Posted on 04/07/2011 8:45:08 AM PDT by Clint Williams
After being directed to create a SmartMeter opt-out proposal by the California Public Utilities Commission early last month, PG&E released a proposal that has angered customers who are frustrated with the high costs of disabling the meters, considering that they never gave their consent for installation.
The opt-out proposal, which was released March 24, allows customers to disable the radios inside their gas or electric meters with the option of either paying a $135 up-front fee followed by a $20 monthly charge or a $270 up-front fee followed by a $14 monthly charge to cover the costs of implementing the program, which involves sending workers to manually read meters. ...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailycal.org ...
Gas & water meter reading is mostly one-way, although we are getting into remote gas & water cut-offs now. Electric meters are two way because of two fundamental truths about power-grid electricity: 1) it's too expensive to store it, so it has to be used as its generated, and 2) expensive "load fill" generators have to be started up at peak times. If utilities can avoid the latter by peak shaving (e.g. turning off HVAC for people who aren't home anyway), they can live with the former.
But, public policy and marketing aren't my strong points, so I shouldn't say anything about it. Right, La Lydia?
You may have been designing them, but I'm working on the new version. It consists of a Standard Smart Meter that is in radio contact with a computer mounted on a piece of headgear that the homeowner wears. Excessive power use, or attempts to remove the headgear, will fire the two shotgun shells pointed at those two temples of said homeowner.
Pretty much. And I don’t know anything about telemetry, nor did I mention it. How long do you think it would take a government run by, say, Obama and Eric Holder and Nancy Pelosi, to start using this kind of control over people’s lives in a punitive way, as opposed to or in addition to using it in a way to conserve power?
Didn't you get the "civility" memo? LOL!
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/21/smart-grid-project-cuts-electricity-usage/
The company’s software takes into account the customer’s billing history, local weather conditions and other factors to manage the home’s appliances. Mr. Roberts said Consert can control up to 256 devices but expects most savings will come from appliances such as air conditioners and water heaters.
Also, note the roadmap for interoperability in http://epic.org/smartgrid_interoperability.pdf
Whirlpool smart appliances by 2015
http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2009/05/08/whirlpool-set-launch-smart-grid-compatible-appliances-2015
Well, even sooner -
General Electric and Whirlpool will soon debut smart appliances. GE says
its line of smart water heaters will be available for purchase next month
while Whirlpool is expected to announce on October 5 that it will have a
million smart clothes dryers on the market in 2011.
Smart appliances can be programmed to accept signals from the utility that
instruct it to go into an energy-saving mode, or turn off, during times
when demand for electricity is critically high. Consumers will have the
choice to override the programming, but will likely pay more for energy
during these times.
http://www.smartmeters.com/the-news/648-ge-and-whirlpool-lead-development-in-smart-appliances.html
I’m sure the feds will have something like cash for clunkers for your old
non-smart appliances and homes with regular meters and dumb appliances
won’t be able to be sold without upgrading.
Attaching the device to my air conditioner was optional. I got a $15 or $20 per month credit on my bill in return for allowing the installation.
I know people at Consert. It is vaporware at this point.
The point is, that’s the direction it’s proceeding in and that’s the roadmap direction.
I’ve no issue with one way monitoring of my gross demand and it would be neat to see charts of consumption, for my own use. But not to take commands from the central office. In our area the meters will, at the outset, have only have the ability to turn off the mains remotely.
In our house, except for things like the well pump and sewage lift pump we’re not highly dependent upon the grid and our plan is to be less so.
Tell them that some crazed greenie destroyed your meter with a baseball bat and you need a new one.
I think that I err not in the aspect that transmitting telemetry over power systems is difficult, but that the technical hurdles and perceived expense of doing so is thought to be, from your perspective, insurmountable. Admittedly I am trapped in my own engineering bubble in a realm of the possible with regard to communications and telemetry systems. Too trapped to effectively grasp the difficulties of modifying an antiquated power system to accommodate modern signal processing techniques.
