Coming to a smart meter near you...

[Chris Green]

... and who is Han?

[alan_m]

How long has it taken to install the number of smart meters currently in use?

[Andrew]

Home Area Network ?. Something to do with the Zigbee protocol that Smart Meters use ??

[Fred]

They arent going to do that because that will kill some people.

[newshound]

Well yes, but it is arguably the right way to go. When we were both kids the way demand was managed was voltage reductions, followed by area disconnections. And usually the peaks only lasted an hour or two. I wouldn't expect a car to lose a full night's charge. Adding flexibility reduces the need for reserve capacity, which carries a cost.

[newshound]

I'm pretty sure load shedding agreements go back 50 years. And heavy industry sometimes had their own power stations: remember the hyperbolic cooling towers at the steelworks next to the Tinsley viaduct?

[charles]

They were certainly around when I was, as a student, working at an engineering manufacturer in Edinburgh - 1959.

[Max Demian]

All they need is two circuits, one that the SMETS3 can switch off. After all, that's how Economy 7 works.

[Tim+]

Well I deliberately *didn?t* mention rewriting every house in the country as it seemed an even more absurd suggestion. Fitting smart switches to devices would be easily doable and cheap (not that I believe that this will happen).

Tim

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

But I was around during the 3 day week and there were no smart meters, so whole areas were turned off t restrict demand then under a state of emergency. One supposes this is just a more granular control of the same facility. It would enable those who have medical machines at home needed to preserve life to stay powered while restricting non essential use. The basics back then were that you were warned ahead of time when your area would need to be powered off in order to save fuel etc, and thus could take precautions. Myself what is important here is not the ability to do this, but the reasons for it and in whose hands this decision rests. In my view it needs ceentralised coordination, or it will be a shambles. One other thing to bear in mind of course is whether the software could be hacked to cause deliberate disruption by a third party.

Brian

[Robin]

using auxiliary load control switching is all-or-nothing on the auxiliary circuit; switching appliance by appliance allows e.g. turning off the EV charger but not the heat pump (or vice versa)

[The Natural Philosopher]

Not city spivs I can assure you. Mostly major energy companies

Not really. That's called economnic slavery

[The Natural Philosopher]

I have never experienced that IN MY LIFE in the UK.

I

[Max Demian]

The kind of device suitable for switching off to balance load would be an EV charger and a heat pump, both of which will need new wiring back to the consumer unit. The only other kind I can think of would be an immersion heater. And perhaps the off-peak circuit if there are storage heaters; but these are on a separate circuit anyway and probably won't need switching off as they are on at, um, off-peak times.

[Theo]

I'm thinking of things like refrigeration - there's enough thermal mass in the fridge/freezer that it'll hold temperature for several hours if the door isn't opened. So you can tell it not to run the compressor during peak demand, as long as the temperature stays within acceptable limits. Over the fleet of millions of fridges, that adds up. I think supermarkets with their substantial chiller fleets are already doing this.

Adding a Zigbee module to talk to the smart meter would be a few dollars at manufacture time. Give owners a few quid off their electricity bills for enrolling and everyone is happy.

Theo

[Andy Burns]

There is a zigbee profile for smart meters to talk to EVSE

[Andrew]

More here, including the responses to the original 2019 document -

[Max Demian]

What if the freezer doesn't turn back on again and you come back from holiday to soggy food? Who will be responsible for this? The energy company?

[Tim+]

Why wouldn?t it? Have you ever come across a freezer that couldn?t be turned on and off at the wall?

Tim

[Max Demian]

I haven't tried turning it off and on every day. Machines fail. If it failed to turn back on, I would accept that it's my fault; if someone else did it, I would say it was theirs.