Many of you will soon be in the same boat. Our utility has informed us that we and the whole town will get the dreaded smartmeters. Whether we want that or not. Obviously they have serious issues and as usual the utility is stone-walling:
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Having seen all the grief caused by, ahem, sub-optimal electronics design in cars I am not all that surprised. Does anyone know where to find some serious data on this problem? Or maybe even schematics & board layouts of those things?
BTW, we used to have a meter with LCD readout and all until years ago. It eventually failed, maybe because it gets hit by the full morning sun. The utility replaced it with, tada, a classic mechanical meter. Probably because those simply work ...
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Relax, Joerg, Your cost of electricity WILL go up, WITHOUT a rate increase.
You can't fight it, just bend over and brace yourself, and hope that will make it less painful :-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
But I don't want it to explode by 1000% just because some design engineer screwed up. Well, I guess if it does it'll be time to get enough others together and call Erin Brokovich :-)
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Regards, Joerg
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Find out which makes and models they're using and post that info here and maybe on alt.engineering.electrical (and maybe misc.industry.utilities.electric if that group hasn't died of neglect yet).
You might have a hybrid meter there. That would be a classic electromechanical device with dial readouts and all, but also a pulse counter/processor/communications module. This counts and stores the metering disk revolutions and periodically is interrogated by a wireless network*. I've got one (and a similar gas meter). If the remote reading stuff goes TU, they can send a meter reader out to check the mechanical dials.
*In some cases (rural areas), the utility doesn't bother with installing a wireless network. They just send someone out with a van equipped with the r.f. reading equipment once a month. It pulls the data as it drives by, saving the meter reader from having to get out of the vehicle and get chased by dogs.
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Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
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Dyslexics have more fnu.
I don't know if you are aware, but she's still around...
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I had a loony guy come around a few years ago with a truly screwy patent, claiming infringement, and asking my assistance... on contingency no less. I declined. A year or so later, a law firm called me, said Erin was involved, and did I want to join in... I declined again.
I've heard nothing more... maybe it was about smart meters :-) ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
That's the way our water meters are read. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
I'll have to wait until they reach our house. Others have them already and they look similar to this one:
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If it has a pulse counter then that may be what they screwed up. But let's see when we get it.
That sounds similar to how our first meter was but someone had to come pretty close with a reading wand. Clear plastic cover so you could peek in. When I saw an LCD and electrolytic caps in there I wondered how that would survive in the glistening morning sun out here. Long story short, it didn't survive ...
The water meter is now equipped with a mushroom RF thingie and can be reading from the street. But that's below a concrete cover so not being pelted with sunlight.
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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It's kinda surprising that, as a public utility company, they don't take a more customer-friendly approach along the lines of, "we're going to install the new Smart Meter side-by-side with the old mechanical analog ones in 1,000 volunteer test homes to demonstrate they're accurate," and put all the data on-line, log all the problems that are reported (and their resolutions), etc. -- seems like they'd get a lot more public support that way...
This way it is just sounds like, "we're doing what we want to, and you're all pretty much just wrong to question the accuracy, so just leave us alone and keep paying those bills we send you!"
We're electronics engineers. Sure we can come up with a scheme to get electricity for free...
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Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------
I would expect data storage in NVRAM... don't you think? Otherwise the exposure to suits from angry customers would be overwhelming. ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
I can make out "Landis + Gyr" but no model numbers. A search of "SmartMeter" on their site only returns articles containing the generic phrase rather than a particular product line. I'd guess that "SmartMeter" is probably a PG&E "brand".
The unit appears to be a fully electronic unit (no induction disk pickup). These measure the I and V and calculate the power numerically. Fancy things can be done with such meters, such as sampling fast enough to measure and characterize motor starting. Which can allow them to detect the number of times your fridge or a/c unit come on each day.
But if the processor goes brain dead, there goes the accumulated energy data.
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Paul Hovnanian mailto:Paul@Hovnanian.com
------------------------------------------------------------------
There are only 10 kinds of people in this world,
those who understand binary and those who don't.
