Your Opinions On "Smart Meters"

in terms of energy savings, privacy, fire risk, and, most importantly, health ramifications. Thank You.

Reply to
Way Back Jack
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The only purpose of smart meters for residential customers is to reduce the meter-reading costs of electric utilities.

The exhorbitant up-front cost of the meters themselves, the communications network and billing software will be paid for by customers in the form of additional surcharges.

All other aspects of smart meters represents a false economy, because residential customers don't use enough electricity (individually) to warrant the use of time-of-day billing, as opposed to large commercial, retail or industrial customers.

Residential customers don't consume enough electricity on an individual level such that any decision they make in changing (or time-shifting) their electricity usage will only affect their monthly bill by pennies or at most a few dollars. That level of expenditure is on par with other forms of discretionary spending (daily coffee, snack, etc) and people will not sacrifice their home comfort (using their air-conditioner less) if the savings are on par with pocket-change-per-day.

As for heath and safety issues related to smart meters - totally bullshit.

Your own cell phone, cordless phone, iSlave device (pad/phone/pod/tablet), laptop or home wifi network will easily emit far more EM radiation (and will also be closer to you) than your outside-mounted smart meter.

You should focus your efforts on the measurement accuracy of these meters, and the rights (or lack thereof) that consumers have to dispute bills generated by these meters.

Reply to
Home Guy

They may not warrant doing it, but utilities are doing it and offering different rates at different times of the day to residential customers. That is nothing new. Here in NJ the utility was doing that 50 years ago. The offered a substantially lower rate at night for water heaters.

And how would you know what rates all the utilities in the country are charging?

Maybe they won't, but then those that are using electricity at peak rates, will be paying for it. And those that can and will switch some of their demand to other hours will pay less.

Now that I agreee with.

Reply to
trader4

It is my understanding that there were a substantial number of 'accuracy' complaints in California.

Reply to
Robert Macy

After we switched from normal meter to Time of Day meter where the rate OFF peak hours was half the cost of ON peak hours, our monthly electric bill dropped $60. To me, that was NOT false economy.

I have NO idea where all the power went either. We live frugally, one fridge, [gas heating & hot water], no freezer, electric dryer [rarely used]. only lights and TV and a few computers. Can't believe the cooking was THAT expensive. But perhaps it was, because we did tend to cook more outside peak hours after switching.

Reply to
Robert Macy

I'm not saying anything to the contrary of what you just said.

Yes, it's not warranted, yes they are doing it (anyways) and yes - they are charging different rates at different times of the day (if they didn't, they wouldn't have any basis or reason for implimenting smart meters now would they?).

Smart meters are new (in terms of the historical time-line of equipment and schemes used to measure residential electricity use which goes back decades).

I wasn't aware that NJ had time-of-use billing for residential customers

50 years ago.

Those meters must have had mechanical clocks back then (any time-of-use metering system needs to know the current time-of-day, and even date if week-end rates are in effect). How accurate were those clocks 50 years ago?

I would venture a guess that the difference in rates is minimal - in terms of the percentage of load that consumers can realistically be expected to time-shift.

The biggest factor that is under EASY control of home owners is always going to be their air conditioning temperature setting, and that is also going to be the last usage they are willing to sacrifice because it involves their own comfort level (how hot and sticky are you willing to be in your own home - if it means you'll save a measely $1 or $2 today, and again tommorrow, and again the next day, etc).

Every day, that $1 or $2 bargain they make with themselves is worth it. The fact that it might (or will) end up being $30 at the end of the month is irrelavent. That's if they even know that setting the temp. to

77f vs 74f is going to cost them an extra $1.24 today.

Just like everyone is still paying $4 a gallon for gas. People are not going to cheap-out on their thermostat setting and feel like shit in their own house to save a measely buck a day.

And the crock of the whole situation is that the meters cost anywhere from $500 to $1500 each, and over the lifespan of the meter it will probably not result in home-owner cutback in electricity usage to justify the cost of the meter in the first place.

Reply to
Home Guy

Have you had it long enough for the meter to bill your air-conditioner use yet?

I understand it can get hot in Arizona in the summer...

People with young families are (I'm told) constantly using their washer/dryer.

Having an electric (vs gas) dryer can be a real drag given the price difference for electricity vs nat-gas.

Reply to
Home Guy

I'd start here or a place similar

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you want more detail, it is a matter of public record and easily found.

Reply to
Ed Pawlowski

Do the math... some customers can get a smart thermostat that evidently works with the smart meter and bumps the temp setting up a few degrees. Future smart appliances coming, maybe the fridge will shut down and the door locks during peak hours. Who knows?

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Me? I put duct tape around the outer 18 inches of the screen on my big screen TV. The smaller picture size ought to save a bunch.

Reply to
Mr. Austerity

Overall, just nonsense.

If there weren't a payback, they certainly wouldn't be doing it just for the funsies of having something to do.

