smart meter opened up..
Hide quoted text -
Connecting both ends of the transformer together certainly is, as even you've pointed out!
I thought the issue was to limit power to deadbeats. If they go over the life-sustaining essentials, kill it.
Turn it off? Are you thinking (or drinking) tonight?
"
amp smart meter opened up..
e..- Hide quoted text -
And I thought the issue was that it was alleged that smart meters can shed load temporarily if the utility needs to do so during a peak emergency. From earlier in the thread where discussion about this feature started:
"to answer the original question,"smart meters" are electric meters for homes that monitor your power usage continuously and keep record of how much power is used at what times of the day and night,periodically read remotely by the power company.
they may also have the capability to remotely CONTROL(shut off) some of your home's appliances to aid the power company in load managment.
You may not like the power company turning off your AC,water heater,or washer-dryer at peak demand times. "
Connecting both house hots lines to one incoming would achieve that by cutting off power to the 240V appliances, ie the ones that use the most power, but are less critical than the lights. We agree that while this would achieve the above objective, it has serious issues that make it unfeasible.
Around here, NJ, if you don't pay your bill, they don't disable your 240V stuff. They just turn off the electricity period.
Just following the thread in context.
Can't remember if it in the link or a news article, but Honeywell is supposed to have thermostats and "relay modules" that can be actuated by smart meters. Time-of-day pricing can be a major incentive to do load shedding (as it is with "demand" metering). For years there has been a program here (and I presume a lot of places) where the utility can trigger (I assume RF) a 'module' that shuts down A/C compressors for a short time. In exchange, fixed electric rates are significantly lower.
Maybe we will wind up with refrigerators talking to electric meters to order milk when we are getting low. And maybe the electric meters will run on Windows 13.
Everything on single-phasing is based on slightly more than nothing in a meter description that does not explain how the feature (if it actually exists) would be used. IMHO multiwire neutrals are a bigger problem than service neutrals. But it is all complete speculation with no reason to believe anyone has even vague thoughts of shedding by single-phasing.
Our electric utility, Dominion, in east central Virginia offered us a "discount" if we permitted them to insert a relay (controlled by their "box") in the heat pump compression "demand call" circuit.
I don't remember the exact number but the "savings" to us were trivial (certainly less than $10/month). I figure extra and un-necessary switching of the compressor will add a lot more than $120/year in wear & tear. (If you don't believe me, call up you HVAC guy and ask how much it would cost to replace the compressor.)
Before we owned this property, the utility had some "modules" that could turn off the water heater when commanded. It had all been disconnected when we got the place. I salvaged some really rugged plastic boxes (about half the size of shoe boxes) which, I suppose, I will find a use for some day.
Water heater control is really, really silly. There just isn't any guarantee that switching off a particular WH will save any power.
It would be interesting to find out just how much "spinning reserve" actually costs the utility.
Sometimes significant load shedding is called for. When it is, $.05 & $.10 stuff like turning off the heat pump compressors for 10 minutes out of any hour will not do the job. The only answer is to "pull the plug" on entire towns or major portions of big cities. When that happens the "people" are put on notice that the next time the power company wants to build a new plant or install a new transmission line to not play NIMBY.
Let me jump in here.
Odds are that most shared neutral circuits found in the kitchen typically only have one significant load running at any particular time. The big loads are stand alone microwave, toasters, and "toaster ovens." Everything else is down in the noise.
Maybe so; maybe no.
We don't have any shared neutral circuits in the first place.
Even if we had completely current wiring, the microwave would have its own circuit.
It would take me the better part of an hour even to FIND the hot plates (we use them occasionally to keep food hot on the table.)
If we are talking about your "typical" consumer, it would take him the better part of an hour to convince himself the stove isn't working. (The light and "electronics" run on 120 volts.)
Oh, it's completely impractical. It would take a VERY good sized "contacter" to switch over a 100 or 200 amp service.
>
How much it costs to replace a compressor isn't the issue. How much more cycling do you really think a utility is going to do with an AC? I have the RF system on my AC and the electric company activates it in emergency situations maybe 3 times a year. Even if they activate it
30 times a year, compare that to how many times the AC or heat pump cycles already on it's own and it's negligible in adversely affecting the system life.The purpose isn't to save power. It's to reduce peak demand during critical times. A water heater is probably the BEST example of where that makes sense. Like the last few days when AC usage has pushed demand to peaks. Turning off the water heaters from say 2PM to 6PM could save the utility and all it's customers from having to pay primo prices for extra power. Or it could avoid having brownouts or complete power loss.
According to you. Power companies, who should actually know, have a very different opinion.
Whether any house in particular has or doesn't have a shared neutral circuit isn't the issue. The issue is that they exist and are code compliant. It was suggested that smart meters shed
240V loads when needed by temporarily connecting both house hots to one incoming hot. If they did that, any house with an edison circuit would have the potential to overload the shared neutral inside the house by 2X. And there is no easy way to know how any house is or isn't wired.It's already been demonstrated that smart meters do exist that can turn the power on and off. Folks have posted the datasheet.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.