I recently realized that it might be possible to just point a webcam at the meter and somehow read the digits off that (I'd really like to have a way to log that electronically).

The trend in Germany seems to be for power providers to offer the data via web, though. They are not there yet, but test programs are already being rolled out (some transmitting the data via the power line, others using DSL).

Even just having online access to the overall consumption would be so nice. It would then probably be easy to create twittering washing machines and coffee makers on top of that...