Yeah, that part didn't sound right to me either. Not sure if he's saying it was that way for the one particular meter that might be broken? But by saying electricians would swap the legs, it seems to imply that all the similar meters were only capable of recording power on one leg, which doesn't make sense. There are plenty of folks out there who would quickly take advantage of that and the utility would be giving away energy. Seems very odd.
My old water meter was kinda like that, it only measured cold water not hot. The new meter measures them both and my water bill went up.
Heh!
As I type this, I'm waiting for CenterPoint to flip a switch at Electricity Central HQ to turn off the power to the other half of my duplex.
It will be done without a visit from any of their employees. I've had it done before and they promise the action within six hours of my request.
Of course I'm not in Washington state. Things in Washington are done differently, such as not using salt on the city street ice to avoid posioning the nearby Pacific Ocean.
I suspect that power utilities have different procedures for disconnecting service for customer requests or non-payment. People who involuntarily lost electrical service tend to do things like lighting lots of candles or bringing barbecues indoors, resulting in property damage, injury, or death. It doesn't look good for the utility.
I was driving from the airport in Seattle a few years back. They had just gotten some light snow, maybe an inch. Boy, what a disaster. Accidents everywhere, cars in ditches. Being from the NYC area, I thought it was because they probably don't get much snow and don't know how to drive. But maybe there were other factors.....
The meter would have to have contacts or electronics that could switch
100 or more amps to remotely turn off the service. I have real doubts that feature is built into any smart meter.The absolutely standard way of making a single phase 120/240V meter is to have a current coil in series with each of the legs and a voltage coil across 240V. It accurately meters the total power being used. The technology has been around for a real long time. It is highly improbable the utility used a meter that was any different. IMHO it is much more likely the electrician is wrong.
in phoenix some fiancially challenged realtives have pay as you go meters. after habitually having power cut off.......
buy a preaid power card at a store, insert in meter get so many dollars of electric.
it must have a way to authenicate the card is valid. so 2 way communication has to be involved
family reports a loud click when the meter turns off or on.........
presumably theres a high capacity contactor in the meters base to turn the power off or on
bob haller wrote in news:2a9a0a27-6a3e-4bef-8c9b- snipped-for-privacy@dc2g2000vbb.googlegroups.com:
PSE&G (north Jersey) is advertising big savings if you let them install a new thermostat (sdsupposedly fancy), and let them control your A/C somehow remotely, 15 min off and on. Since I have trouble believing what ths particular utility does, I'm no game (yet).
Well zap those doubts away:
Here's a 200Amp Thyristor on Ebay for $22.00.
It's trivial to switch that much current.
Switching it efficiently is a little harder.
I just unplug the refrigerator and freezer on all odd numbered days of the month. That way my fridge & freezer are only using half as much electricity. I was thinking about just shutting off the main breaker for the whole house on all odd numbered days, but I just cant live without reading all the spam that comes in my email box on a daily basis.
How do they read "Smart Meters"?
I've heard two different stories on this.
Which of these is true?
I've had a 'remote reading' electric and gas meter here in W Los Angeles for some years now.
They drive by to read them... every 2 months for the electric, and once a month for the gas.
The guy that installed the electric meter said they might want to inspect it from time to time, but so far haven't. I have never cut the seals and removed it, but have turned the power off a time or two to do maintenance. It has a small visible antenna within it's glass enclosure.
I googled and found out that the electric meter will remember and 'blow the whistle' next time it's read should it 'think' it's been tampered with. There wasn't a lot of detail, but being subjected to a strong magnetic field was disclosed to be at least one trigger parameter.
Far as the gas goes, all the installer clown knew was that it generates it's own battery charge current somehow from the actual gas flow, and that it's read via street drive by.
I've seen both the electric and gas reader trucks driving by.
The water meter is still read manually.
Here's more:
What gets me is that my electric meter pole is located at the middle of my farm, which is 3/4 mile from the road. Yet I never see anyone from the power company come down here, except once a year when they check the wires and look for fallen or damaged trees near the wires. Unless there is a storm and wire problems. I dont think the meter signal can go that distance, but I could be wrong.
We don't have smart meters for electric here in NJ yet. But I've had the drive by type of water meter for 10+ years. The water utility swapped them all out to save money on reading them. I've also had a radio controlled device on my AC for 20 years. The electric utility can send out a signal to turn off the compressor on days they need to shed some load. They used to pay a flat fee, I think $20 a year, to customers that chose to have them installed. A few years ago they changed to paying I think $3 each time they activate it. The old system worked better as they only do it a few times a year.
With the radio control gizmo, they claim it doesn't effect your cooling because they only turn it off for short periods. I'm not sure I understand how exactly that benefits them much. You would think that the AC's would all be cycling on and off randomly anyway and the only way to reduce the energy usage would be cycle them off more, hence the temp would have to rise. Or alternatively, there may be a lot of ACs on peak demand periods that run constantly. But again, if you cycle them off, you aren't going to get as much cooling out.
I've never had any issues or even noticed it happening. But again, they only do it a few days a year and you don't really notice or have any way of knowing it's happening.
I think with smart electric meters to do some of the things that they are capable of would require at least one way real time communication, eg this load shedding concept. They also obviously need to keep the clock inside it set correctly.
Both.
Call your power company and ask. Do you think there is one answer?
What did you do this past February 29th? Your fridge would be off two days in a row!
How did you plan for this situation? What problems did you encounter? Did you have to buy ice at Walmart?
Um, do the same thing that you do the other eight other days of *every* year that have the same issue? ;-)
de quoted text -
I'm trying to imagine the legitmate reasons to cut the seal on the meter before calling the electric company..... I saw it done once. The house was on fire and the fire company did it :)
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