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Smart Meters and Audio Equipment.

L

luddite

Super Member
Recently I had reason to have to flip off the main breaker switch. In the past, when my repairs were done and I flipped it back on the entire house lit up all at once. But this summer they pulled the old Ferranti and replaced it with a smart meter. So when I flipped on the main breaker the lights came on very slowly, and one room at a time. When they did come on in a room they flickered first for five seconds like during a bad brownout. It seems to me that the smart meter was controlling the power to the house and only allowing it to increase in small increments, not enough to properly power up everything that was switched on. This leads me to believe that the smart meter might be capable of inducing brownouts and destroying appliances and anything else that is on, like the audio equipment. Anybody know if this is a reasonable concern? Could the smart meter trigger a fire by limiting amperage, or could it burn out equipment? Is it always modifying the household supply all day long? When I switch something on does it not get immediate adequate power from the smart meter on a routine basis? I've noticed the audio equipment makes a lot more click noises when other stuff in the house is turned on now.
 
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Smart meters don't control the power at all, they merely measure power consumption. Their primary purpose (besides replacing meter reader's jobs) is to report power consumption in real time, so that the power companies can start charging you more during peak consumption periods. This will supposedly reduce consumption during peak demand periods, thereby lowering prices for consumers because the power companies won't need to build more generating capacity. Smart, huh? And if you believe your rates will actually go down, well...
 
I appreciate the response, but although it has proven surprisingly difficult to find technical information on smart meters, I did come across an applied research paper on them which contains the assertion that they:
-are designed with the capability to directly remove power supply to unessential residential power draws, such as water feature pumps, in favour of the needs of the utility company.

Since the smart meter has no physical access to the sub-breakers panel supplying the internal circuits of the house, the only way it could do this would be to limit the draw on power from the line in from the street. As I noticed that the power up was staged, I can confirm that when the power is limited into the house there are only limited circuits which are able to ignite their fixtures and appliances, while the rest remain insufficiently powered to light up. I do not know how this works without straining the underpowered units.
 
There is no way that a smart meter can control the power in your house room by room. It may be able to control current draw to reduce the hit the grid would take from turning on an entire house all at once. It may even be able to control each phase independently as well.
Our local utility offers a program where you install a remotely controlled box on your air conditioner compressor. When demand is high they can shut off the power to your A/C, but this requires a special, dedicated box on that circuit alone.
 
Smwilli said:
There is no way that a smart meter can control the power in your house room by room. It may be able to control current draw to reduce the hit the grid would take from turning on an entire house all at once. It may even be able to control each phase independently as well.
Our local utility offers a program where you install a remotely controlled box on your air conditioner compressor. When demand is high they can shut off the power to your A/C, but this requires a special, dedicated box on that circuit alone.
Click to expand...

Nope, it can't do anything to the current draw through it. It would need to be a whole lot bigger to do that - would need something similar to McIntosh's autoformers. ;)

Yes, it can communicate with remote boxes on various high-draw devices, so that the power company can switch them off during periods of high demand. These devices can only be installed with your permission.
 
The only problem I've had with the smart meter they put in is its annoying use of the 2.4GHz wireless range.
 
luddite said:
I appreciate the response, but although it has proven surprisingly difficult to find technical information on smart meters, I did come across an applied research paper on them which contains the assertion that they:
-are designed with the capability to directly remove power supply to unessential residential power draws, such as water feature pumps, in favour of the needs of the utility company.

Since the smart meter has no physical access to the sub-breakers panel supplying the internal circuits of the house, the only way it could do this would be to limit the draw on power from the line in from the street. As I noticed that the power up was staged, I can confirm that when the power is limited into the house there are only limited circuits which are able to ignite their fixtures and appliances, while the rest remain insufficiently powered to light up. I do not know how this works without straining the underpowered units.
Click to expand...

My Father is an electrician as so was I for a long time. There is someting about smart meters we don't like. It is also a tool to shut you down if the bill isn't paid also to tell if you tampered with it in anyway. It also can control power consumption. Basically we are getting a demand meter by proxy and it is bullshit. More control
 
The Landis Gridstream meters used in Texas can switch power on and off by remote control, so if someone doesn't pay their bill the power co. saves a trip by a human to pull the meter. Ours operate 800-900 mHz. Send brief data transmissions when they report. Had one for almost 3 years now, not a problem.
 
