SmartMeters and tinfoil crowd

[HTSS_TR]

We have dumb meters for natural gas and water, a person had to read each meter monthly for billing.

We have smart meter for electricity, a while ago the hourly usage can be accessed to but the website didn't have that option the last few months.

Basically, we use most electricity from 4-5 PM to 11-12 PM and least amount from midnight till 6-7 AM. On average we use about 9 KWH to 12 KWH a day, summer time we may use up to 20-25 KWH a day(few days a month) for running A/C.

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: Al
Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Quit calling your Demand Rate Meters by the utility's marketing department misnomer Smart Meter.

Wow..touchy..aren't we.

It's more a matter in truth in advertising than anything else! The purpose of these meters IS to be able to charge people demand rates (I.E. - more), and it's the dishonesty that I hate the most.


It would probably be more accurate to describe these as real-time meters, in that they allow a utility to price power closer to actual cost. Before these meters became common, utilities could do no more than exhort those on their grids to try to minimize power draw during peak demand periods. Nobody had any incentive to do so so nobody did. During really hot summer weather, the utility might be forced to purchase costly power from outside sources or to fire up its natural gas fired gas turbine peaking plants at certain well known times of the day. No user really cared, since their was no economic impact to them. All that counted was the total used as recorded in the montly meter read.
Now, a utility has the ability to charge more for power that costs more to deliver, which seems fair enough.
One of our neighbors is a charter member of the tinfoil hat club. She is convinced that all of her physical ailments as well as her recent mental breakdown were caused by the installation of these transmitting meters in our area a few years ago. She is actually paying an additional monthly charge to have had her transmitting meter removed and replaced with a traditional one that must be physically read. I should probably tell her that she's being charged for nothing and that the utility only pretended to replace her meter and is only pretending to read it each month. That would be mean, but amusing.

 

[supton]

Originally Posted By: Vikas
Recently, my town forced the water meter change on us as the old one was 15 year old. The older meter had wire going outside where somebody could read the meter. The new one has transmitter built in. Trying to figure the new meter reading, I stumbled upon how much and how often it emits the RF signal. I am sure this is red meat for all the usual tinfoil crowd that we have here!

But the reason I am posting it here is to hear from the smart technical crowd as to why the manufacturer did NOT design to restrict the RF emission only on demand rather doing it continuously (aka pulsing every 14 second). I presume it has all the hardware (aka radio chip) already there. Radio receiver needs way less power than radio transmitter. Why not listen until commanded to emit the meter reading? The meter van can command the meter to go in to transmission mode.

Is it just laziness on the part of manufacturer of the smart meters or is there something fundamental limitation that I am missing?

If you are interested, google Neptune e-coder for fascinating read.


wild guess, but i wonder if it has a receiver. It would add another buck, which would cost too much... more complicated too. Might make the unit more secure too, if it cant respond to RF commands.

 

[hatt]

Originally Posted By: Bandito440
I heard that they transmit your vaccination status and add extra floride if the amount already in your water isn't making you sick enough.
Freaking crackpots that don't want industrial waste in their drinking water.

 

[SHOZ]

<<<< Has been drinking untreated ground water from personal well for 40+ years.....

 

[Vikas]

Knowing what i know about the hardware, I strongly suspect that the chip inherently supports the receive functionality.

 

[emg]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Now, a utility has the ability to charge more for power that costs more to deliver, which seems fair enough.


So I'm supposed to be constantly monitoring the price of power and turning things off when it gets too expensive? Middle of winter, I'm going to turn off my furnace because they suddenly push up the price of power? Or get a $500 power bill because they did turn up the cost of power to $10 per kWh, and I didn't turn it off?

The whole point of 'smart meters' is to enable power companies to not build enough power stations to support peak demand, because they can force users to shut off their power. It's an attempt to turn the West into third-world nations that cannot rely on having reliable electricity. At which point, of course, we'll all have to go out and buy generators instead.

 

[hattaresguy]

Water meters are not a security thing so who cares if it broadcasts water usage?

The local water company has been using these meters for around a decade.

 

[Quest]

Originally Posted By: emg
Originally Posted By: fdcg27
Now, a utility has the ability to charge more for power that costs more to deliver, which seems fair enough.


So I'm supposed to be constantly monitoring the price of power and turning things off when it gets too expensive? Middle of winter, I'm going to turn off my furnace because they suddenly push up the price of power? Or get a $500 power bill because they did turn up the cost of power to $10 per kWh, and I didn't turn it off?

The whole point of 'smart meters' is to enable power companies to not build enough power stations to support peak demand, because they can force users to shut off their power. It's an attempt to turn the West into third-world nations that cannot rely on having reliable electricity. At which point, of course, we'll all have to go out and buy generators instead.



Nice conspiracy!

I'll have an italian tailor-made a tinfoil hat for you.

 

[Shannow]

Originally Posted By: emg

So I'm supposed to be constantly monitoring the price of power and turning things off when it gets too expensive? Middle of winter, I'm going to turn off my furnace because they suddenly push up the price of power? Or get a $500 power bill because they did turn up the cost of power to $10 per kWh, and I didn't turn it off?

The whole point of 'smart meters' is to enable power companies to not build enough power stations to support peak demand, because they can force users to shut off their power. It's an attempt to turn the West into third-world nations that cannot rely on having reliable electricity. At which point, of course, we'll all have to go out and buy generators instead.


You control every other purchase that you make based on price to get it on the day, whether it means filling up in town on a Tuesday, or waiting to the weekend when you know it's going to be cheaper where you are travelling to...some days you buy steak, other days you don't.

