Smart Meters

[JBourquin]

Since it hasn't been answered yet..

So, smart meters are probably as safe as any other technology we use today in terms of EMF radiation. But will they work with your solar array? When the technology was first introduced, smart meters did not always work with solar panels.

Smart meters are basically computers, and they hadn’t been programmed to know what to do when electricity was fed back into the grid. Instead of “spinning” (of course, there’s no dial to actually spin) backward to give users energy credits, they kept going forward — twice as fast.

This led to disturbing moments as new solar homeowners promised lower electric bills got bills double the usual amount instead. That glitch, however, was fixed quickly with new programming, but not before rumors about smart meters’ incompatibility with solar arrays spread, further fueling people’s dislike of the devices.

Be aware: If you use solar energy, the smart meter issued to you should have a sticker reading “net” — this means the meter has been programmed to run backward and credit you in kilowatt hours for the electricity you feed back into the system.

With the new programming in “net” smart meters, not only do the smart meters work fine with a solar installation, but a solar PV array helps you make sure your meter is working smartly for you.

 

[Alan L.]

they can simply shut off your power. They own the power lines, not you.

i have a smart meter oin my place for over 5 years, never have had a problem. i personally am glad they dont come on my property to read the meter anymore.

Thats what I just said - they can cut my power but they can't forcibly install a device I don't want. Why do they choose to do the latter?

 

[chopped]

I was worried about that awhile back. Bought an arc welder and wondered if the cops and EC were going to accuse me of growing weed!!!

Didn't happen though.


.

Im curious with the welder did you actually see much of an increase that month? I have watched mine several years each time I do a project that takes alot of rods.(sometimes maybe 10 lbs worth) And have yet to see much of a spike in my bill.Even If there is,Its one of the most valuable cost savings 'appliance' a home can have. And the local utily here did a survey of usage and left a report that said I could save xxx a year and they recommended that I get rid of the welder.I can Imagine how much id spend farming it out..lol
Now i know these 30 minutes showers the two kids have twice a day add up. hmmm maybe they need to go lol lol

 

[ultrarunner]

What's the reason to control your HVAC? So you're in your home buying power at contract price and the company shuts it off? I just don't understand why they would want to do that or why anyone would agree to that.

It is popular here... many want to do their part and sign up for HVAC load shedding.

As to the meter itself. I had a tenant move. About a week later, I called to have the service turned back on in my name.

The utility said they can do electric remotely and I would have to be home for gas to be turned on.

 

[BobRip]

I had the AC cutoff switch two summers back. The program was supposed to give you half the AC time when energy demands were high. The way they figured it was to check your on time from 11 am to noon. Then they would give you 1/2 of that from noon to 6 pm. My house has many trees on the south side so our load is low in the morning. Also my house has a lot of thermal mass and takes time to heat up. Of course it is much cooler in the morning than late afternoon. So the 1/2 calculated time was actually much less than the needed 1/2 time. We had been out of the country and did not have personal experience with this, so I was going to leave it connected. As it turns out they did not reconnect the compressor high speed when they put in the box, so we had no AC at all when it was really hot. Anyway when the guy came out to fix the install he stated that they were disconnecting hundreds of these units every week. So I had mine disconnected. It sounds like their implementation was poorly thought out. I wish it had worked because it seems foolish to build more power plants.

 

[Mace Canute]

And of course that post #16 has a link to the "study" and the first paragraph should tell all you need to know. They didn't even have "smart meters" when that study started, but there are plenty of other electric and magnetic fields.

The study linked to in that post at HSM wasn't the pertinent part, it was this:

The next item is that the smart meter does not require a transmitter to do its job. In fact, both in the US and Canada the companies installing these meters cannot force you to accept a transmitter on your property. State or provincial law have no jurisdiction over RF devices, that is strictly a federal responsibility. In Canada, at least, there is no enabling legislation that can be used to force the installation of a transmitter on private property. The smart meter is perfectly capable of operating without it. It has an optical port on the front for a meter reader and it can also communicate via POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service). While they can mandate the installation of the meter they cannot mandate the installation of the transmitter.

