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If not, these real-time signal sending devices are headed your way.
Are these things an invasion of privacy? Can the information they send be intercepted and used by criminals? Seems to be a hot topic with the customers. Opinions are welcome.
When the power goes out, the poco knows instantly and sends out a crew so the power is back faster. smile
I get complaints all the time from clients. I have never heard a positive comment. Also, many said that their bill has gone as high as 50%.
Got mine in June. No problems or concerns, really; it would be cool if we could use Google Powermeter or get other data from it from the PoCo website, but haven't heard anything about that yet. They said they would still be reading them manually for a while, before they have them all in and the infrastructure is in place. They somewhere around 1.6 Million meters to replace. The cost savings for meter readers and spotting outages quickly must be pretty substantial to pay for that many meters, plus a contractor to do all of the installation.

Regarding any increases in meter readings; I assume that was due to their old mechanical meter aging and not having any capacity for lubrication of its mechanical parts.

One upside, was that they were more than happy to send me an old mechanical meter to build a lamp out of. In fact, they seemed more than willing to send me a truckload if I'd asked nicely.
Originally Posted by noderaser
Got mine in June. No problems or concerns, really; it would be cool if we could use Google Powermeter or get other data from it from the PoCo website, but haven't heard anything about that yet. They said they would still be reading them manually for a while, before they have them all in and the infrastructure is in place. They somewhere around 1.6 Million meters to replace. The cost savings for meter readers and spotting outages quickly must be pretty substantial to pay for that many meters, plus a contractor to do all of the installation.


PG&E jacked up the rates to pay for the Smart Meter program, which are high enough already....:( (Strange thing is that they never changed the gas meter on my house to a Smart Meter although another house on the same property did get both swapped out.
I got a meter base from Builder's Square in their going out of business sale virtually for free. (all you could get in a cart for $25)
Hialeah Meter was selling these old meters for about $10.
I also got one from the builder my wife worked for. They had it on the gen set on the construction trailer.
I have one hooked up on a 5 wire pigtail of SO cord that I use as a "Kilawatt" on steroids. I had it on my spa for a while, just to see how much that costs to run (a tad over a buck and a half an hour when the heater is going)
Commercial customers can get some real nice charts and graphs from FPL. I am not sure about residential.
I have it on good authority that the Poco can terminate service digitally with these meters.

Right there the Poco has to love them.

Remember, their service base pays for everything -- so politics decides everything.

The Poco is immune to economic trends. Its only concern is keeping the politicians happy, captured and aligned.
So maybe it's also about fine tuning the control of (political) power. Could be a valuable tool to be able to instantaneously shut down the utilities in an area. Water and gas are next, huh?? Where's Jesse Ventura??
I would be surprised if they had two 200a rated Triacs in these meters. The heat sink would be bigger than the meter can.
(280 watts @ 200a)

The other question is, are they on the customer side of the meter? I am not sure I would want a 1/2% tax on my power bill, just so they could turn me off at will.
What is a smart meter? Is it the one that the utilities can use to read meters without going up to each house or something else.

We don't have the drive by ones here yet, I know at one time the gas utility was trying the automated telephone dial up meters but did not put them in general service.

I think the utilities (water,gas,hydro) here are only looking at the ones that they drive by and scan and not the ones that broadcast to and from a tower.

According to the guy that installed my meter, he said the new ones basically have a cell phone inside. When the system is up and running,customers will be able to monitor their usage over the net. The unit sends out information about every 60 seconds. These meters should save the utility a lot of money since they don't have to send a man out to read them each month. He said that customers that decline the meter could be charged extra for someone to come out and read it.
They just installed the 2nd version of "smart meter' on my place... It tells you your KW usage cumulative and at the moment you're looking at it...

I think a lot of the people seeing higher bills had "tired" meters that weren't registering quite accurately laugh
Perhaps the remote turn off is a SCR across the two line terminals after fusible links? Remote turnoff that requires meter replacement?
I'll keep some long nails on hand grin
Triacs are so yesterday.

Try IGBTs ( Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors )

Take it as Gospel: they can terminate and restore service remotely.

Google is you friend.
I figured this topic is worthy of revival... as the smart meters are still actively "proliferating".

Some people have had them for years already, some have just gotten them... and others are wondering when they'll be hit. As of 2013, we still don't have one. grin

As I understand it, the deadline for these meters to be installed is "eventually"? I've heard dates as far in the future as 2016.

