more flexible.

If interval billing is not permitted, extra costs and lost benefits could reach billions of dollars for both utilities and consumers — primarily because both meters and back-end software systems would have to be far more complex. For example, meters would have to store tariff information and aggregate interval data into pricing periods. Back-end systems would have to manage synchronization of tariff and other details between the billing system and millions of individual meters, each acting like a cash register.

For more details on the importance of interval billing, see the new white paper by Siemens AG unit eMeter: Interval Billing for Smart Meters: A Policy Imperative for Regulators and Utilities.

Policymakers have a simple solution: Permit both options and allow the market (electricity retailers) to decide whether to use register reads or interval data for billing. We’re confident that the market will select the optimal solution.

Aneesh Chopra

Yesterday Fedscoop reported that U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra will be leaving his post. “No information was provided on his future plans, but ongoing speculation includes running for political office to assuming an executive role leading the Washington offices of a major technology company.”

Last summer I met with Chopra, and I was impressed with his vision for the smart grid. He also has been a champion of the Green Button initiative — a consumer energy data service that recently went live on the websites of three major California utilities.

My eMeter colleagues and I are sorry to see the loss of Chopra’s enthusiasm and leadership in the smart grid. We wish him all the best.

CEER concluded that to guarantee active participation by customers, smart meters are needed. This means making metering data available more frequently, and fostering customers’ deep awareness of both consumption and injection behaviors (e.g. wind and solar energy produced by energy consumers). These are not possible with electromechanical meters…

This Advice document is a set of recommendations based on industry input to a public consultation CEER held last year. CEER is the voice of Europe’s national energy regulators, at the EU and international level. Through CEER, national regulators cooperate and exchange best practices. This agency “seeks to facilitate the creation of a single, competitive, efficient and sustainable EU internal energy market.”

Like many other organizations, including the Smart Energy Demand Coalition, CEER believes that two forces that drive development of the smart grid are:

• Active participation by customers in electricity markets.Customers must be able to react and adjust their consumption, or be able to inject electricity in response to signals.
• Time-based electricity pricing options. These are a vital signal for demand response by customers.

CEER made four recommendations to promote demand response by customers — all very consistent with some other countries and U.S. states which exemplify best practices, such as California and Texas:

1. Customer trust. Electricity retailers and other energy service providers should give customers transparent information about offers. The goal is to create customer awareness of how changes in lifestyle or occupancy influence household consumption patterns, and consequently their electricity bill. As As Siemens AG business unit eMeter’s Chief Regulatory Officer Chris King recently told Bloomberg News: “It’s impossible to get transparency without smart meters.”
2. Privacy and security. When installing smart meters, privacy and security must be guaranteed. Canada provides one possible example.
3. Offers that reflect real consumption patterns. The industry should provide time-based options, price comparison websites, on-demand access to consumption data (such as that from the U.S. Green Button), cost information and at least two channels for data access.
4. Interface with devices in the home. In order to realize the full potential of the Home Area Network interface, specific roles for energy retailers, data providers and other stakeholders must be defined. CEER also noted other prerequisites, including safe, secure, and open standards; a duty to deliver timely and accurate data; the capacity to quickly analyze large volumes of data and the ability to aggregate consumption from different customers for demand response.

CEER says its Advice can be used as a checklist to use smart meters to spur demand response. The recommendations involve these market stakeholders:

• Customers
• Micro-generators, such as customer-premise wind and solar producers
• Metering operators
• Distribution system operators (DSOs)
• Electricity retailers/suppliers
• Energy service companies (ESCOs)
• National regulatory authorities (NRAs)

A few of Europe’s electricity markets are designed differently from the U.S. in terms of the roles for DSOs and metering operators, so CEER discussed these separately in its Advice. CEER describes the roles for these two actors — but in practice, in most countries these two roles are handled by a single entity (the DSO).

Incidentally, separating the meter operator from the DSO creates numerous problems, most importantly the loss of economies of scale. New Zealand is the only state or nation which has separated these two functions and also had a significant smart meter rollout. In contrast, two smart meter success stories (Texas and the Australian state of Victoria) reversed their original policies separating the two roles. More on this in a future post…

That company was Siemens. I’ve never been prouder to work for any company (which I’ve now done for all of two weeks, since Siemens acquired eMeter).

However the President missed a key opportunity to state a clear vision for the smart grid…

I’m not sure why President Obama mentioned Siemens, but I do know that Siemens is a leader in education, employment, and clean energy.

