Smart Meter

Glaucus said:
It's not being forced on you, there is no legislation to force it on you, or to take legal action if you don't take them up on the offer.

From autumn they all have to offer it and have to advertise/push it. They can't force it on you.
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The current government and industry are absolutely committed to installing these in all residential properties by 2020 I think it is. Even if I don't have one, I will be paying for these with my taxes and through my electricity bills that will have been installed where there is no practical reason to have one.

Glaucus said:
But at least that's an actual reason not to get one, a pretty lame reason, but a reason.
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Sorry, but the entire point of these meters we're told is to save money (and by doing so reducing CO2 emissions). So if it actually costs me money it's absolutely failed in it's mandate.

Glaucus said:
There's also big future reasons fir them as well. Device switching to balance load on national grid.
Department of energy have been testing both switching fridges off for a few minutes(wont harm anything un the fridge at all), as well as using the battery packs in EV to balance national grid. Something like allowing the grid to use upto 25% of the battery pack, but having a setting to day must be fully charged by 7am for your trip to work.
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My fridge doesn't run continuously already. And are we really in that bad a position where to prevent grid problems that we're going to allow them to switch off our personal equpment as when they see fit?

Glaucus said:
As fir only your new build suggestion, this doesn't make sense, old houses are rarely knocked down and rebuilt. And other schemes like insulation to upgrade older buildings have been successful.
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Installing insulation has immediate benefits, putting smart meters into existing homes without anything else to go with it is a pointless exercise as the examples you've given are all hypotheticals.

Glaucus said:
There simply has to be massive upgrades and changes to the national grid and power usage in the coming decades.
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Absolutely, but this is a rushed project, with no clear benefits. that will likely result in the meters that are installed not actually being able to deliver the kind of interconnectivity that will actually be required to deliver an intelligent grid system that you've talked about.
 
Jokester said:
My fridge doesn't run continuously already. And are we really in that bad a position where to prevent grid problems that we're going to allow them to switch off our personal equpment as when they see fit?
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This is an interesting point. I can think of several bits of electronic equipment that stays on or is working overnight that would be severely impacted by having the power yanked on them. The Tivo might be recording, the smart TV might be updating it's firmware. Computers, routers, and modems might be up and working while I sleep. What if I'm up a weird hours because I can't sleep or I'm sick? Do my lights get cut out? Will my wireless phones stop working if there's some emergency? I know my boiler cuts out if it's got no power to run it's electrics, so how do I keep warm in winter?

It's just ludicrous to think you can cut power en masse to houses without knowing what will be affected.
 
Steampunk said:
This is an interesting point. I can think of several bits of electronic equipment that stays on or is working overnight that would be severely impacted by having the power yanked on them. The Tivo might be recording, the smart TV might be updating it's firmware. Computers, routers, and modems might be up and working while I sleep. What if I'm up a weird hours because I can't sleep or I'm sick? Do my lights get cut out? Will my wireless phones stop working if there's some emergency? I know my boiler cuts out if it's got no power to run it's electrics, so how do I keep warm in winter?

It's just ludicrous to think you can cut power en masse to houses without knowing what will be affected.
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Rofl, they aren't looking at yanking power to the house. But to certain equipment like fridges that will have zero impact.
 
Glaucus said:
Rofl, they aren't looking at yanking power to the house. But to certain equipment like fridges that will have zero impact.
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So in addition to the smart meter we will also need smart appliances as well (which probably won't be compatible with all of the different smart meters). Also my fridge only turns itself on when it is necessary to cool itself, can't imagine it's using much power the rest of the time and I wouldn't want it turning off when it needed the power.

Won't additional charge/discharge cycles on batteries wear them out faster? Presumably they'll need to find a way to compensate people for this kind this?

I had my meter changed a few weeks ago and expected a smart one but it wasn't offered or fitted.
 
Glaucus said:
Rofl, they aren't looking at yanking power to the house. But to certain equipment like fridges that will have zero impact.
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How are they going to switch power off to individual appliances if it's all on random circuits? I had some fridge problems a couple of years back, and I'm pretty sure the engineers I spoke to wouldn't recommend turning fridges on and off. How are they going to know if I'm in my fridge and it needs to turn on the compressor to keep the food cool? Are they just going to assume no one opens their fridges after midnight?

It's all kind of ridiculous. No one but the user and the hardware itself knows if it needs to be on or off. The electricity company shutting down power is a blunt instrument that won't work without smart appliances - in which case, why do we need the smart meter in the first place? My old TV used 3 watts on standby, my new one only 0.25 of a watt. Low power devices are the way forwards for energy conservation.
 
Steampunk said:
How are they going to switch power off to individual appliances if it's all on random circuits? I had some fridge problems a couple of years back, and I'm pretty sure the engineers I spoke to wouldn't recommend turning fridges on and off. How are they going to know if I'm in my fridge and it needs to turn on the compressor to keep the food cool? Are they just going to assume no one opens their fridges after midnight?

It's all kind of ridiculous. No one but the user and the hardware itself knows if it needs to be on or off. The electricity company shutting down power is a blunt instrument that won't work without smart appliances - in which case, why do we need the smart meter in the first place? My old TV used 3 watts on standby, my new one only 0.25 of a watt. Low power devices are the way forwards for energy conservation.
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Whist I don't agree with smart meters there are a few things to clarify.

The fridge won't need a seperate circuit, eventually there will be a commnication protocol telling the fridgr to turn off. If fridges are going to turn on and off more they'll just add variable speed drives protect the compressor. Also the fridge would have a logic system that would override the request to turn if you did have the midnight munchies because appliances manufacturers would demand the ability not to ruin your food.