We definitely differ in engineering culture. For example, in my experience of avionics design, long ago has the issue of EMP been dealt with and, thus, I forget the power companies are either too uninterested or unmotivated to engage the upgrades that will protect Americans from the devastation that will come in the wake of an EMP attack.
I know very well there are problems in transmitting telemetry over a power bus. Indeed, if this were 1991 instead of 2011, I would agree that it could not be done. However, there is no physical reason why it cannot work. I am only shocked to encounter an engineer who so quickly gives up on pushing to the edge of design, or, worst yet, won’t entertain the thought.
Putting that aside, there is a sinister element in your reply. Indeed, it is the same element I failed to question initially. This centers on your inserting that RF bandwidth is much higher. Something not even mentioned until you brought it to the table. Your statement is unquestionable. However, it does seemed a defensive retort to my perception.
There can’t be a lot of data needed to acquire once a month billing data. Some bit or symbol synch, the actual meter reading and customer ID. Then transmit the same data several times to correct transmission errors as a brute force method, if forward error correction is avoided. This can’t be more than 1000 bytes per month; 267 bits per day; 12 bits per hour; 1 bit every 5 minutes. Why would the bandwidth available in RF systems be needed for a simple transmitter used to replace a once per month – and let’s face it, much less than that – manual meter reading? Unless this data is collected on a per second or per minute rate, rates needing RF medium does not figure.
It occurs to me that this is an example of when an engineer has to stop and consider the ethics of what they are doing. A famous example of a brilliant engineer who lost sight of or cared little about his obligation to ethics was Werner von Braun. It never seemed to bother him to what use his developments would be put, as long as he got access to the resources he needed to continue his work. Whether the resources came from Das Dritte Reich or the US Government, it didn’t matter. He seemed always to care only if the thing could be done. Never did he seems to ask if it should be done.
As an avionics engineer I have had to ask myself the same question when, early in my career, I engaged in developing weapon systems designed to destroy targets and kill people. Perhaps I fooled myself into believing that defense against or the ending of the Soviet Union was a just cause. Perhaps I let my experience of peering into the DDR through the Fulda Gap lead me into a false sense of confronting evil. But I have always ended up with the understanding that what was done, should have been done. Never was I more sure of this than the day I stood in Red Square in the Spring of 1999.
Long ago I left the weapon making business and entered into developments that never vexed me with the question of should a project be done, only if it could it be done.
In the business of collection ordinary citizen’s power use data with systems needing high bandwidth, as you put it, when do engineers cross the ethical line between collecting data for once per month billing and spying on customers just because the government asks for it to be done? At what point should an ethical engineer say this should not be done?
My sin was to view this as a RF induced health problem and simply suggested a less intrusive way to collect the data. Yours was to nearly sanction the activity by defending the use of RF because of the bandwidth advantage. Neither of us stopped to consider, at the time, if it should be done at all.
For my conscience, at least, my sin ends at my omission. I have never been asked to spy on my fellow American.
The NappyOne
Abathar writes - “”What they really want to do is have a sliding pay scale for their power. If they have to turn on the old gas boilers or buy their power during peak hours from out-of-state generation then they want to know how much you use WHEN you use it so they can adjust your KPH charge accordingly.
Also what they want more that the meters is the ability to control your air conditioning and hot water tank thermostat (if electric) so they can shut down literally millions of them at their convenience during peak hours or the day. This will lower their dependence on purchasing power from other producers which is not nearly as profitable as generating all they need with what they have, keeping the higher profit margin in-house and not giving it to their competitors.””
Thank you Abathar. Just got our notice from GeorgiaPower about the wonderful gift they are giving us for “no charge”, lol, and I commenced searching for information.
I knew right off that if this brand new, EXPENSIVE meter was being given to EVERYONE for free, then there darn sure was SOMETHING in it for them!!
May God guide our course.
Tatt
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