opinions in smart meters

[t vago]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

30W does not seem reasonable to me. Where did you get that number? I would expect somewhere closer to 1W, or not much more than a mechanical meter.

I'm guesstimating 30 W based on that fact that if Ryland's parents disconnected their smart meter because the meter was causing them to consume more energy than before, it must have been much more than a single watt.

This item cannot simply go to sleep, as it is monitoring household electrical power consumption. Even posing the existence of a timer-based wireless transmitter that only turns on once every 15 minutes or so to transmit for 10 seconds, that's still a noticeable amount of power being consumed.

Let's postulate 1 W, though. That's still a constant 1/2 a megawatt of power being consumed for 500K homes. That's 1/2 a megawatt that's going into the atmosphere. That's more than would have been consumed with a stupid meter.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by t vago

I'm guesstimating 30 W based on that fact that if Ryland's parents disconnected their smart meter because the meter was causing them to consume more energy than before, it must have been much more than a single watt.

No, their meter has nothing to do with how much energy they use, it had to do with running grow lights for garden starts and a heating pad to keep seedlings happy, I just checked and my new smart meter uses the same 3 watts as my old mechanical meter used all the time.

They turn off the grid power for weeks at a time because they tend to produce most of their own electricity.

When my power company switched to smart meters my rates dropped, the pay back on smart meters should be pretty quick while building a new power plant takes 25 to 50 years to pay for while smart meters should pay for them selves in less then a year and keep saving money and energy after that.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by Ryland

No, their meter has nothing to do with how much energy they use, it had to do with running grow lights for garden starts and a heating pad to keep seedlings happy, I just checked and my new smart meter uses the same 3 watts as my old mechanical meter used all the time.

How does a mechanical meter use power all the time?

It uses the difference in magnetism that is created when current is running through the supply main. That's it. If there's no current running through the supply main (such as when a house isn't consuming anything), then the stupid meter consumes no power whatsoever. If a house is consuming electricity for lights and a fridge and a home entertainment center and a stove, the stupid meter does draw some of that power, but it is quite a bit less than 3 watts.

Reliable estimates show that smart meters may take between 4 and 10 years to recoup the cost of procuring and installing these things. They're not cheap.

[t vago]

Originally Posted by Ryland

When my power company switched to smart meters my rates dropped, the pay back on smart meters should be pretty quick while building a new power plant takes 25 to 50 years to pay for while smart meters should pay for them selves in less then a year and keep saving money and energy after that.

This will not happen for everyone. Many customers in Texas and California have complained that their bills actually increased due to smart meter installation. No news article I have read mentioned anything about rate decreases, either. It was all about "oooh, you can now monitor near-real time data from your web browser!"

Which brings me back to my other point: If monitoring electric usage is so important, why not simply incur a one-time cost of $75 or so to buy one's own monitor, rather than pay $200 or so over 4 years? Why must people like me have to put up with having something installed we neither need nor want, in order to make others feel happy? I do just fine monitoring my own electric usage.

[t vago]

I like this, too...

April 2012:
FBI: Smart Meter Hacks Likely to Spread

A series of hacks perpetrated against so-called “smart meter” installations over the past several years may have cost a single U.S. electric utility hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the FBI said in a cyber intelligence bulletin obtained by KrebsOnSecurity. The law enforcement agency said this is the first known report of criminals compromising the hi-tech meters, and that it expects this type of fraud to spread across the country as more utilities deploy smart grid technology.

January 2012: Hacking For Privacy: 2 days for amateur hacker to hack smart meter, fake readings

At the Chaos Communication Congress in Germany, 28C3, researchers presented "Smart Hacking For Privacy." After analyzing data collected by a smart meter, these gentlemen were able to determine devices like how many PCs or LCD TVs in a home, what TV program was being watched, and if a DVD movie being played had copyright-protected material. In other words, smart meters do have privacy implications that translate into consumer identification. On the bright side, they showed it takes an amateur hacker only two days to hack a home energy meter and fake the smart meter readings -- which could result in a utility bill showing absolutely no power consumption at all.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by t vago

This will not happen for everyone. Many customers in Texas and California have complained that their bills actually increased due to smart meter installation. No news article I have read mentioned anything about rate decreases, either. It was all about "oooh, you can now monitor near-real time data from your web browser!"

Everyone complains when their bill increases and they keep their mouth shut when it decreases, Texas and California have their own energy issues that cause rates to increase more then everyone else so conservation should be at the top of their list instead of standing in the way of figuring out how to use the resources we have better.

I do just fine monitoring my own electric usage.

I didn't realize that you read your own electric meter and reported the readings back to the power company and if you are fine reporting back to them when your personal peek usage is and don't mind telling them what your monthly electrical use is, then by all means keep it up!

Also, if we start getting electric meters from Italy that can turn off the power to our houses, then maybe I'll listen to your objections that are based off of having your power cut by a smart meter, but as it is it's like objecting to installing a scan gauge in your car because you are worried that the scan gauge company will drain the fuel out of your gas tank... it's not even in the realm of what the tool can do!

