(Not so)Smart power meters

[Tubetec]

The utillity companies nowadays are busting a nut to get people to install so called smart metering , its a current shunt with memory and a gsm connection that records your energy usage and reports it back to base , these things were rolled out on the basis that the effeciency would make energy cheaper , BULLSHIT ,
what it does do is allow them to fine tune the generators so less waste is produced , this saving was never destined to be passed on to the consumer , dont cod yourself for a moment .

Anyway I went ahead and tested the insulation resistance of the wiring in a domestic 'smart meter' installation today ,
I'm a high voltage rock 'n roller ,so I went directly to the 1000vdc insulation test on my Metrel instaltest ,
I did make sure the entire system was isolated from mains power first , the Metrel wont do the insulation test with mains power present in any case ,
I measured 700-800 Meg on all but one set of outlets which registered around 30 Meg , still well above the minimum 1Meg ,
After the series of tests was over , no mains power , nothing ,
I was able to get an electrician buddly up there today , he confirmed the smart meter had shut off the power , and that in fact your power can be shut off remotely ,via the GSM network from the utillity company . He also told me they dont generally test to 1000v , 250 or 500v maybe .......oooopps looks like I fried the shit out of their smart meter
It does call into question the robustness of such a system , the fault was logged over automated phone system , but their 'smart meter' system says 'no fault found' via automated message ,
so according to them the owner is still chargeable , thats 'smart' alright isnt it ?
people who stole bread or poached salmon to feed their families in times of famine here were sent to the gulag but the utillity companies can do what they like ?
Heuston , weve got a problem ..a major one .

Do not voluenteer to accept smart metering as if its a bonus to you , the consumer , its most certainly not ,its a way of shutting you off remotely if you cant pay your bills and a way for the utillity company to maximise profits which will never be passed on to the consumer .

 

[pucho812]

I don’t need a smart meter to shut down the power at my place. Winter weather blew a few local power transformers. I was not home at the time. But I did see the video courtesy of my neighbors. Luckily I won’t be home until next week.

 

[Tubetec]

Back street L.A. , the pole wiring looks hairy as feck ,
I once witnessed a pole mounted transformer vapourised by a lightening strike ,
luckily I was far enough away I didnt catch any shrapnel.

 

[Brian Roth]

I grew up in a new (aka early 1960's) house in the Oklahoma City 'burbs. One day, Mom and Dad and I were watching the action of a severe storm through the patio door while listening to reports on TV. There were tornado warnings in effect for our area.

BANG!!!!!!! The electrical pole behind our house....which had a "pole pot" transformer supplying us and several neighbors....took a direct hit and the "pole pig" erupted. HUGE Green flame for an instant, then an odd stream of "something blue" going to the ground. Of course, our Mains immediately went out. Being a 1960's teen, I had a transistor radio and I tuned it to a local AM station so we could continue to hear the live severe storm reports.

Turns out the xfmr had ruptured and spewed out the internal cooling oil into our backyard.

Next day, Dad was very pissed...icky stinky oil had covered a corner of his prized backyard turf while we still had no Mains. From that era, I now suspect that oil was laced with PCBs. That corner of the yard took years to vaguely recover again.

Anyway, we were without Mains for at least a day or two before OG+E came in to replace the pole pig. Oddly, I don't recall any failures inside the house....maybe a light bulb? Our TV set was all vacuum tube.

Nowadays, a similar lightning strike would wipe out the majority of everything in my house. Besides my computer gear, battery chargers, also every appliance and all of the LED bulbs. My elderly Maytag washer and Kenmore dryer might survive....motorized timers. Every other appliance here has touch screens, digital readouts.

Bri

 

[Tubetec]

The transformer I saw vapourised was in the mountains between France and Spain on a family holiday about 35 years back . That area is notorious for storms , first there was torrential rain , the heaviest rain I ever witnessed in my life , visibillity was only around 20 yards on the motorway , when the heavy rain passed then the thunder and lightening struck the wires then what seemed like a moment later a blinding white light and the pole pig was gone .