In PA, the meters are being installed under PUC Act 129, effective 11/14/08... so it's been awhile.
We got ours a few months ago.
It appears there is a set of contracts in the meter but I can't imagine they will put up with opening the circuit under any significant load.
This thing has a RF link to a pole mounted hub that communicates with the host.
Here in Houston, a smart meter save one area business lots of money. A Houston area Chucky Cheese smart meter sent indication of power loss. The Poco (centerpoint) sent a service truck to investigate. He found the feeders cut behind the bldg. He called the sheriff and they located 2 copper thief's on the roof. They both now have free room and board.
Originally Posted by gfretwell

It appears there is a set of contracts in the meter but I can't imagine they will put up with opening the circuit under any significant load.


I don't see why not. Electronics can control a solenoid or actuator that in turn controls a physical cutoff switch. With 12VDC and maybe an amp, you get a lot of magnetic force at your disposal.
These can't be very large contacts to fit inside a meter and opening a fairly large inductive load will create quite an arc. Will these have room to move enough to put the fire out?
Perhaps the contacts are backup for a solid state switch. IGFET turns off the load, mechanical contacts are the "and stay off!" backup in case a serious surge tries to short the FET.
Time to talk to my utility guys for some input.
Please do! It's not exactly like we could just go and poke around inside of these things... eek
I saw a picture of the contact assembly at one of those lunch meetings. It all fits in a disk about 1/2" thick and the size of the meter.
It just did not look like 200a switch gear to me.

I poked around to see if the picture was on the GE web site but before I got there, I saw an article about hackers.

http://krebsonsecurity.com/2012/04/fbi-smart-meter-hacks-likely-to-spread/

No matter how long these things will hold up electronically, it looks like they all need a security makeover. That sounds expensive.
Most smart meters use a form of Mesh network to communicate. ( the ones here in Houston do) They can talk to each other or to the local node. This assures a signal path to the node. Most use one freq. to communicate to the local node, like 900 mz and another to communicate from the local node to the host 5gz. Other meters like gas and water can communicate with a local meter. Data may make several hops before accessing the local node. My understanding is the contactor in the meter is designed to switch at zero volts at the waveform to minimize arcing.
Originally Posted by WESTUPLACE
My understanding is the contactor in the meter is designed to switch at zero volts at the waveform to minimize arcing.


Wow! That's some precision engineering!
I agree, the fastest relay IBM had, when we were running trigger rings with relays, had a 1 ms response time and they worked at a fraction of an amp with a wire contact that was #30 AWG or so, moving about a 32d of an inch.
Each swing of a 60z sine wave is about 8ms zero to zero. That is some good shooting with a contact that probably has a 10 MS response time or more. ;-)
They generally drop slower than they pick so that might even be more.

Then you have all of that current vs voltage stuff in reactive circuits.

My guess is they don't plan on operating these that often. If this is a grow house with a room full of HPS plant lights, the contracts might weld and not open at all.
To repeat myself: IGBT.

Google is your friend.

Compared to IGBT the other stuff is as dated as as vacuum tubes.

IGBT can switch 1000 Amps at 1000 VDC in microseconds -- with the device about the size of a cubic inch. 120 Hertz is eons to such a device.

Next, because of sampling speed and the quality of Poco sine waves, predicting the next commutations/ 0 volt cross-overs is a snap. Unlike most switches we deal with, the Poco can wait a couple of cycles to shut off the juice. That option opens the door to cheap switching.

This is the technology that permits wave synchronization for PV inverters.

Take it as Gospel: the Poco can switch your smart meter on and off remotely. The hacking of infrastructure that we read of in the news revolves around gaff-tastic zero-day vulnerabilities in this net.

Before the decade is out, all of these meters will have to be replaced. They're all wide open to even primitive hacks.

We still have our good-old Analog, Non-Detent Single Stator Watt-Hour Meter with Mechanically Geared Registers fixed to a Mechanical rotating Register!!!

The old Sangamo KWh Meter fell victim to the "Bowling Pin-like action" of a run away 10 foot stick of 2" GRC.
The way that Pipe Pachinko-Balled off everything , it totally appeared as if the GRC intentionally attacked the Meter!!!

The Sangamo CL200 4-Terminal was replaced with a similar CL200 Rr=6-17/18 Analog-Mechanical non Hybrid, non Detent KWh Meter made by Landis & Gyr.