The eye watering cost of smart meters is coming from all our utility bills regardless, just like the exorbitnt costs of connecting renewables to the grid, just like the cost of burning American frests in Yorkshire power plants, just like the cost solar power on house roofs, just like the cost of deisel generators to back up the grid now their is so much unreliable generation. The list could go on, we pay for so many Government initiatives through our bills because they hide them from the voter.
 
PlacidCasual said:
The fridge won't need a seperate circuit, eventually there will be a commnication protocol telling the fridgr to turn off. If fridges are going to turn on and off more they'll just add variable speed drives protect the compressor. Also the fridge would have a logic system that would override the request to turn if you did have the midnight munchies because appliances manufacturers would demand the ability not to ruin your food.
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So if I need a new fridge years down the line, that is going to govern whether it needs to be on or off anyway, and will work in the most efficient manner, why does it need a smart meter to tell it to be on or off? The fridge will over-ride the meter any time it sees fit.

It seems the requirement for new equipment to work with smart meters will make the need for smart meters redundant anyway. It's not the meters that use power and decide when it's needed.

PlacidCasual said:
The eye watering cost of smart meters is coming from all our utility bills regardless, just like the exorbitnt costs of connecting renewables to the grid, just like the cost of burning American frests in Yorkshire power plants, just like the cost solar power on house roofs, just like the cost of deisel generators to back up the grid now their is so much unreliable generation. The list could go on, we pay for so many Government initiatives through our bills because they hide them from the voter.
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It seems another con to me, as the only person who isn't benefiting is the customer. It's a manufactured industry to make money for someone, by taking cash from a customer who isn't actually seeing any benefit in the long term until they've spent a lot of money that can never be recovered.
 
I know there was some talk about the comms not being the most secure thing and could potentially be used to profile when you are or are not at home which could be quite useful for certain people.
 
Steampunk said:
So if I need a new fridge years down the line, that is going to govern whether it needs to be on or off anyway, and will work in the most efficient manner, why does it need a smart meter to tell it to be on or off? The fridge will over-ride the meter any time it sees fit.

It seems the requirement for new equipment to work with smart meters will make the need for smart meters redundant anyway. It's not the meters that use power and decide when it's needed.



It seems another con to me, as the only person who isn't benefiting is the customer. It's a manufactured industry to make money for someone, by taking cash from a customer who isn't actually seeing any benefit in the long term until they've spent a lot of money that can never be recovered.
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Why not go look it up, rather than just making no sense.
It isn't about efficiency or the appliance knowing when it needs power, you have it totally arse backwards. It's about balancing the national grid. Switching a fridge or freezer off for a minute or two is not going to cause any harm to the appliance or food. You should not need a new smart metre as they are reprogrammable, with these capabilities built in.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ear...nsent-to-reduce-strain-on-power-stations.html

Don't like go off grid. Systems are their fir the benefit of society not individuals, I have no issues with such plans. and there is a benefit to the customer, it's a better and cheaper system than gixing the grid in other ways, which we as consumers would guess what, have to pay for. Why produce tons more power than we need with complicated ways if either dumping the power or shutting production down near instantly, when you can have a smart grid that has no actual effect on consumers.

http://www.internationaltransportforum.org/jtrc/DiscussionPapers/DP201202.pdf
Recent technological advances in electricity distribution and load management that make use of information and communications technologies, referred to as “smart grids”, promise to facilitate the integration of EVs into electricity load and to lower costs. Smartgrid technology can enable EV-charging (grid-to-vehicle, or G2V) load to be shifted to off-peak periods, thereby flattening the daily load curve and significantly reducing both generation and network investment needs. Advanced metering equipment is an essential component, enabling a two-way flow of information and providing customers and utilities with real-time data and enabling customers to schedule charging intelligently. In the longer term, there may be potential for smart-grid technology to enable EVs to be used as distributed storage devices, feeding electricity stored in their batteries back into the system when needed (vehicle-to-grid, or V2G, supply). This can help to reduce electricity system costs by providing a cost-effective means of providing regulation services, spinning reserves and peak-shaving capacity. In this way, EVs could both benefit from and drive forward investment in smart grids. However, there are a number of technical, practical and economic barriers to such a development, including low battery discharge rates and storage capacity. Developments in battery technology will be critical to the future of V2G supply.
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kayomani said:
I know there was some talk about the comms not being the most secure thing and could potentially be used to profile when you are or are not at home which could be quite useful for certain people.
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Such as? Because you can't possibly be about to suggest that potential burglars are going to sit and intercept smart meter data in order to find out when the best time to make entry is.
 
It'll be more government spying. When there is a spike in your leccy they'll know when you are home. Etc.
 
I was all for them at first but the thought that at some point tariffs could exist that charge more at peak times, such as first thing in the morning when everyone is boiling the kettle or at say 5pm to 6pm for cooking meals,i'm dead against them now.
 
robj20 said:
I was all for them at first but the thought that at some point tariffs could exist that charge more at peak times, such as first thing in the morning when everyone is boiling the kettle or at say 5pm to 6pm for cooking meals,i'm dead against them now.
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You realise they can measure things like this anyway?

Not necessarily on an individual level, but on a regional/national level they can see when the load is high or low.

Or are you suggesting that they generate an individual tariff for every single household? which would be an absolute nightmare to administer...
 
I had one installed by Siemans (for OVO) at the start of the year.

Resulted in my bill dropping by at least 25% because electric companies can not seem to estimate correctly despite me giving the readings in.

Not yet been burgled touch wood.
 
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