 

[ultrarunner]

I had the AC cutoff switch two summers back. The program was supposed to give you half the AC time when energy demands were high. The way they figured it was to check your on time from 11 am to noon. Then they would give you 1/2 of that from noon to 6 pm. My house has many trees on the south side so our load is low in the morning. Also my house has a lot of thermal mass and takes time to heat up. Of course it is much cooler in the morning than late afternoon. So the 1/2 calculated time was actually much less than the needed 1/2 time. We had been out of the country and did not have personal experience with this, so I was going to leave it connected. As it turns out they did not reconnect the compressor high speed when they put in the box, so we had no AC at all when it was really hot. Anyway when the guy came out to fix the install he stated that they were disconnecting hundreds of these units every week. So I had mine disconnected. It sounds like their implementation was poorly thought out. I wish it had worked because it seems foolish to build more power plants.

They did the same at my brothers... he had call the HVAC installer that was too busy to come out that day so I took a look.

The Utility had not connected the compressor!

Called to complain and was told the work was done by a third party and they no longer use that vendor.

 

[Pirate]

A day will come when you will not be able to buy a major appliance that does not have module in it that allows it to be controlled by the power company via the smart meter. There is no way they could dump this entire program on Joe Blow thus a phase-in over years. Water heaters I can see but don't mess with my AC during the summer.

 

[mingus108]

A day will come when you will not be able to buy a major appliance that does not have module in it that allows it to be controlled by the power company via the smart meter. There is no way they could dump this entire program on Joe Blow thus a phase-in over years. Water heaters I can see but don't mess with my AC during the summer.

Here in Dallas they went with smart meters 2 years back, with a large solar system I watched it pretty close.
They gave some software & hooked us to their web sight. Not realizing what that led to, it was a bad surprise when they cut us off during one of their fake rolling brownouts.
After some cussing & **** raising.
TXU took us off of their list. With our system on grid when you have a power outage. You shut the solar system off.

 

[Alan L.]

I had the AC cutoff switch two summers back. The program was supposed to give you half the AC time when energy demands were high. The way they figured it was to check your on time from 11 am to noon. Then they would give you 1/2 of that from noon to 6 pm. My house has many trees on the south side so our load is low in the morning. Also my house has a lot of thermal mass and takes time to heat up. Of course it is much cooler in the morning than late afternoon. So the 1/2 calculated time was actually much less than the needed 1/2 time. We had been out of the country and did not have personal experience with this, so I was going to leave it connected. As it turns out they did not reconnect the compressor high speed when they put in the box, so we had no AC at all when it was really hot. Anyway when the guy came out to fix the install he stated that they were disconnecting hundreds of these units every week. So I had mine disconnected. It sounds like their implementation was poorly thought out. I wish it had worked because it seems foolish to build more power plants.

Being in Texas I don't believe I'd like my AC cut off for half the time between noon and 6. It might not ever catch up.

 

[Alan L.]

A day will come when you will not be able to buy a major appliance that does not have module in it that allows it to be controlled by the power company via the smart meter. There is no way they could dump this entire program on Joe Blow thus a phase-in over years. Water heaters I can see but don't mess with my AC during the summer.

That is when solar and wind energy will seriously make sense. But i don't understand why we can't build more coal plants using new technology. We have plenty of coal and its odd that a company has a product that they don't want to sell too much of.

 

[ultrarunner]

That is when solar and wind energy will seriously make sense. But i don't understand why we can't build more coal plants using new technology. We have plenty of coal and its odd that a company has a product that they don't want to sell too much of.

Don't you remember the president said this?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF7Qm31LIDM

 

[chopped]

GOOD POINT

Don't you remember the president said this?

Obama Called for Bankrupting Coal Fired Power Plants - YouTube

 

[houstonscott]

Just watched fracknation, any libs who watched gasland and this want to say anything or comment.


HS

 

[BobRip]

Just watched fracknation, any libs who watched gasland and this want to say anything or
HS

Can you sum I up? I missed it.

 

[sparc]

We've had our smart meter for a few months now, and I don't know why people complain. Especially in the case of these two idiots who have an alternative, if they're willing to pay for it.

Once the new meters are fully installed (let's say >90% to give it a number) across the utility's service area, they will then be in a position to begin time-based rates, just as it was in the beginning of power generation and distribution in the early 1900s, but now for different reason. Then it was because of limited generating capacity, now it will be because of limited demand.