[NachtRitter]

I agree that security and privacy concerns need to be addressed for smart meters, just like they had to be (and still have to be) addressed for cell phones and wireless internet access and any other device that sends & receives data. Remember when the best security option for wireless routers was WEP and anyone with the right wireless card and a laptop could crack the key within minutes and (with the proper equipment) snoop on your wireless traffic from up to a mile away? They were not only be able to tell what video you are watching, but also see what web pages you are visiting and read the contents of the email you were sending and receiving (assuming you didn't encrypt it).

The example given in the NetworkWorld article was for a smart meter network that wasn't configured properly, which definitely is something to be worried about... as much as being worried about your financial web sites being secure, your email being secure, your cell and land line phones being secure, etc.

I get that some people, even those that embraced getting on the Internet despite all the known risks, will be against smart meters for whatever reason (real or imagined). But as you might guess, I support the smart meters and hope they take off... today's method of managing the electric grid is downright stupid, backwards, and wasteful. There was no reason for 3 million+ people to have no power for up to 5 days during a heat wave other than a dinosaur of an electric grid that we're stuck with today. If terrorism concerns you at all, the fact that someone could knock out power to that many people at once should really scare you. Smart meters pave the path toward 1) better energy management within each home (reducing load on the aging and overstressed grid), and 2) the ability to separate the current macrogrid into microgrids that support local neighborhoods with self-generated power (solar, fuel cell, wind, etc.) rather than relying on centralized power generation and several thousands of miles of distribution. With a microgrid system, the power can be routed to where it is needed, and if another portion of the grid is damaged by natural disaster or terror attack, the affected microgrid can be disconnected from the unaffected microgrids, preventing massive outages like those that affected the country a short while ago. Very similar in concept to the Internet... !

Anyway, I don't expect that I'll change the minds of those whose minds are already made up... but I do want to share what I know to counter some of the FUD that's out there.

BTW: t vago - I enjoy your aero kitteh collection!

[jtbo]

Here smart meter uses GPRS data to send information to power company, then I can look hourly power consumption from customer pages that they have set up, there is chance to look data in graph or spreadsheet format, exporting to excel, hourly, daily, weekly consumption and from day, week to month range, then there is year month by month graph and also comparision to previous year, very nice service, even mothly fees are bit high, but there is nothing that can be done to those, so at least I get fancy graphs with that money.

Some think that this smart metering will then lead to price vary by hour based on market price. So far such has not been however what companies have aimed, they do sell contracts that use market price, but price is average for whole month, so there is no chance to actually time your usage to time of lower price, which I think might be good point of market prized electricity.

Price will however go up in future, how much is unknown, but there is no security with electricity prices.

I can browse all my electric bills on site too, I can download them as pdf documents and can see how electricity has not got more expensive, but transfer of electricity has increased over 30% of price as everything else on that bill in few years, electricity tax has risen 94% to save the planet or something like that, yes you pay that even when using renewable energy.

There is also comparison graphs to typical similar places where I can see typical being many times more than my usage.

Well those are possibilities that system gives, there are lot of nice things, but does it increase monthly base fee and does it make eventually electricity to cost a lot more at certain hours, I guess those are threats then. Security is threat always I guess, but they work hard to have systems up to date, so I'm not concerned as much with them as I'm with our government systems, healthcare, taxes, etc. Generally those are run by monkeys and only luck has prevented major catastrophes.

Oh and some meters here use electricity data or whatever it is called in english, but it does transmit data over electric wires. One can of course buy devices to make lan for own house using electric wiring and sockets at wall, I guess it is similar technology and can be rather secure also.

Do you have laws about storing personal information in US? I would guess there would be defined security level for each kind of data and that should keep things enough secure if company fails to meet level that is required then company have to pay a lot.
I have some memory that there would be very good laws about that in US, but my memory is not too well, it can be as well memory of some movie too, things tend to mix sometimes

Anyway in total I would say it is a good thing and also it is thing that probably will happen anyway, but there is possibility of off grid at many places which is better in so many ways that if I would have chance for that route, then I would go for it.

[redorchestra]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I thought Canada does everything right. That's what Michael Moore has been telling me

Canada does some things right but a lot of things wrong. Our Nova Scotia power company was sold to the Emera Corporation in the '80s. I guess they were losing money and decided it would be best if they sold it. they sold something like 1billion dollars worth of assets for 100 million . The emera corp has been raising our rates 2 or 3 times per year since then. Emera also runs a power company in Bermuda or Bahamas andthey are in a class action suit from residents there.

this year one of the pulp and paper mills closed down. they purchase millions of dollars worth of power every year. since they will no longer be buying power guess what happened. we got a 12% rate hike.

if smart meters are installed in Nova Scotia I can tell you what will happen. if people start to save money by monitoring our power usage. Emera will increase the rates. They are a corporation and the only people thay answer to is the share holder. DID I MENTION IT IS A MONOPOLY. we can not buy power from anyone but Emera. and they do not allow private energy producers to sell into the grid