Never happens, unless there is a power cut, 300W here.
That's more like it during the day.
I have a Currentcost one and it's pretty damn close. You do have make sure the meter tail passes through the clip on current transformer "nicely" though.
I can only get it below 200 if I turn off my server, but in practice that's on 24x7 (it runs several virtual machines, so it sings for its supper).
If it's red it means the oven, microwave, kettle, toaster or washer/dryer is on ...
most of the time it's on amber, I wish you could change the preset limits, I'd change the green to be 750W
When we lived in the US, the meter for the house air conditioning was the same basic device as the main meter, a great big dumb Westinghouse lump, but there was also a box before the a/c unit that could receive a radio signal to shut it off in periods of very high hot-weather power use. Accepting this possibility gave a lower tariff. As far as we know, the option was never exercised, in the 10 years we lived there.
My owl one indicates about 120w[*] for my microwave when not in use. A plug in one indicates 8w. The ones with just a current transformer take no account of power factor.
It's not a smart meter, in that case. The problem is that the media have cottoned to the phrase and abused it to cover all sorts of things.
MBQ
Depends on your supplier. Round here United Utilities fit indoor meeters with some sort of built in transponder so they can be read remotely from a pasing van. We've had ours in for a couple of years now and have never seen a meter reader but the readings on the bills have been spot on.
Reading that document, I'm left with the impression that the smart meter installation will be more driven (maybe owned/paid for?) by the electricity supplier rather than as the meters are currently, owned by the distribution infrastructure.
Bob
Is it so hard to envisage a 2-tier feed ? Maybe to new builds ? An interruptible circuit and non-interruptible circuit. With NI being charged at a higher rate than the other ?
Bottom line is it'll be the only way to keep the lights on.
Easier to put a GPRS or 3G data card with a SIM in, then just dial in to read it.
It can be done per appliance, e.g., smart fridge/freezers that can be turned off remotely for short periods.
MBQ
Ah, but you don't get to charge more then ;)
I presume most uk.d-i-y-ers have made arrangements for more frequent power cuts ?
Which reminds me, I must start a thread about generators.
Unless you're not in at the time on holiday for instance. They still charge less the more yuo use so I doubt they'll be these high ta rrifs you suspect. If tehy did such tarrifs they'd have to give yuo notice in advaince not just decide on the day. They;'ll also have to have a systemn in place which decideds exactly when y ou use too much electricity and I'm not sure how that would work.
I appreciate that but here the amount of energy consumed as recorded by the Currentcost logging and that that I get billed for via meter readings is very close the times I have checked it. IIRC it was around +/-
0.5kWhr/day.
That's beacuse the meter is currently the responsibilty of the supplier not the REC...
There was (is?) somewhere on the Electricity North West web site a nice graphic showing who has responsibilty for what. Fairly sure the REC's responsibilty is the the incomer and cutout. The supplier cutout to meter and meter, the property owner meter to CU and the rest. It seems a bit odd to me that the apparent transition from supplier to owner is at the meter under the sealed cover. How can the owner maintain their plant without breaking the seal...
In which case you won't be using much power so not particularly relevant .
Why? They can vary the T&C's of supply to suit what they need to do. You accept those T&C's or not. If not you have to find another suppler.
Smart meters aren't about the customer but about the grid, load shedding and/or load balancing. If they can "encourage" people to use less power
at times of high demand by increasing the tariff at those times they don't need to have capacity sitting idle for a lot of the year just to meet the relatively short peaks in demand on cold winter late afternoons . Similarly if they can encourage people to use power at times of low demand they don't have to run plant partially shut down which is inefficient. Think along the lines of a dynamic E7 system.
TBH I think they are being a bit hopeful that people will voluntarily delay cooking their evening meal by 3 hours or sit in the dark, just because power is a bit pricey. Not unless they really shoved the tariff
up.
But if it's anything like a typical mobile phone it would need a power supply to keep it charged up, retrofitting something like this under the sink in many houses could be a far from trivial task. My water meter is powered from an internal lithium battery which I understand is supposed to last for several years. I'm assuming that the metering mechanism is purely mechanical and the electronics is normally in a very low power standby mode until it gets woken up by a strong signal from the passing meter reading van.
OK - I based my comment on my local REC changing my meter a few years back when I purchased my power from a different company at the time.
I wonder when I get a smart meter if the holder of my FIT contract will be authorised to "ring up my meter" for the export figures. Currently this is just estimated at 50% of my generation figure My import provider is different from my export payment provider.
I suppose it might end up that my generation payment could still come from my FIT provider and the import/export be dealt with by the a single, different body.
Bob
Does your existing contract allow for that? If not, it might be awkward for the government to impose such a condition on you, retrospectively. But I would have expected the weasels who wrote the contracts to have an "anything else ..." clause in there.
The brochures on the smartmeters say they have inbuilt holiday calendars so they won't disconnect people at "anti-social" dates or times such as overnight.
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