As someone who works in the Smart Metering business I can tell you the following:

A smart meter is nothing more then a remote telemetry device with some having capability of communicating with what is called the HAN (home area network) and any "control devices" or "building automation systems" that may reside on that HAN. A smart meter does NOT "manage" the power you receive from the grid - it merely reports on it and offers a communications bridge. (CAVEAT: AFAIK YMMV)

Secondly - Why we should not fear "demand response" or power curtailment.

When a utility or the regional electricity operator wants to curtail your power they target several obvious and large household draws - not the house as a whole. Those draws tend to be AC, Pool Pumps, Hot Water Heaters, Furnace etc. To do that there would have to be control devices installed on all those units or a special control thermostat - all of which you need to agree to before they can be installed or used.

Your stereo gear is of no interest unless you have monster 20x300B monoblocks and even then they would not know about it and even if they did - they can't force you to control, if you don't want. All curtailment programs follow strict and rather rigid protocols and rules - which should be publicly available. The goal of curtailment or Demand Response is three fold: 1) to respond to grid emergencies where demand is too high and the power supply cushion has eroded to the point of presenting a risk to the grid; 2) to react to peak pricing and 3) (coming soon) to help accommodate green energy power sources that are rather variable in their supply (solar/wind).

The grid must always be in balance - the demand and supply. When either the demand or supply move the grid needs to rebalance. The problem with certain generators such as nuclear or coal is that they take a long time to alter their output (assuming they can increase) so they usually provide the core baseline power and are almost never are called for to alter their output. Hydro can usually adjust fairly quickly by simply adjusting the amount of water going through the turbines (it has traditionally been the generator of choice for quick grid balancing). Other generators such as gas fired plants etc. can vary in the speed of response depending on technology, but usually they don't contribute much to the grid as a percentage. What is growing in percentage is the contribution of wind and solar, but, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine so these generators are rather variable and usually can only adjust one way (down) so to accommodate more green power sources the grid needs to rely more and more on curtailment. Because, in theory, demand reduction can occur rather quickly BUT for that to be true there needs to be a vast communications network and good and extensive telemetry - hence Smart Meters. The goal of Smart Meters are to provide that network and telemetry to give the grid another, fast responding lever to ensure the reliability of the grid.

TLDR: Smart Meters typically do not control power. They certainly do not control "portions" of the house. They are there to ensure reliability of the grid and to accommodate the increase of variable green energy sources in the grid.
 
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Not a big fan of power companies. The blunderful power-barons in my area totally dropped the ball last winter when we got hit with a noreaster and the hurricane and all that. Two weeks without power for people in my area, all because of blatant ill-preparedness by upper-management.

Never seen a smart meter (which I hope I don't have here), but I'd sure love to have somebody run a couple direct lines into the living room. Today I'm gonna' switch everything from one power strip to a better, much-more-heavy-duty one. It's an industrial one that my stepfather brought home from work and never brought back ( :D ). I don't plug my receiver into the power strip because it was making my amp a touch saggier compared to plugging straight into the outlet (Besides, lots of people on here tell me that those power-strip/surge-protector things won't really stop a bolt of lightning or some other kind of power-surge from blowing up your amp... Are they right? Is that the case? 'Cause I want to do the right thing with my gear, but I don't want my sound to totally-suffer either. Anyway, I'm gonna' give the new one a shot and see if I can handle using a power-strip again.
 
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The wife and I are debating paying the service fee (one time, $125) and monthly fee ($10 month), to remove and replace our smart meter with an old fashioned analog meter.

Our power provider burned down a good third of the county in 2007, and are maneuvering to make the customer pay for the repairs, replacements, and upgrades to the system.
 
Why do you think they're called San Diego Gouges for Electricity?

As I recall, the latest proposal to pass all of that cost for the Witch Fire to ratepayers (and none to SDG&E or Sempra shareholders) was denied by PUC. Whether it'll stay denied is another story.

John


P.S. On a smart meter here as well (as well as running solar) but haven't seen any side effects so far. I looked at their "discount" program for turning off key appliances & A/C during mid-day peak usage but it was a non-starter for me. The savings was way less than the impact, and given I produce on average around 6kW to the grid at that time of day, I don't contribute materially to load on the grid anyway.
 
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mfrench said:
The wife and I are debating paying the service fee (one time, $125) and monthly fee ($10 month), to remove and replace our smart meter with an old fashioned analog meter.

Our power provider burned down a good third of the county in 2007, and are maneuvering to make the customer pay for the repairs, replacements, and upgrades to the system.
Click to expand...

