How do Smart Electricity Meters work.

"Mauried"

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:

David

I think the term is AMR - Automatic Meter Reading.

Currently there is a Victorian Govenment tender out for AMR.

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.

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"

...... 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

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.

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.