When the peak requirement for generation is 40% higher than at mid-day, why would you want even MORE power stations idling at part load in the day, using more fuel and water because they are off their efficiency point ?

Just so you can run your kitchen, washer and drier and heat-pump all at the same minute ?

The numbers that you are quoting are the actual prices on the spot market...here, they are like 2.7-3c/KWHr (wholesale, retail is another 25c on top), but during peaks, the actual wholesale price can be $15/KWHr... for maybe 3 hours out of every 8,760 and nobody is going to build a new power station while for 8,757 hours of the year they aren't covering their costs (because they have to be in and running to get the peaks).

If market pricing gets you to run your drier while watching Family Ties, after dinner...all the better for all.

When Gary Allan was alive, he was explaining that his energy provider offered him a massive discount on his average price for the privilige of being able to disconnect him for an hour per month to manage peak demand (he said they did it maybe twice in a few years), and to trip his AC for 15 minutes an hour similarly to manage demand.

They are the flexibilities that you can have/take advantage of.

But if you want to run everything in the house from 5-8PM, just because you can, you can (ultimately) pay for them.

 

[hatt]

If they want people to change their power usage they need to make it worth the trouble. I was selected to test the power company's "shift to save" program when they installed the new meters. I couldn't get on the phone fast enough to stop that nonsense. Their own literature was saying you could save $15/month($195 to $180, example used much more power than I typically use so my saving would have been much less) if you totally changed your lifestyle. I'll pass.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: emg

The whole point of 'smart meters' is to enable power companies to not build enough power stations to support peak demand, because they can force users to shut off their power. It's an attempt to turn the West into third-world nations that cannot rely on having reliable electricity. At which point, of course, we'll all have to go out and buy generators instead.

That's like you buying a 3rd vehicle when you only need two. It makes no sense for utility companies and it makes no sense for the customer.

But a little history lesson here..back in the day...utility companies were for the most part allowed (by gonverment) to maintain adequate power generationg equipment and line maintenance resources. The system worked well and rates were low. Then since the system worked so well government felt they would "tweek" the system.

They allowed independent power generators to generate power and use utility transmission equipment with the stipulation that the utility was required to buy the power. And if the NUGs (N0n-Utiity Generators) didn't feel like generating for a couple days/weeks..no probllem..for them.

I could go on and on but the tweeking by gov./states has left us where we are now. Declining transmission networks and higher prices.

 

[SHOZ]

Time for solar and a battery pack. Use it like you want.

 

[1 FMF]

there is no reason the water company would collect "data" from every home at the lowest level for demand usage and whatever else. would not be economical and result in too much data, that's all collected upstream for various areas.

what i would like to see: break your meter so you know it doesn't work. then see if you keep getting a bill.
with all these new electronic meters makes the industry ripe for corruption. The electric company here in CT has gotten hit for fraud in the past where people have turned off their breakers and used little to no electricity yet they get a $100/month charge with some erroneous usage value.
I had siding done and my electric meter was disabled for a month, then took another month for the electric company to come out and hook back up. at same time i had upgraded to 200 amp service. they falsely billed me 2 months based on estimated usage then tried to claim it was summer time AC usage... didn't have AC installed yet and was reason i was doing the 200amp upgrade. i was told on the phone by UI that the price per kilowatt hour usage had nothing to do with my total bill price.

 

[Garak]

We also seem to forget the convenience to the companies by getting rid of meter readers, for the most part. We don't need people trudging door to door to read meters at a very high wage, in the worst weather. For our water meters, I'm particularly glad, with those being indoors, and the meter person coming at an ungodly hour, or making estimates because I'm not home and live alone.

 

[crazyoildude]

smart electric meters are dangerous they collect a lot of information and are easily hacked by hackers they also can play games with medical equipment including pacemakers they are to be avoided put tinfoil all around these meters until they agree to take them away. I have my old meter incased in a steel cage with a heavy duty padlock that cannot be cut or picked my dogs will great anyone that wants to mess with it. Im lucky you cant see my meter from the street so you cant see the thick jail like cage. They can threaten to shut you off but we can jam that up in the courts for years and when we win they have a problem. They do some good things also but the bad things outweigh the good

 

[CDX825]

These smart meters can't transmit any more power than your wireless router or cordless telephone so how much damage can they do?

It cracks me up when people get all paranoid about the effects of one of these meters transmitting.Your cell phone has more transmit power and you put it right next to your head.

 

[Al]

Originally Posted By: CDX825
These smart meters can't transmit any more power than your wireless router or cordless telephone so how much damage can they do?

It cracks me up when people get all paranoid about the effects of one of these meters transmitting.Your cell phone has more transmit power and you put it right next to your head.

I lol'd. I wish I had the luxuryof worrying about my electric meter to such an extent. Compared to other things in life that threaten me... my electric meter is down there at about 9999 out of 10000 worries/problems.

 

[crazyoildude]

they do more damage than you can think and transmit all kinds of personal information and some of it can be used to see when you are home..Burglars and stalkers like that im sure and if you have a pacemaker or other medical equipment it can cause issues. People sue over this stuff and win in court

 

[JustinH]

I installed a water meter reading system for the city I work for.

Basically an antenna goes on a truck with a laptop in it.

They drive up and down the street, and the meters report to the computer 4 and 5 at a time.

The operator finishes his run, then he does an upload in the parking lot of city hall over the wireless.

That dumps a data file into a network share, and a utility billing clerk dumps it into the billing software.

Bills are printed and mailed.

Nothing silly going on.