Shifting usage of a _single_ residence slightly from peak to off-peak hours won't make an impact, sure, but when 10s or 100s of thousands do a little it can (and will) add up to a lot. That will translate back into not having to expand/upgrade transmission lines, substations, etc., etc., etc., and perhaps even over time at least delaying addition of generation.

All that will add up to significant savings that eventually will impact the consumer by at least limiting rate increases over what they would otherwise be (and unless there's a change in administration and rollback of recent EPA directives "you ain't see'ed nuttin' yet" on what's going to happen to rates.

If the current CSAPR rule that were to go into effect Jan 1 but was stayed by a Federal Court at the last minute (almost literally) in December ends up being implemented, there _will_ be rolling blackouts as there simply won't be enough generation to satisfy demand and your hypothetical folks will be turning the thermostat A/C off (not by choice) intermittently, not up.

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Reply to
dpb

I've been doing that for years but I've used this tape instead. I think it works better.

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Reply to
Gordon Shumway

Smart meters is a term that covers a multitude of sins. At the moment they are being portayed as fairly innocuous and helpful.

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However, this is a thin edge of the wedge scenario. In the future,they will be able to cut you off and increase charges remotely. They will be used for "load shedding" ie if ther eis a power shortage, they can cut selective people off. They are the precursor to the the "Smart Grid"
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Reply to
harryagain

I disagree. The camel's nose is in the tent. The door is open to charging you MORE for electricity. We won't be paying LESS for off-peak usage. We'll be paying MORE for peak usage.

Every month, my utility sends me an invitation to sign up for time-of-use metering. There's a surcharge for the privilege. If I switched ALL my use to the minimum-rate hours, I still wouldn't break even. It's gonna get worse.

Yep. There can be benefits as the smart grid evolves. Everything I've read suggests that the current crop of meters can't support what's needed. So, we'll be paying for yet another upgrade in the future.

Reply to
mike

$1 a day invested for 5 years at 7% compounded interest is $2 148.

$1 a day invested for 25 years a 7% compounded interest is $23 624.

Hopefully somebody will doublecheck my math.

Invest that dollar a day in a tax shelter of course to maximize returns.

Some people don't care about $365 a year in simple savings and others do. Some people try to sacrifice and decide it's not worth it and others stick with it.

Your point about the air conditioning is what we do at home. We like our house cool at night and are willing to pay for it.

Reply to
Duesenberg

I have a 5 month old baby at home and we have an Energy star 4 cubic foot front load washing machine.

I was stunned at how little electricity the machine used. And we use cold water strictly.

Average load takes 58 to 104 minutes. Average electrical use as measured by a Kill-a-watt device was .16 kwhr to .19kwhr. Average electrical cost (before all hidden fees) was 1.7 cents a load peak time and 1.1 cents per cheapest time.

We have a gas dryer that averages about 40 minutes per 4 cubic foot load of laundry. That thing uses between .21 kwhr and .4 kwhr per load DEPENDING on the type of laundry. Work jeans requiring more drying, fleece requiring less. We leave it to the sensors.

I get drying loads between 1.4 cents to 5 cents of electrical use (dunno about gas use but I can measure in summer when furnace and water heater off) a load measured by the kill-a-watt. Remember it's a gas dryer.

I'm thinking since I'm the stay at home parent, of disregarding the time of use for laundry because of the seemingly low cost and very marginal savings of waiting till 7 at night for cheap rates.

I'm still going to measure electrical use of those appliances to make sure those numbers are legit.

Reply to
Duesenberg

Cheap energy has caused some negative issues int he past. There may (or may not) be benefits to charging more to customers and FORCING conservation on customers.

Those who do not wish to conserve can simply pay more. I think that's fair.

Reply to
Duesenberg

I do enjoy the chance to log on to the interent and monitor my electrical usage per hour. I do not know if it's worth having these meters, but that's one feature I use and approve of.

Reply to
Duesenberg

The electric utilities are not the only ones driving the installation of smart meters. Energy advocates like them too. The smart meters offer a way to reduce electric utility peak loads and that means building fewer power plants. Saving money with time-of-day metering is one thing, but the utility's ability to shed load when they're at capacity is something that they will pay for -- and already do -- too.

Tomsic

Reply to
Tomsic

Someone posted

"They may not warrant doing it, but utilities are doing it and offering different rates at different times of the day to residential customers. That is nothing new. Here in NJ the utility was doing that 50 years ago. The offered a substantially lower rate at night for water heaters."

We lived in NJ 50 years ago, and had a clocked water heater meter. Only trouble was, we had so many power outages that the clock was rarely set to the correct time and so we always had to go outside and look at the meter to see when we could heat hot water. We didn't complain to the power company because there was nothing they could do except set it right and pray fopr no more power failures.

Reply to
hrhofmann

But WHERE do you get 7% today??? 0.7% is more realistic.

Reply to
clare

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