Pay-as-you-go electrical meters and conservation

rrwood writes: This article details how the pay-as-you-go electrical meters that the Woodstock Ontario public utilities company has made available have resulted in a 15% reduction in power consumption on the part of the program participants. The original purpose of the program was to allow customers to pay in advance and avoid costly and annoying disconnection/reconnection charges, and the power company says that they did not expect that a reduction in power usage would result. The Oil Drum article neatly ties together some interesting ideas on interface design, human psychology, energy conservation, and more.