Theres an old story of a family friend of ours , as a boy he was in a field when lightning struck , a cow took a direct hit from the lightening bolt , he smelt its flesh burning and was left with a paralysing fear of thunder storms ever since .

Just got the call there now , must head down and let the sparky in .

 

[JohnRoberts]

Speaking of AM radio, car makers stopped putting AM radios in EVs because the DC switchers make too much AM band interference.

JR

 

[Brian Roth]

Speaking of AM radio, car makers stopped putting AM radios in EVs because the DC switchers make too much AM band interference.

JR

Hell, there is so much RFI in the USA that the AM broadcast band as well as shortwave/ham radio bands are buried in all sorts of racket.

Back in the 1980's I got the "bug" to revisit one of my childhood hobbies: shortwave radio DXing (listening for faint, distant signals from around the world). I spent many hundreds of $$$ on a high-end Kenwood SW radio and installed an Eavesdropper (brand name) trapped dipole on my roof. I had a "second childhood" <g> as I spent hours DXing at night with that setup!

I still have that Kenwood radio and perhaps it's now faulty, but when I tried it again a few years ago with a random wire antenna, there is so much RFI that I could barely pickup WWV. sigh.

Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

Back on the original topic (smart meters).....

The utilities all began migrating to those devices mainly to save labor costs. Instead of hiring folks to go house to house to take meter readings, the new meters use a variety of methods to transmit that info for billing.

Years before I moved here to Salina, the city replaced their water meters with a system from Siemens. AFAIK, the new meters are a one-way system that eliminated the employees who went around town taking meter readings. I will ask a close friend (who was a supervisor during the retrofit) to see how the meters are "polled" for billings. I'm 99.9% certain the Siemens meters do not control the main water valves at each house since that would have also required each meter to be provided with AC mains power.

Similar with the "smart" natural gas meters. Without mains power, no way to remotely control a cut-off valve for lack of payment.

Now electric meters....a different story! I suspect the new meters (like on my house...and I did NOT request it) could have a large relay inside the housing to disconnect if the bill isn't paid.

It's kinda creepy....each week I get an email from Evergy (the regional mains utility) telling me I used more/less power than the previous week....complete with a bar graph. I never requested that from them....shrug.

The main deal with smart meters is that the utilities fired the meter readers folks.

Bri

 

[Brian Roth]

Further musings/memories.....

A dozen (?) years ago when I was still in OKC, I had a "hanger" tag on my front door knob announcing that ONG (regional natural gas utility) would be on my street replacing my gas meter in the back yard on such and such date. I stayed home that day because the "hanger" told me they would not restore my natural gas service until a tech came into my house to check for leaks and re-light any pilot lights in any appliances. Only pilot light was on my water heater; my furnace had an oddball "glow plug" to ignite the gas when heat was required as did my clothes dryer. Anyway, the tech was quite polite and professional, so no complaint. I recall the new gas meter had a digital readout vs the series of needles visible through the glass viewport.

I ASSume the new ONG gas meter in OKC, and the Siemens water meters here, must have some long-life internal battery so they can be "polled" to report my usages. Like I mentioned...I'll ask my buddy who was involved with the Siemens water meter retrofit project.

My current gas meter is still Olde School....five or six "needles" rotating in opposite directions behind the glass.

Finally...my current (no pun intended) electric meter. Approx. 5 or six years ago, I happened to be home when I had a knock on the front door. A contractor employee told me they were replacing my electric meter. Glad I was home so I could turn of my air conditioner and fridge so they could have a decent time to cycle on/off and not blow up the compressors!

Bri

PS ....my A/C unit is old, so that compressor is a vintage LA-2!

 

[cyrano]

I guess Tubetec's smart meter went into "safety mode", when it detected 1000V DC from the Metrel?