With the huge build-out of solar and other technologies underway that are not part of a utility's generation capacity, namely businesses and HOs who install their own solar or wind power generation sources, it becomes more expensive for them (the utility) to operate their base load generating stations and peaking stations are called on less and less, meaning when they do run their maintenance costs are distributed over a shorter run time which brings the operating cost up per KW.

During the day, when it is sunny and there is a nice breeze, all those alternate power sources are cranking out KW and supplying power to the owner and then any excess is FORCED on to the grid (by law) and the utilities must accept it. Since electricity cannot be stored the power generated at any moment in time must be adjusted to meet demand. This means the utilities will take generating stations off line of throttle back those that they can control output on (which are few) to meet demand. Its not easy (economically feasible I should say I guess) to control output on most large generating stations because you end up using almost as much fuel as you do when running at 100% output. Back in the days when gas turbine peaking units were plentiful they were switched on/off as need take to take up the slack or power was purchased through pre-arranged agreements between neighboring utilities. Large generating stations need to have maximum up time to be efficient and hold prices down. When demand is less than your base generating capacity; base meaning here your minimum demand needed 24/7 from across your service area; some units must be shut down. The cost of maintaining these units goes up plus many of these units cannot be switched on/off at a moments notice. A nuclear plant for instance can't sit idle all day then be 'turned on' so to speak when the sun goes down. They are not designed to work that way and it takes too long to go through the startup process to be efficient. Plus the strain put on various equipment caused by repeated heating up and cooling down will result in increased maintenance again driving operating costs upward.

So I am saying all this to tell you that once the utilities have the capability of metering your consumption in real time, they will be in a position to begin billing at different rates. So just as in some areas of the country you have summer and winter rates, you will also have a day and a night rate. You will learn to adjust you power use to when it is least expensive, or pay for the privilege of doing your laundry or cooking whenever you want. Some uses such as A/C or heat or well pump use will be trapped in whatever rate applies when that equipment is needed, and you will pay whatever the rate is at that time of day. Now when they get down to installing modules on each piece of equipment they will be able to exclude such uses as heating or other essential use from being charged the higher rate or they will institute a rate structure composed of KW used times the type of use adjustment factor with recreational uses costing more.

To make ends meet people will be forced into installing their own solar or wind sources and you will see use of onsite storage battery banks with inverters increase as the next big thing in the alternative energy market.

Actually that is the next big thing in the power business. Whoever develops a method to safely store and retrieve gigawatts of power, even if only for a short period like 48 hours, will rule the world.

 

[sparc]

The power company already knows my usage and our meters still require a meter reader to drive by. The reader no longer has to come to the house but they have to be in the neighborhood so the smart reader is not giving them real time information.

These are not the latest generation smart meters. The next gen smart meters communicate over the power lines to the utility, no meter reader will be necessary.

 

[Bird]

These are not the latest generation smart meters. The next gen smart meters communicate over the power lines to the utility, no meter reader will be necessary.

Next generation? It's my understanding that what we have now communicates over the power lines. In addition to not having a meter reader, I even get a weekly e-mail showing usage hour by hour and an estimate of what the next bill will be.

 

[sparc]

Next generation? It's my understanding that what we have now communicates over the power lines. In addition to not having a meter reader, I even get a weekly e-mail showing usage hour by hour and an estimate of what the next bill will be.

You may already have them where you are, but the person i responded to said they still had meter readers coming out and they had a smart meter, so they don't have the latest even if it was installed last week.

 

[doxford jim]

In BC there has been a fair bit if resistance to the so called Smart Meters - which have been blamed for a number of things including electrical fires etc.
Here is a link that some of you might find interesting:

PHASE 1 DOCUMENTS TO HELP PREVENT SMART METER INSTALLS IN B.C. « bcfreedom

There is an active resistance to getting the meters installed and the number of people are increasing daily.
My personal take is I don't want them or need them - we will have to wait and see if the utility company (BC Hydro) will force them on the home owners. At present the utility company is playing games and some of what it is doing is illegal.
Read the link and make up your own mind - corruption is in full swing in British Columbia these days.
Thx.