How do Smart Electricity Meters work.

"Mauried"



** A whole bunch of different techniques are used:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_meter_reading


Using the power lines is one, but not the favourite.




........  Phil

Depends on your electricity supplier. Currently Energy Australia read
domestic smart meters by sending out a meter reader to read them. They
connect a PDA device to the meter by the ANSI standard optical port, and
download the energy used per 30 minute period. This is transfered back
to the billing computer, where you maximum demand charges, and time of
day charges are calculated.

Under the current installation rules, provision must be made to provide
space for future automatic meter reading equipment where there are three
or more Customer installations per site.


You can read all about them, and see pictures of various types here:

http://www.energyaustralia.com.au/internet/pdfs/ES3%20CIA1321.pdf

David

Excellent :)



One part i found interesting was on page 82 regarding the "Zellweger
load control relays" that had internally
"a glass tube containing a radioactive substance".

Can anyone explain why a radioactive substance was needed in such a
device ??

"kreed"




 **  Maybe you can ask Renee ?




......  Phil

The relay contained radium-226 or tritium. I believe it was used to make
a glow tube to indicate the relay was on. The relays in question where
manufactured between 1955 and 1968.

David

I think the term is AMR - Automatic Meter Reading.

Currently there is a Victorian Govenment  tender out for AMR.

Joe

On Wed, 8 Aug 2007 23:07:56 +1000, "Joe G \(Home\)"


Thanks for the info all, I really wanted to find out how the Smart
Meters change their tariff based on power demand.
There is currently a trial in SA of smart meters which allows
customers to opt in to an arrangement where in times of hi power
demand the meter changes the electricity tariff so electricity costs
more,and in times of low demand the tariff goes down.
This would require some kind of communication in real time from the
electricity supplier to the meter, ie the reverse direction to whats
normal to read the meter.
The customer has a display inside the house which shows the current
cost of electricity,so they can moderate their consumption when the
load is high.

This charging model isn't new, Even in the 1990's they had meters in
common use in QLD business premises that could switch between 2
separate tariffs based on time of day.  The control tones used for off-
peak hot water switching could be used to switch over the metering to
the appropriate tariff.  The meter contained 2 mechanical dials and
the drive mechanism was switched between one and the other depending
on the control tones that came from the energy authority.

There were very generous discounts for running certain (usually hard-
wired) appliances at certain agreed times of day compared to running
at peak times.  Mostly electrically powered heating / cooking
appliances, hot water boilers, electroplating industry etc were the
target market, it was widely promoted and they would do free energy
usage analysis for any business that wanted it.

There was no external in-house indicator though,  but I think from
memory there was a LED in the meter that flashed when a certain tariff
was in use.

I like the idea of an in-house display though, showing usage across
the household, possibly even broken down into power, light, air con,
hot water etc, and think it would be a good SC project, however
probably not practical for the average SC reader due to the need to
access the fusebox in the house to do the measurements, which would
need a licensed electrician.

Yes , fully understand , the current scheme however seems to be more
based on changing tariffs based on total power demand rather than at
certain times of the day.
For example, if Adelaide had a very hot day and many air conditioners
were switched on the electricity supplier could to a degree mitigate
the demand by ramping up the electricity tariff just for that day.
The offset to get customers to agree to this idea is to charge them
far less at times of low demand , like 4AM in the morning, when you
could ramp the tariff down to almost zero.

They are starting to use smart-meters in my area. In some areas they are
using a twisted pair network line that is provided by the telephone company.
In some other areas the power company has data on power line systems being
put in to place.

I have seen these smart-meters in action. The power company can monitor the
power consumption in real time. From any PC with the software and access
codes, it is possible to see on line all the power consumption data. The
power company workers can also see this using portable receivers that work
through the cellier phone network.

The power company has also mentioned that they will soon be able to provide
internet services over power wires. Data over power lines is a very
sophisticated system when thinking about what is involved.

  not going to happen in our lifetimes

Data over power lines is a very

  no it's not complicated at all , doing it cleanly is near impossible

  ???  Its already being tested in some markets, and has a nasty side
effect of wiping out a lot of RF services with its interference.

<http://www.google.com/search?q=broadband+over+power+lines&rls=com.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7&rlz=1I7GWYA


Results 1 - 10 of about 10,500,000 for broadband over power lines. (0.18
seconds)

That's why he said "cleanly" - i.e. without wiping out RF services.
You failure to read carefully is why Phil dumped on you.

   Cleanly depends on who you ask.