Siemens has helped not only Ms. Bray; this company also sponsors one of the largest U.S. college scholarship programs (for students who earn high marks in science and math Advanced Placement exams). Furthermore, SiemensUSA is this nation’s largest foreign-owned employer, with over 60,000 U.S. workers in healthcare technology, energy management, electrical equipment, smart cities — and smart meters and smart grids. (That’s where eMeter, now a Siemens business unit, comes in).

In fact, Siemens has more U.S. employees than some other stellar, industry-leading companies — including Apple Computer, Google, Intel and Microsoft.

Although I knew Siemens was a world-class technology company, I wasn’t aware of its leadership and vision in promoting education, job skills, and a better life — including sustainability and clean energy. In the U.S. Siemens builds wind turbines, solar plants and grid devices. They also develop software that makes our electricity network more reliable, efficient and environmentally friendly.

Siemens is helping to realize President Obama’s vision of an “all-out, all-of-the-above strategy that develops every available source of American energy — a strategy that’s cleaner, cheaper, and full of new jobs.” Siemens also has a large energy management business for commercial buildings, which President Obama said will help save our nation $100 billion over the next decade.

However, unlike his specific call to action for building energy management, last night President Obama only briefly mentioned smart meters and the smart grid. “[We have] a power grid that wastes too much energy,” he observed.

President Obama missed the chance to explain what the smart grid will mean; to set forth a vision that Americans can get behind.

In the big picture, the smart grid will not only reduce energy waste in the U.S. power grid — it also will increase reliability, enable even more energy savings, require fewer power plants to meet peak demand, allow the grid to handle more wind and solar generation, and make it more economical for Americans to drive electric vehicles.

The smart grid will achieve these goals by empowering U.S. consumers.

First, consumers will get timely feedback about their energy consumption so they can understand and better how they use energy — including buying more efficient appliances.

Also, the smart grid will support time-of-use and other pricing options for electricity, so Americans can save money by using low-cost power during off-peak hours. This also promotes the use of off-peak wind energy. Right now, U.S. wind power faces a big problem: every day, U.S. utilities waste precious wind energy resources by turning off wind turbines. This is because the wind tends to blow strongest at night, when power use typically is lower, and it’s not possible to store “excess” wind power.

Finally, automation of home appliances via “set-and-forget” devices (especially smart thermostats) will allow consumers to respond to energy price changes without even thinking about it. This will make it easy and convenient for anyone to save money and energy.

Siemens is working to make this grand smart grid vision a reality. I, and the 60,000 other U.S. employees of Siemens, are blessed to live in a great country — and to work for a great company.

Watch President Obama’s 2012 State of the Union address:

Examples of how energy data from the Green Button can be usefully applied. (Click to enlarge.)

This week I was with U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra when he announced huge progress on the White House Green Button initiative. All three major California utilities (Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison) have gone live with green button on their websites.

Here’s how it works: After logging in, customers can click on that button and download up to 13 months of their detailed electricity usage data. Generally this is 15-minute or hourly interval data, but it can work for monthly data also.

So what? By itself, this data is virtually of no use. But here’s why consumers should care…

Chopra and many others believe that mobile app developers will step forward and provide interesting and even exciting uses for this data. With such apps on their smartphones, consumers could:

• Get an immediate comparison of how optional time-of-use rate plans (now offered by many utilities) will affect their bills.
• See a breakdown of their energy usage by appliance.
• Calculate their potential savings and payback for installing insulation.
• Join an energy game to rack up savings points (Simple Energy has already developed a prototype, which they showed at the meeting.)
• Figure the costs and return on investment for installing photovoltaic panels.

With the apps market being so creative, I’m sure there would be many, many more.

Chopra also mentioned that other utilities (Glendale, Pepco and Oncor) have also committed to adding Green Button to their websites.

As I told Aneesh, this is a dream come true after 30 years in this business — for consumers, for society and for the environment.

UPDATE: On Jan. 20 the Association for Demand Response and Smart Grid held a webinar explaining Green Button. Archived recording and presentations are available online. More technical details on Green Button.

Also, the North American Energy Standards board has launched a new website that offers information about the Energy Service Provider Interface (ESPI), the standardized process and interface for the exchange of retail customer energy usage information. This is in partnership with the National Institute of Science and Technology, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, the Department of Energy and the Office of Science and Technology Policy.

Worldwide estimated smart meter rollouts by 2020. (Click to enlarge.)

Today the U.K. government’s Public Account Committee released a report on that nation’s preparations for the rollout of smart meters.

Here are this report’s six conclusions and recommendations, and our analysis of each…

1. Consumers will have to pay (through their energy bills) for the cost of installing smart meters. However, in the first instance many smart meter benefits will pass on to energy suppliers.