I don't know what brand and type he has, of course, but the few I've seen are pretty well protected. The companies who build these, have put a lot of effort into making them scam-proof ;-)

I remember one of the previous generations having a serious weakness: a strong magnet placed on the outside, was enough to stop it registering any data, which could be easily seen on the display.

 

[scott2000]

So I've been looking at my usage very recently since we have the smart meters installed that allow looking at hourly usage . When I had tried in the past, it would give an error. Calling the power company revealed that I was supposed to ask them to register even though it is supposed to happen automatically. Maybe because we were already in with the old meters, idk...

What is confusing is that, when testing the overnight hours

setting the upstairs ac unit to 82*, turning off the pond pump and lights, bird bath, all the landscape lighting outside (maybe 200w in led bulbs), 3 ceiling fans, powering down my computers , desk fan and everything made zero difference, sometimes making it worse than the same time frames when
these things were usually on all the time and the lighting outside was dusk to dawn so the same, and the ac upstairs was set to 78*...and my son was staying upstairs with his computer stuff on before..

But should there be some benefit to shutting down things even if a small one?? Or am I not understanding how this works?

Weather has no correlation apparently. Actually makes it more confusing if not backwards.

What kind of test could I do to start figuring out why I'm not seeing any change at all? There appears to be a pattern for these overnight time frames and it doesn't vary much. I know sometimes power companies can use averages but it's the actual meter readings. I don't think the meter just spits out whatever it thinks it should be. At least I hope not.
Definitely don't feel warm and fuzzy when it's impossible to read the meter at times. Display is going funky so I need to get them out here to address that but, display shouldn't have anything to do with anything.

I mean, i get up, turn on the office stuff, fans, make coffee, it's getting warmer outside, and I use the same if not less electricity as in the middle of the morning apparently...
Frustrating. I need to figure it out....

 

[sodderboy]

maybe there is a lag in the data collection/logging? I just think of the waste of bandwidth with every e-meter sending real-time data to the utility for customer access. We had no choice in the matter, they came during the day and put it in. I am always at or below the efficient house usage so that is a good feedback aspect of the meter.
I like the concept of the circuit monitor products that are out there, but hate the central station monitoring aspect.
We have a dB˘ tennant that I might have to monitor. My wife caught the guy with the electric range on full bore, oven and four burners, because a 78 deg 'stat temp was too cold. I can do that with a much simpler data logger that I dont need to check from my phone.
Mike
˘ dooshBag- long-time, deep-secret tech code for referring to jerk clients when in the room with them.

 

[scott2000]

maybe there is a lag in the data collection/logging?

Idk....I've been running around like a pshyco checking and logging the meter itself and it appears to reflect the data they provide (which isn't real time, can sometimes take days to get it from the site) sometimes daily

Something I need to ask about. Would be nice to have real time or hourly but whatever....

 

[JohnRoberts]

Track your progress​ ​ This bill, you used 3% less electricity than last year.​ 880 kWh 660 440 220 0 ____​ ____​ May​ 19​ ____​ ____​ Jun​ 20​ ____​ ____​ Jul​ 20​ ____​ ____​ Aug​ 21​ ____​ ____​ ____​ ____​ 2022 2023 SEE MORE ENERGY TRENDS​

​

coincidentally my utility just send me a reminder saying that I used less electricity than this period last year. I find this a little surprising since we had a couple weeks with multiple 100'+ days , several 104/105' days.... Looking at an annual plot of energy usage reveals that winter heat uses more energy than summer cooling.

JR

 

[scott2000]

coincidentally my utility just send me a reminder saying that I used less electricity than this period last year. I find this a little surprising since we had a couple weeks with multiple 100'+ days , several 104/105' days.... Looking at an annual plot of energy usage reveals that winter heat uses more energy than summer cooling.