I hope the new Meters never arrive!
The usage recorded by our Mechanical KWh Meter tallies up in the Readout Dials as Consumption over time...ONLY!!!
There is no Clock involved, and the Register does not ever consider the time of day!!! wink

We can have a High Demand Load drawn between 10:00AM and 3:00PM, and the Meter does not place any TOU (TIER Levels) considerations on the Consumed True Power!

That is what the Pocos love about Smart Metering: Application of Time Of Usage Demand rates, along with selling True Power at Demand Peaks per the Market Rate at the Time Of Usage (primary benefit for central office meter reading).

In California, the same People that could not wait to vote Yes for Deregulation of Public Electrical Utilities, are now responsible for endless complaining, nasty grams, Troubleshoot calls, Dale Gribble Theories, rendering the services of Exorcists, etc..., due to their excessively high Billing Statements.

On average, I get asked maybe twice a month, to evaluate someone's Smart Meter - due to excessive monthly charges.
Reviewing the Billing Records removes all the Bandini quite well! (at least for me it does...)
High level consumption penalties, heavy usage during peak periods - or worse, during critical periods (like summer week day peak hours) and the penalties assessed to those TOU's, usage billed per Delivery Charges AND Generation Charges - within Delivery Charges are Transmission Charges, Distribution charges, taxes, and all that fun stuff!

Looking at an average Daily consumption rate of 191 KWh for 32 Days, their $850.00 Billing Statement does not Shock Me, especially compared to the $100K + Monthly Billing Statements from some of my larger Industrial Clients.

Typically, when things have progressed this far, there are only Two paths of travel:

Path A - The Least Traveled Path:

Ask me what may be done to reduce the True Power Consumption.
My usual response being:
"First off, turn off some of these frikken Lights!!!"
Followed up with the next most common:
"Eliminate the Fight For Dominance between the Floor Heater(s) and the Air Conditioning!!! Turn off either the Heater, The A/C, or BOTH!!!"

However, as I said, Path "A" is least Traveled... and we go to good 'ol Path "B" Appropriately named too! since the smell of Bull Fecal Matter is the Omen to whats coming next!!!~:-O

Path "B" is a slap in the face to anyone who studies our field, its theories, and takes our Profession seriously.
Path B turns the Person that ask for your advise on the matter in the first place; into an instant Electrical Engineer with >20 Years experience, holding an MSEE; who will now inform you of your many, many errors and misunderstandings!
Instant EE continues to say:
"All may be corroborated by my Friend:
'Mr./Mrs. XXX' at 'the power company' (or lives next to the brother of a friend who's Gardener used to shop at the same Supermarket of the Dentist who knew a guy from the same City as this Lineman who mentioned something about low voltages taking much more power than they should, because there is more amperage drawn, so therefore its more power).
Call this Person if you want to learn about Electricity!"

That is when I walk away.

BTW, tonight's rant was brought to you by someone playing the "Path B Card" no less than 30 Minutes prior to me logging on to ECN!!!
Please pardon the heat, and if you got scorched by some of the flames, I truly apologize!

Whew!!! That was bad!

OK, rant mode is disabled now! Need a new Asbestos Vent stack.
Time for beer blink
cheers

--Scott (EE)
welp,
smartmeters finally came to dogpatch, no black helicopters, alien abductions, spirit communications with Tesla or Edison

i'm bummed....so's my dog because he can't hump our meter maid's leg anymore 'cause she got laid off

~S~
Here is a You Tube video from the Discovery Channel program How it's Made titled Smart Electric Meters
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUEQ6evOHGY

It shows how they are assembled and at 3:25 shows the installation of the remote disconnect switch.
It's solenoid activated open contacts.
They sure don't look like they can handle 200A.
Originally Posted by Justinelectric
They sure don't look like they can handle 200A.

That has always been my impression too. The only thing that makes sense is that the meter is "smart" enough to not open them under a significant load. I am not sure they would know when it was safe to close them again.
That's an interesting video link, and I think is shows basically how lots of consumer electronics is made these days. It helps explain (a) why complex devices can be so cheap, and (b), why we can no longer do "component level" servicing repairs.
Many do those things look flimsy or what? Even if by accident, if someone just hit that a wee bit hard, it looks like it will break into pieces.
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