Smart Meter Nonsense

[Huge]

Naah, it's Turnip. He's a wanker. Killfile and forget.

[charles]

Nothing prevents you from printing out your on-line statement.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I've got a =A35 device that does that. It's sat on my desk next to me a= nd picks up a signal by wireless from a clamp on the meter tail in the b= ox outside.

They can't cut me off, smart meter or not, without digging up the ground= . My meter's on the outside wall of my house. Now why they could pull = the master fuse etc, there's nothing to stop me just putting another one= back in.

-- =

It's strange, isn't it? You stand in the middle of a library and go "Aa= aaaaagghhhh!!!!" and everyone just stares at you. But you do the same t= hing on an aeroplane, and everyone joins in.

[dennis]

Only if you are on a green tariff where 100% of your energy is from green sources.

[Graham.]

Then we'll all be on "green" tariffs.

I have also heard on good authority ("Big" Clive Mitchell) that in the future, domestic smartmeters can be switched to a mode that will take account of, and penalise you for, presenting a load with a poor power factor.

[Harry Bloomfield]

charles formulated the question :

Why would you need to, they are all there online carefully filed away. You or you energy provider can both see those files if there should be an issue.

[Dave Liquorice]

Aye, also connected to the server to log power use at one minute intervals.

That's why they come a dig up the road. I wonder what a Smart Meter does when it's been told to cut the supply and some one by passes it? Will it report power on it's output terminals when supposedly "off"? Will it report loss of power on its input if its reconnected(*), cross matchable with recorded outages? Will "the system" notice no useage reports after a while if left disconnected.

The connection from main cutout to meter is normally direct so not easy to break into and maintain the supply to the meter whilst working live. Not impossible but tricky in practice to avoid the flash BANG.

[Dave Liquorice]

Apart from the faff and if push came to shove it could be argued that the dowloaded electronic document and any print of it has been altered. A document printed on paper, with inks and machine I don't have and matches those used by the company blows that out of the water. There can also be problems with using a self printed utility bill for ID verification, not everyone has photo ID.

[James Wilkinson Sword]

No, it's my own device. It's not on the internet, it just uses wireless= frequencies (local frequencies like your router) so I don't need a wire= from the meter box outside to the box inside.

I wouldn't put power on its output terminals. I'd just move the fusebox= wire from the output to the input side of the meter. The meter would t= hink my neighbour was using power (if it could even tell).

A short interruption to the meter's supply wouldn't make it do anything.= It must expect outages.

-- =

Boys who rub me up the wrong way come to a sticky end. -- Stephen Fry

[Dave Liquorice]

And when your net connection is broke?

One would hope they have a decent multiply redundant data back up system but there ways that even that can fail.

And if the issue is that the current company copy doesn't agree with the one they sent?

[dennis]

Its easy to scan and change paper documents and then print them on a colour laser. You can't tell the difference without using a microscope and knowing what to look for. I have laser printed my utility bill and used it for ID without problems.

[harry]

That is already done to commercial users.

[harry]

Possibly even that. Large commercial users can opt for that right now.

[Dave Liquorice]

Niethers mine, "server" is my server, located upstairs. The server can serve a web page of the data viewable only on the LAN.

None of my routers have any wireless side.

Meter

"off"?

That's an obvious one not to do.

You've not got your anti-fraud hat on properly. Agreed a meter should expect outages but not reporting loss of input from x to y date/time when in "off" mode next time it phones home opens the door to fraud a little. All outages on the DNO's network are recorded, either by an auto-recloser phoneing home to say it tripped/locked out, same for larger sub-stations and primary sub-stations or routine/maintenance work or fault clearance. For the latter all switching alterations, and the sequence of them, required to isolate a section of line go through and are approved by the DNO's control room before being actioned on the ground. Failure of the grid would also be recorded. PoP to automatically check if there was an outage when the meter says there was one and raise a flag to "safety check" the meter if there wasn't a recorded outage and the meter is in "off" mode.

[Huge]

[40 lines snipped]

What, even when Toothless Dave brings down the overhead line to my house with the combine?

:o)

[James Wilkinson Sword]

I think there would be strong evidence of that when they came out to repair it.

[dennis]

Its not *done* to commercial users, they get rates depending on factors like; power factor, peak power, etc.

The savings can be enough to get big sites to actively cut some power when demand is getting high.

[Dave Liquorice]

date/time

fraud a

One assumes the DNO will come along and repair the line. Which will need that section to be isolated and thus will be recorded. The auto-recloser feeding that section will also have phoned home to say it's tripped or (hopefully) locked out. The automatics are quick, if the power stays off here for more than a few minutes I'm on the phone reporting the outage. Quite often the response is "Oh, we not aware of an outage there" click, click on keyboard, "oh yes, I see we do have a problem...".

[James Wilkinson Sword]

If it takes out more than one house perhaps.

[Tim Watts]

I've never had anyone complain when I've supplied home printed material like that for ID purposes - I think it's just considered the norm now.