While this point is true, in the long rung the majority of smart meter benefits will flow to consumers. Smart meters will force the electricity and gas sectors to move towards a smarter and more transparent model. Consumers will get bills based on actual rather than estimated consumption, and be able to switch retailers in a day or two — rather than the six weeks it currently takes.

More importantly, prior to smart meters, consumer energy data mostly was “garbage in, garbage out.” With smart meters, consumers can get actual data. This will help them better understand their energy consumption.

Also, smart meters vastly increase transparency — which is crucial in a competitive retail market. With clear tariffs, they will be able to compare suppliers and options to decide which deal suits them best. Since most U.K. energy bills currently are estimated, projected savings from switching retailers are estimates on top of estimates.

The U.K. market definitely needs more transparency. For example, late last year Chris King (Chief Regulatory Officer at Siemens AG’s eMeter unit) and I could not find clear and specific consumer information about U.K. electricity prices. There were plenty of estimates of annual bill amounts — based on estimates on top of estimates. But no website gave the details. We knew from experience that energy bills include these components:

• Monthly charges.
• Initial prices per kWh.
• Prices for usage above a threshold.

However these details were not available online — including on sites run by U.K. energy retailers, the government and nonprofit organizations.

Would you choose a gas station based on estimated annual bills? How would they know how — or how much — you drive? Electricity pricing requires the same knowledge of your own usage habits.

Ofgem is working on requirements for retailers to provide clear bills to consumers. This would make it easier to for consumers to compare prices — if those prices are easily available.

Furthermore, smart meters can help consumers save money with off-peak discounts — an aspect of pricing that also should be made clear to consumers.

2. Smart meter benefits can only be fully realized if adopted widely, and if consumers use them to reduce their energy bills. However, the role of suppliers in helping to achieve this remains undefined.

We agree that when more consumers have smart meters, those meters will yield more consumer benefits and gain more extensive capabilities to reduce energy bills. But to get to that point, suppliers must be sure that if one of their smart meter customers switches to another supplier, they will be reimbursed for the cost to install that meter. The U.K. government must make this perfectly clear.

Other stakeholders (not just suppliers and consumers) will also benefit from smart grid applications. For instance, electricity distributors will benefit from outage alerts sent by smart meters, and third-party service providers will help consumers manage their energy through consumer-authorized access to energy consumption data.

3. Consumers who are low-income, on prepayment service, or otherwise vulnerable may not reap benefits from smart meters.

Actually, in the PowerCentDC U.S. smart meter pilot program run by eMeter, 91% of all customers saved money — and no low income consumer paid a higher bill.

Of the three tariffs offered in that program, low-income consumers were only on the Peak Time Rebate, where they earned rebates for voluntarily lowering peak time usage — or nothing, if they chose to use energy as they normally would. The resulting 13% reduction in peak demand yielded cost savings in wholesale purchases by the utility, which was the source of the rebates paid to participants. Based on the success of this approach, utilities plan to offer similar programs to all smart meter customers in California, Maryland, and Delaware.

Utilities should consider segmenting their smart meter services, since different types of customers will be interested in different kinds of benefits.

One example is prepaid service. Once a smart meter is in place, this option no longer requires an expensive equipment upgrade. That makes it easier to offer prepayment to the 30-40% of customers interested in this option. Prepayment plus smart meters offer several consumer benefits:

• Flexibility.
• Alarms for excessive usage or proximity to the credit limit.
• Paying for energy as you use it.
• Eliminating surprises at the end of the month (a huge benefit during severe weather).
• Cost control.
• No need for customers with poor credit to post a large deposit with the utility.

4. Trials so far have been inconclusive about consumers’ willingness to cooperate with the installation process and to use smart meters to reduce their energy consumption.

In the U.S., over 27 million smart meters have been installed. This experience yields a simple best practice: notify customers prior to installation and, if the customer has a strong objection to the installation, have a specially-trained ombudsman speak to the customer and explain the benefits of smart meters. In most cases, customers are happy to have the meters installed after such conversations.

Also, the U.S. experience has been that less than 1% of customers initially object to smart meter installation.

For consumers who are completely unwilling to accept a smart meter, some U.S. utilities are allowing them to opt out and pay the added operational costs to manually read and maintain a non-smart meter. For instance, in California this costs $90 up front and $15 per month. Costs would probably differ in the U.K. But in any case, the actual experience with opt-outs is about 0.2% of consumers.

Also, it is essential that consumers realize benefits soon after the the smart meter is installed. They’ll also need up-front education, and be should able to immediately access their data via an in-home display, web portal or mobile app.