Sounds about right... "Stuff" floats downriver... Make the silent majority foot the bill.
 
eddantes said:
As someone who works in the Smart Metering business I can tell you the following:

A smart meter is nothing more then a remote telemetry device with some having capability of communicating with what is called the HAN (home area network) and any "control devices" or "building automation systems" that may reside on that HAN. A smart meter does NOT "manage" the power you receive from the grid - it merely reports on it and offers a communications bridge. (CAVEAT: AFAIK YMMV)

Secondly - Why we should not fear "demand response" or power curtailment.

When a utility or the regional electricity operator wants to curtail your power they target several obvious and large household draws - not the house as a whole. Those draws tend to be AC, Pool Pumps, Hot Water Heaters, Furnace etc. To do that there would have to be control devices installed on all those units or a special control thermostat - all of which you need to agree to before they can be installed or used.

Your stereo gear is of no interest unless you have monster 20x300B monoblocks and even then they would not know about it and even if they did - they can't force you to control, if you don't want. All curtailment programs follow strict and rather rigid protocols and rules - which should be publicly available. The goal of curtailment or Demand Response is three fold: 1) to respond to grid emergencies where demand is too high and the power supply cushion has eroded to the point of presenting a risk to the grid; 2) to react to peak pricing and 3) (coming soon) to help accommodate green energy power sources that are rather variable in their supply (solar/wind).

The grid must always be in balance - the demand and supply. When either the demand or supply move the grid needs to rebalance. The problem with certain generators such as nuclear or coal is that they take a long time to alter their output (assuming they can increase) so they usually provide the core baseline power and are almost never are called for to alter their output. Hydro can usually adjust fairly quickly by simply adjusting the amount of water going through the turbines (it has traditionally been the generator of choice for quick grid balancing). Other generators such as gas fired plants etc. can vary in the speed of response depending on technology, but usually they don't contribute much to the grid as a percentage. What is growing in percentage is the contribution of wind and solar, but, the wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine so these generators are rather variable and usually can only adjust one way (down) so to accommodate more green power sources the grid needs to rely more and more on curtailment. Because, in theory, demand reduction can occur rather quickly BUT for that to be true there needs to be a vast communications network and good and extensive telemetry - hence Smart Meters. The goal of Smart Meters are to provide that network and telemetry to give the grid another, fast responding lever to ensure the reliability of the grid.

TLDR: Smart Meters typically do not control power. They certainly do not control "portions" of the house. They are there to ensure reliability of the grid and to accommodate the increase of variable green energy sources in the grid.
Click to expand...

Yes. I agree with what you are saying in regards to the power control over certain areas of the house. IE a smart meter will not know if you are drawing a hundred watts from a light bulb or a stereo. What scares me is that the demand charges. I wish I could have three phase. But if I got three phase I would have to pay a demand charge. And ues there are safegaurds in place NOW but with the political piture,,, For how long?? That is what scares me, what is coming down the line,, no pun intended. But I fear the EPA and such
 
I don't know if my smart meter has any thing to do with it or not, but the AM radio on my Crane CCRadioPlus has a bunch of static in it now and it is just about unusable except for strong local stations.
 
We switched to the smart power meter over the summer because I wanted a way to monitor our homes energy consumption. I also use TED (The Energy Detective) to monitor our energy usage. The TED device is nice, and I have an app on my phone that let's me see the usage - down to a lamp turning on or off. It's easy to see where your electricity is going and allows you to make changes to your habits to curb your bill. We have a 3500 square foot 2 story home. Before the TED we spent around $300.00 per month on electricity. Now that I can monitor and control out usage we have dropped out bill to about $175.00 - $200.00 per month. When our CPS Energy company asked us about installing a smart meter and the associated Wi-Fi devices for the water heater, AC unit, and main panel monitor we said "sure". We were able to adjust the temperature with our phones/pads, set times/schedules, and all that neat stuff. There was no charge or fee involved in "giving" us and installing all the hardware. It worked good too - for the most part. Never did it do anything to our homes power supply, except for the "remote monitor and control" part where the Electric Company will regulate the temperature in your home in certain hours of the day to keep the grid healthy. You can opt of this feature. The only problems we had were with the stupid pathetic thermostat they use - it's pathetically unresponsive and difficult to use. We had it swapped 3 times, and once I actually broke the screen by using too much pressure because it would not respond. Eventually we just had them remove it altogether. The TED device worked so much better. But they did leave the smartmeter outside. Eventually everyone will have one of these. Since we have a large steel gated and locked fence it was always a nightmare for the meterman to read our meter. At least this way that's once less thing to worry about.

Jimmy
 
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