The “Smart Meter” has nothing to do with controlling anything. It’s only a unit similar to the old meters, but can transmit the useage information directly to the Electricity supplier for billing opposed to a meter reader coming on your property to read the meter once a month.
The “reader” lost his/her job, and that translates into BIG savings for the Electric supply company.
We like it as it means we don’t have to leave our gates open for the meter reading once a month.
There is an option available you can have the electric supply company install a device on your a/c if you wish to have them control your electrical useage during the hot Summer months thus, decrease useage, and decrease your electrical costs, but that’s totally separate from the “Smart Meter”. NOW THAT IS SOMETHING I WOULD NOT ALLOW THEM TO INSTALL ON MY A/C as I will control my useage, and my comfort level, not someone with a chart in an air conditioned office they don’t have to pay the costs for.
You are correct. All these meters do is allow the utility company to read your meter without coming onto your property. If the power company wants to turn off your power they can do it with the old meter.
My area has basic smart meters meaning they automatically log usage remotely. But they do provide an additional huge advantage to the electric company.
Let's say you come home and your power is off. You call the utility and they can tell how many persons in your neighborhood are also without power. Within a minute they know if it is one house, a road, several roads, which phase on that road, and how many customers are without power. In emergencies such as storm's it helps the dispatcher to see very fast where the largest outages are and how to dispatch repair crews instead of having them go out and do on site estimates then decide. It cuts hours off of response times and the dispatcher knows if even Billy Bob's power is not back on yet back in the sticks.
Before that? Well hey had to send a line crew up to check the substation and the power route and see what circuits were out. Now a Dispatcher at night from home if circuit trips at the substation he can in a lot of cases try to reset it via remote control switching. It does work out to both the utility and consumers advantage.
One day I came home and my power was out. I live on a dead end rural road with about 5 houses. Usually it's the tap offfuse at the main road that blows. I called the power company and said I think the tap off fuse popped again on my road. In a matter of seconds he said No, it's only your house and likely the transformer tap off fuse. He was right. He know this because he could not contact {pole} my meter.
What some others have also failed to notice is that meter belongs to the power company not the owner, anything past the meter belongs to the owner.
What some others have also failed to notice is that meter belongs to the power company not the owner, anything past the meter belongs to the owner.