These may be naive questions but I can't find answers anywhere. The context is our energy supplier may well ask us to install a smart meter soon so I'd like to understand how they work in practice.I assume that they need some device both to replace or somehow connect to both the existing gas and electricity meters (as well as another remote unit to show the consumption). But where do these devices get their power from? For the electricity meter that's no big problem: I assume the device, whatever it is, will only use a watt or to to communicate to the home monitor and to the power company, so that a simple tap of the mains will suffice, after all that's how the existing meter works. But does the power that they use come out of what the consumer pays for?But what about the smart gas meter? The existing one works on gas pressure, I assume. There's no electrical supply anywhere near our current gas meter - which may well be a common situation. Are these smart devices also gas-powered in some way or simply battery-powered? If so who is responsible for noticing when the battery runs down, and then buying a replacement and fitting it? I hope it's the power company, but if they have to make an urgent visit every year or so to change a battery that is hardly going to save them much compared to reading the existing meter at predictable intervals. If it's the consumer's responsibility and you somehow don't replace the battery does anyone notice or care? And does one's gas consumption get lost during the period of battery outage? Suppose you go away on holiday and the battery runs down just after you left, whose fault is that?These are all simple obvious questions, but I don't seem to have been able to find answers. But I assume someone here already has a smart meter so will know the answers to at least some of them.

Somebody will be along in a minute who knows, but I assume there's a battery in the smart meter, and it gets changed by the gas company. I assume it reports the level of charge to the gas company, so they know when to change it.They could build a generator in, powered by the gas flow, I suppose?Free gas if the battery runs out or the meter stops working? Nah, they'll estimate.

Where do smart meters get their power from?

Nov 08, 2019 Last reply: 6 years ago 44 Replies

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Bob Eager 6 years ago

For only £8.34 I can get 24 Energizer AA cells, very long dated (new).

CPC.

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F 6 years ago

We were waiting for pushback but the time came and went. Eventually we were told not to be concerned but the lights would shortly go off for a while as the aircraft was being rebooted!

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Andy Burns 6 years ago

787 dreamliners used to require a regular reboot to prevent them losing all electrical power after 2^31 centiseconds.

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AnthonyL 6 years ago

Not just 787.

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I'm very wary of anything labelled "smart". We seem to be in an era of not very smart programmers and system designers, or rather they are under pressure from their management to deliver, sometimes to meet perhaps some poorly considered artificial management or political target.

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Andrew 6 years ago

Happened frequently to the class 317? trains new to Southern back circa 2004.

Train comes to halt, driver announces that everything will shut down for a while, as the 'computer untangles its knickers'.

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