It looks like the exposure is already sort of there. Even the state government got involved now and there was lots of egg in the faces on the news yesterday night.
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Why would they have to do that? :> They've "proven" to the regulatory agencies that their meters "accurately" measure the product that they "sell" -- electricity. They are under no obligation to prove it to *you* (especially when doing so will be costly).
Adding a second meter (series) to an existing home/business is a costly expense. OTOH, popping out the old meter and replacing it with a new "drop in replacement" is a 1 minute service interruption.
First, figure out who *owns* the meter (customer or utility). That will go a long way in terms of telling you what you can *remotely* expect your "rights" to be. :>
(e.g., the water department, natural gas, etc. all routinely replace meters without having to do a publicity campaign ahead of time).
Most of the designs I have seen for ToU meters are considerably more accurate than the mechanical beasts -- "on the bench". Time will tell how they fare in the long haul (meters are designed with a lifetime of 30+ years and DM+DL of ~$25).
Some are little more than optointerrupters watching the disk spin. Others actually look at the line and integrate V*I (as well as recording peak e.g., for commercial users)
I was looking forward to going on the ToU tariff, here, when it was announced (optional) as much of our electricity consumption is "off peak" (working overnight). But, they built the tariff in such a lopsided way that damn near
*no one* can save money on it. So, what's the incentive to shift load? Wait for utility to need to build another power plant or more transmission lines *then* they'll have an incentive!
As to Joerg's original question: you might poke around the EPRI web site (no idea if it is open to the public, though).
That remains to be seen and could become part of a state government investigation. Or hopefully will.
In Bakersfield that obligation will now be determined by a court of law. Could get ugly.
That is why I am against monopolies. They tend to lead to this sort of problem.
Because theirs work, there's FOIA, and there's voting.
"On the bench" nearly everything works. This is a chunk of my bread and butter job, designs that worked nicely in the lab and then once in the field things hit the fan.
Same here :-(
I had tried that. Their search engine doesn't work well. If you key in smartmeter or "smart meter" there's a bazillion hits containing lots of document unrelated to the topic. Why can't IT folks learn from Digikey how to do it right? Although they did seem to have screwed up the order entry lately.
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Regards, Joerg
http://www.analogconsultants.com/
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Use another domain or send PM.
Usually, they are more interested in you letting them *control* some of those loads (most significantly, the ACbrrr -- unless you are one of those unfortunate few with a 100% electric house in which case they also want the switch on your heat-pump or radiant heat).
The advantage of electronic meters is primarily that of moving to ToU tariffs and getting consumers to shift their loads. Meter reading is a *minor* benefit (costs ~50c to read a meter "manually"). For years, the electric utilities were hoping to get a special tariff from Ma Bell so they could add instrumentation to the meter (and not have to store stuff in it, etc.) but Ma Bell never wanted to give them a free ride. Previous technologies to get at the end user were expensive (e.g., PLC works but *only* to the next high tension Xformer which then has to be bridged, etc.).
Now, communications are cheap *and* you can store a lot *in* the meter *and* you don't need to use a lot of power doing so. This makes it considerably easier to come up with meters with *long* service lifes and low costs.
No, they pull the meter, recover what's "lost" inside and bill you as if nothing extraordinary had happened. But, it is expensive to do this as you have to send someone *to* the user (can't just tell the user, "When the guy from UPS shows up with a package from us, take the replacement meter out of the box, swap it for the one that is currently plugged into your house and return the old one to us in the box that the nice UPS man is holding...")
Don't you miss real roll-in-the-aisle humor like that?
Her portrayal of a telephone operator is hilarious :-)
All we get now-a-days are fairies denigrating smart women... if you get my gist :-( ...Jim Thompson
--
| James E.Thompson, CTO | mens |
| Analog Innovations, Inc. | et |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems | manus |
| Phoenix, Arizona 85048 Skype: Contacts Only | |
| Voice:(480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |
The only thing bipartisan in this country is hypocrisy
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