JR

We're up in usage atm but it is hard to understand the weather correlation when it's backwards some periods. Like less/half usage with 100* time frame than an 87* one. Bills are up quite a bit regardless because of the fuel charge. Was under 3 cents per kwh in 2019 now it's close to 6 cents. But it is down from over 7cents earlier. It adds up fast.
I'm not convinced the power company doesn't play more of a role in this than what's happening in the world but idk... fuel charges were over 4c/kwh back in 2012..

Then the State and County tax the total too and it's not clear where changes have been made there over the years....

It'll be nice to figure out what's going on. Just figured taking the early morning hours with some changes would be easier to take the weather out of the equation as much and see if anything looks goofy.

 

[Tubetec]

As far as i know here the smart electricity meters have a mobile modem built in , hooks in via the mobile phone network , I did check after they installed the meter with a search coil and I could detect a periodic pulse from the unit every handful of seconds , fairly similar in form to what you get if a mobile phone is close to audio equipment , a data packet is sent off over the airwaves .

 

[scott2000]

So who can tell me more about CVR? The power company intentionally throttling down voltage to save power. Or lower voltage in general from the feed?

I read that SMPS type supplies can consume more power if incoming voltages fluctuate as they try to adjust?
What about fridge motors...etc? How does this affect their usage?

from wiki

"Current rise is detrimental to motors, since they run hotter. Also, to accomplish the same work the motors have to run longer, for example, if a refrigerator is running at 35% duty cycle at nominal voltage, at lower voltage its duty cycle may increase to 40%. Running hotter and running longer shortens the service longevity of motors."

 

[JohnRoberts]

So who can tell me more about CVR? The power company intentionally throttling down voltage to save power. Or lower voltage in general from the feed?

I don't know but I have a search capability on my computer...

"Conservation Voltage Reduction" has been around for decades while I vaguely recall significant voltage dips being called "brown outs" because they were not black outs.

I read that SMPS type supplies can consume more power if incoming voltages fluctuate as they try to adjust?
What about fridge motors...etc? How does this affect their usage?

It is generally not good to operate appliances outside specified voltages (high or low). I think the utilities are supposed to deliver 114V-126V. Most modern appliances will not notice but when the power company is having a tough time meeting demand scrubbing a few percent off the mains voltage helps them squeak by. I have heard about utilities having to buy appliances for customers if they get damaged by the mains voltage delivered (typically too high voltage, but I guess too low is not good either).

JR

from wiki

"Current rise is detrimental to motors, since they run hotter. Also, to accomplish the same work the motors have to run longer, for example, if a refrigerator is running at 35% duty cycle at nominal voltage, at lower voltage its duty cycle may increase to 40%. Running hotter and running longer shortens the service longevity of motors."

 

[scott2000]

Most modern appliances will not notice but when the power company is having a tough time meeting demand scrubbing a few percent off the mains voltage helps them squeak by

Yes. If motors have to work longer or harder because of this, would it mean that their power consumption goes up? Would seem like a weird feedback but just curious.

Our feed fluctuates from 115/116 during the hot part of day to 121 overnight... transformer in front of the house hums pretty good. Wonder if it's working too hard and not an intentional throttle down. But it's a pretty consistent time frame when the power goes down afaict....

 

[JohnRoberts]

The distribution wires have resistance so during peak current draw the voltage sags. At the end of the day as current draw falls off, the voltage rises. I've shared this anecdote before but years ago I experienced a too high voltage situation. One evening after coming home from work, I noticed that my light bulbs were unusually bright. I pulled out my VOM and measured 135 VAC in an outlet. I went to my fuse box and checked across the entire drop and measured 270VAC

I called the local utility and the guy who answered the phone said I must be mistaken, but it was a slow night so he drove his big utility truck out to my house to measure my drop with his VOM. He confirmed the over voltage and said he'd be right back as he drove away. He went up to the substation a few miles away where there was a step up transformer (auto-former?) to bump up the voltage during heavy daytime loads.

Apparently it was stuck boosting voltage. He got it unstuck and my lights returned to normal brightness.

JR