Consumer engagement programs (such as PowerCentsDC, which gave consumers detailed energy consumption data and tips) also have proved to accelerate consumer behavioral changes. This program, which involved domestic Potomac Electric Power Co. customers in the Washington DC area, combined smart meters and thermostats with time-based pricing and eMeter’s Energy Engage online platform. Over the course of this program, 91% of participants saved an average of $44 per year — and over 90% said they would recommend PowerCentsDC to friends and family

5. The data communications service required to link smart meters to suppliers is a complex IT project that may cost as much as £3 billion.

…And yet, this project is expected to yield net benefits of over £4 billion.

In any case, the communications cost has been included in the U.K. government’s cost-benefit analysis. Furthermore, that analysis assumes consumers would cut electricity and gas consumptions by only 2% — even though a recent study of over 100 programs found average actual consumption savings from energy information feedback to be 8.7%.

The U.K. Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) should — in fact, must — consider the big picture when deciding on the design and specifications of the smart grid data communication system. This solution must be flexible and support the government’s total vision for smart meters and the smart grid vision.

6. The DECC and U.K. energy suppliers face significant challenges to install smart meters in every home in the country.

Others have faced these challenges successfully, with over 180 million smart meters installed worldwide — including completed rollouts to Italy, Finland and Sweden. In the U.K., energy suppliers are responsible for installing smart meters. To overcome the challenges described in this week’s PAC report, energy suppliers have many examples of best practices to guide their solutions.

In addition, DECC could enhance consumer acceptance by mounting a national campaign to explain how consumers benefit from smart meters. In particular:

• Information to save energy. Smart meters can give consumers useful, specific information about how they use energy, which empowers them to manage it better. In a 20ll poll conducted in the U.K. by E.ON, 53% of respondents said they would save power if they could understand their usage better.
• Price options to save money. Time-based electricity pricing options such as off-peak discounts and peak time rebates can help consumers save money. However, this kind of pricing should always be voluntary.
• Automation to make it easy and convenient to save. Consumers should have access to a vibrant market of automated thermostats, appliances, and office equipment. These devices enable “set and forget” automatic energy conservation via time-shifting demand and reducing consumption.

Used together, these three tools help consumers save energy, cut peak demand, save money, reduce emissions, improve reliability, make better use of wind and solar resources and promote electric vehicle adoption.

DECC’s plans for 2012 are also designed to address these challenges and provide solutions:

• Publish end-to-end smart grid technical requirements, including specifications for the smart meter equipment.
• Gain experience from several testing and trial efforts.
• Launch the license application, and further solidify communications and data services procurement contracts, for the Data Communications Company (DCC) — a new entity that will centrally manage data communication to and from residential electricity and gas smart meters.
• Develop the regulatory framework, including new legislation to address installation, code of practice, and rollout.
• Pursue a consumer engagement strategy — on which so much of smart grid success depends

Bottom line: Yes, the U.K. faces major challenges to deploying smart meters — but successful solutions have been proven around the world. By incorporating those best practices and lessons into its own plans, the U.K. could have one of the world’s best smart meter rollouts. It also might end up providing some of the most substantial consumer benefits yet seen.

The Commission is now taking comments on these and related matters:

• Should distribution utilities and competitive retailers offer dynamic pricing?
• Should they offer prepaid electricity service?
• How should information about pricing and payment choices be presented to consumers?
• How to develop a standard approach to allow consumers to compare price options?
• Should distributors offer a two-part tariff: part fixed, and part dynamic?
• What are the barriers to offering these options?
• What might a secure and private online application for comparing price options look like?

Deadline for comments: March 14.

Note that the Ohio PUC is not seeking comments on whether more smart meters should be deployed. This inquiry concerns only service options for customers who already have a smart meter.

The OPUC will also hold a technical conference.

Seems like a good opportunity for other states to watch and learn!

Earlier this month the European Parliament held a lunch debate on saving energy in buildings and putting customers in control. Several industry players and consumer groups presented their views on demand response, demand management, and how to avoid running power plants unnecessarily (or building new ones)…

This event was hosted by Dr. Peter Liese, a member of parliament, and, in part, the Smart Energy Demand Coalition. Liese noted that each year the EU spends €400 billion to import fossil fuel to run power plants that operate only in response to demand spikes. Demand response could reduce Europe’s dependence on imported fuels while creating local jobs and generating local business opportunities.

Liese also pointed out that the current EU Energy Efficiency Draft Directive does not include demand response per se. He rightly foresees that a power generation mix that includes more weather-dependent renewable resources (wind and solar) requires demand response.

