I cannot understand why there is this fear of the smart meter. How can the meter know what device in the home is creating the electrical load? Yes, I know that through the power factor, it can deduce that an induction motor was running. But can it tell the difference between my air conditioner compressor or my 10 hp electric pressure washer or my 7 hp air compressor? As to a computer running. How would it tell the difference between one switch mode power supply and another?
I can see it reporting your usage, but now what is running in your home.
As I understand for eventual future purposes, they monitor total usage. So if there was a heat wave and it cooled off but you were still running the air conditioning, you would get a notice from the power police, or a carbon credit penalty, or worse, branded as a climate change inducer, etc.
“I cannot understand why there is this fear of the smart meter.”
If they can, using the Obama Nudge, force you to use high demand appliances in off hours or anytime of high demand, they can mask the fact they deliberately under built generating facilities.
There is some merit to load balancing but this is a method to force you to make the “right choice” via significantly higher energy costs during times of high demand.
And there is a lack of security in them
Think you get spam now; wait till your info is really given to third parties
I wish I could find the article that I read here a few years ago. The source article was a brochure from a company touting the "awesomeness" of smart meters, that could be incorporated into the "smart grid" and coupled with RFID tags that could--
automatically dim/brighten lights
note that you are out of toothpaste (track what products enter/leave)
dis/arm your burglar alarm, among others.
“I cannot understand why there is this fear of the smart meter.”
The smart meter is the camel’s nose under the tent. We have them ( both gas and electricity). The electric meter is the most likely to invade your privacy. Now we are being “admonished” with some miniscule financial inducement to “join” the utility’s program to conserve by allowing them to control our air conditioning equipment. They have to install some sort of transponder on the equipment that would allow them to turn it off at will. We have ignored them, but like the woman in the story, who was told “they will be back when she is not home,” they will continue to go at this “voluntarily” but when that doesn’t achieve the desired compliance, they will get the legislature to pass a law abrogating our right to privacy because it’s good for the environment, or the children, or some other equally nonsensically insane ploy.
I spent several summers trying to end calls from the power company to my elderly parents. They were threatening them with fines if they used their A/C between certain hours. My parents don’t even HAVE a smart meter on the electricity, only on the gas. My parents were so upset by these calls, and they need to stay cool due to health issues.
You see, the power line sends fresh electrons through the meter to each of your lamps and appliances.
Now, every lamp or appliance uses its electrons in a slightly different way, and this ends up discoloring them uniquely for each appliance.
Here’s what the Electricity Ministry doesn’t want you to know: The Smart Meter examines the used electrons coming back to it from all of your appliances, and sorts them by color. Therefore, it knows what you’ve been doing with your electrons, and tattles on you about it to the Ministry.
As someone that recently worked for a company that manufactured smart meters of all kinds (electric, gas and water), I can say that they have looked at ways to sell that information. A big one is possibly selling information to insurance companies which could be used to pattern behavior.
Imagine the insurance companies seeing an increase in electricity consumption every Saturday and Sunday morning at approximately 2:30am, which is about the time you get home from the bar. You come in turn on several lights, maybe whip up some early breakfast, etc.
Just another tool to let them pattern your behavior. There are some benefits to technology, but the negatives are even worse.
There are PLENTY of articles on it. Some are very frightening...nearly all are true, and what these meters can do is even beyond what most people can imagine. Do you homework - we’re not replacing meters en-masse for the hell of it.
You're right, it would be hard to tell. Not impossible, there are characteristics of an air-conditioner load (a spike when the motor starts up, etc) that can be looked for. They would probably guess right 95+% of the time.
Look for new AC units (and other high power appliances) to have government mandated electronics to interface with smart meters (probably through signals sent through the power line) once smart meters become ubiquitous.
It would take way too much bandwidth, RF or over the power lines, to report instantaneous power consumption from hundreds of thousands of consumers in the area. Per the official statement the meter reports the data every 15 minutes.
I can understand that in some instances it could be revealing too much - it can show the difference between a drug growing operation (24/7 constant load) vs. someone who likes to bathe in hot water and then sit in front of electric fireplace all night long.
But for majority of customers and loads the readings are too coarse to be of any use. I personally installed a power meter in my house, and it reports several channels every second. (It reports to me, not to anyone else.) This resolution in time is sufficient for me to tell one load from another, especially because I can calibrate the surge shape and then recognize it later. My water heater, for example, is a single 4.5 kW load with double the spike on startup. But that's only because I know what it is. Nobody can tell if I turn a TV on, or a computer, or a floor lamp, or most other loads that I have around. Some of those loads are automatically controlled, so you can't even know if someone is at home or not.
Many people are afraid of smart meters, but truth be told they are not the worst thing that can happen. Electric companies cannot afford the old style meters anymore - they are not accurate enough and they require human readers. The new meters are DSP-based, fast enough to digitize all the harmonics worth measuring, and the power factor for them is a piece of cake. They can also be utilized on time-of-use rate plans. Not every FR reader has solar panels on the roof or a Volt in the garage, but electric companies are not FR readers. They only are in it for profit; if they think that there is profit in catering to EV or solar then here you are. Meters are their property, and for all moral reasons they should be able to install them. The same moral reasons allow you to either cancel the service or to mislead the people in black helicopters by moving the load around as it pleases you.
With the new generation of smart appliances they will be able to tell what is running and when.