Therefore Liese asked that the EU Energy Directive amendments now being considered should consider demand response more specifically. Along these lines, he supports the modification of Article 12, which covers power transmission and distribution. As currently drafted, this part of the Energy Directive presents challenges for achieving the full potential of demand response.

Jessica Stromback of the Smart Energy Demand Coalition discussed how demand response can support energy efficiency. She pointed out that governments must be involved in this cross-sector issue.

Stromback echoed Liese by commenting that demand response could help transfer to local businesses and communities the considerable money that the EU has been spending to import fossil fuels.

For this reason, once wholesale capacity or reserve markets recognize demand response (shifting, consumption reduction, or peak shedding), savings opportunities will arise for Europe’s businesses and consumers. Demand response will enable them to better utilize renewable resources, especially wind — thus decreasing dependence on fossil fuels.

Monica Stajnarova of BEUC (an EU-wide consumer organization) mentioned that demand response should begin with a smart metering system that gives consumers energy-saving tools such as in-home displays or automation.

Manuel Sanchez Jiminez of DG Energy, who heads the European Commission’s Smart Grids Task Force noted that demand response offers more benefits besides energy efficiency. He said demand response also will help complete the liberalization of the EU energy market by enhancing competition.

Jiminez also noted the need for a smart grid market model that involves various stakeholders (suppliers/retailers, energy services companies, distribution network operators, and consumers).

Robert Denda, Smart Metering Project Coordinator for the Spanish utility Endesa, noted that regulations should ensure that current investments in European smart meter rollouts are grandfathered into the regulations so that they do not become stranded assets.

From my perspective, I think the EU smart grid model should identify both roles and responsibilities for the various stakeholders. In the new smart grid model, consumers should understand their energy — not only how they consume and sometimes also produce it, but also where their grid-connected power comes from, and its real cost.

A liberalized and competitive energy market that includes smart meters, data, time-of-use rates, demand response, and automation will enable consumers to understand the real cost of the electricity they consume, and to easily alter how they use energy through an array of available choices.

1. What will be the biggest driver for cleantech/smart grid in 2012?

I think this year, technology will drive us forward to Smart Grid 2.0. As I mentioned in my predictions, data analytics software will help utilities put to good use the data now pouring in from over 150 million installed smart meters globally.

We’ll also see consumers getting new options for dynamic pricing, detailed usage information options, and prepayment from upgraded utility IT systems. Also, consumers will be able to purchase exciting new energy management devices, especially smart thermostats.

2. How will political events shape the cleantech and sustainability industry in 2012?

The U.S. elections will ensure that no major federal energy policy bills will be passed. However, the Electric Consumer Right to Know Act (S. 1029, which would allow consumers to get free online to their own data) and the White House Green Button Initiative could allow for major progress. Green Button is already live for the three large California utilities, PG&E, SDG&E, and SCE. The bill’s prospects are less certain, but a small chance of passage remains.

The U.S. and many countries will have to deal with the waste of wind energy (huge curtailment orders by market operators) caused by the combination of lack of energy storage, lack of demand response, and intermittency of wind.

The issue of curtailed wind and solar is a potential political time bomb. Both resources have very strong support from the public, and people are unlikely to respond favorably to wind and solar generators being switched off while coal and nuclear plants continue to operate.

2. What did I learn in 2011?

My biggest lesson was that patience, persistence, and hard work do pay off — specifically regarding the recent Siemens purchase of eMeter.

But this lesson also applies to working with all smart grid players: utilities, policymakers, regulators, and partner companies. As an industry, we fell short in not creating a common vision of the smart grid’s consumer benefits — and for not communicating those benefits effectively to consumers.

3. What’s my biggest professional goal for 2012?

I’d like to help correct the shortfall I just noted above. My goal is to work with all of my colleagues in the smart grid industry toward a common vision of smart grid consumer benefits. Used together, energy usage information, time-based pricing options and automated “set and forget” devices help consumers save energy, cut peak demand, save money, reduce emissions, improve reliability, make better use of wind and solar resources, and promote electric vehicle adoption.

…Finally, looking ahead to 2012, I’d offer this timeless sentiment, which is especially appropriate for the renewable energy and smart grid industries:

May the road rise up to meet you.
May the wind always be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
and rains fall soft upon your fields.     – From an Irish Blessing

Why the difference?…

Simple: The federal figures only count smart meters funded by ARRA stimulus-funded smart grid investment grants.

This table, with our latest figures on the status of U.S. smart meter deployments, provides the details.

eMeter US Smart Meter Installations as of Jan. 12, 2012