Energy Cops Subverting American Privacy With Smart Meters

They cannot limit your power usage unless you have smart appliances. Simple as that they have to send a signal to the appliance to shut down during peak loads. My water heater only runs from 10 PM to 5 AM unless it reaches a certain temp. I get a really reduced rate for it because of that.

Smart appliances were a fad a while back but are going away now Connected appliances are getting big it will let you communicate with your washing machine from your smart phone if you would like to ???? Also can give software updates as testing progresses.

Any questions just let me know because I know!!

a reply to: Bedlam

Thanks for the valuable info, I need to look into it somewhat.
Been in the industry for over 50 years and involved in metering for a significant part of that but 'smart metering' was largely the new kid on the block for me. We had major concerns at one point about the proliferation of appliance power supplies (TVs in particular with SMPS) that 'chopped' the wave form which led to a lot of investigation into the affect on metering accuracy due to waveform distortion. I was constructing probes and collecting data in the lab for quite a while but we found no real evidence particularly on analog meters (disk types) and engineers' worries were alleviated at that time.

You speak of harmonics which I'd take to be the 5th harmonic (from memory) effect on the neutral current in a 3 phase system as those harmonics tend to be additive in the star point. Such harmonics are usually associated with transformers and fortunately their amplitude is quite small compared to system frequency currents. Severely distorted power waveforms could result in very abnormal outcomes for sure.

originally posted by: Pilgrum
I was constructing probes and collecting data in the lab for quite a while but we found no real evidence particularly on analog meters (disk types) and engineers' worries were alleviated at that time.

Analog meters are almost as good as calorimetric types such as the one you were mentioning. Essentially, their effective sample rate is infinite. So they get the energy right, despite the waveforms being naff.

The problem comes with digitizing meters and how they decide to deal with non-sinusoidal waveforms. The generating side voltage source is very low impedance and generally dominates anything on the house side. However, the house current can be quite non-sinusoidal. Especially as you mention with switching power supplies. The generic non-PFC ones just hose the lines into a capacitor with a diode bridge. As such, they don't draw current at all until you get near the top of the voltage sinusoid, then abruptly toss on a capacitative load. And most of the ones in the house will switch on at about that point in the phase, so they aggregate. That's also true with loads that are being phase controlled, which we still do over here but which I believe you guys forbid.

This provides the meter with a very non-sinusoidal load, when you add in all the bigger appliances that now do this. I have a washer and a dishwasher that have stepper motors in, and they have switchers in the front end, as does the microwave et al, none of which are PFC controlled.

In a switcher with PFC, not only is the power factor set right, the abrupt turn on you get with a bridge driving a cap is eliminated. Basically, in order to fix the PFC, the bridge is eliminated and the front end cap is powered with a boost switcher or Cuk that only stops drawing current within a few volts of the zero cross for voltage. This gets the current much more sinusoidal and nearly but not quite aligned with the voltage.

A good many of the RMS algorithms are totally fuddled by the current draw of a bridge -> capacitor up front in a switching front end. It's a nearly uncalculable crest factor. So they take a guess and try to correct the actual metering by fudging in a power factor correction, but that is also really difficult to determine with any accuracy if the power is pulsed like non-PFC switchers do. The more appliances that do this, the worse accuracy you end up with.

An analog meter just sort of sails serenely over all this and gets it right nearly every time by integrating the pulsed current with the inertia of the drive train.

a reply to: Bedlam

'Leading edge' phase controllers still abound here for light dimmers and the only thing leading to their demise is lighting that employs electronics such as LED and CFL which does not tolerate leading edge controllers (anything with active electronics on the mains side of the power supply suffers from this weakness). 'Trailing edge' dimmers are more expensive but far less stressful to sensitive devices so they're now becoming the dominant tech for motor speed and light dimming controllers. I was using chip micro-controllers capable of 100MIPS (cheap as chips too) or more nearly 20 years ago so there's really no reason that smart meters couldn't do a better job of the RMS conversion accurately for distorted waveforms in real time now - apart from the cost of upgrading all the existing inaccurate meters that is.

Fortunately for us (perhaps) is that we'd only get a 'smart' meter installed if solar panels are fitted, to determine 'feed-in' energy figures so the meter reader is a regular visitor here still (every 3 months). If I were to install a large hungry dog in the front yard the reader would not enter and I'd get an energy bill based on an estimate using my usage history.

a reply to: ColdWisdom

Growing Hydroponic Weed in your Home in a State that considers it Illegal ? Big Brother Electric Knows All ! ..........LOL

originally posted by: Zanti Misfit
a reply to: ColdWisdom

Growing Hydroponic Weed in your Home in a State that considers it Illegal ? Big Brother Electric Knows All ! ..........LOL

Now, THAT'S the truth. Even when I was a yoot, the meter man was also the dope spy for the local cops. More than one dope house got busted by the local power company.

Well, that and it's sort of obvious if you see grow lights at night from the street.

originally posted by: Pilgrum
If I were to install a large hungry dog in the front yard the reader would not enter and I'd get an energy bill based on an estimate using my usage history.

The family homestead uses an old analog meter that was probably installed by the REA, but my home in Florida has some sort of smart metering. I sniffed it out with a spectrum analyzer and got bupkes. They're accurately measuring it even when the gates are padlocked. I believe, although I am not totally certain, that it uses power line communication instead of RF.

Since the area's pretty rural, there aren't but a few dozen homes on the drop, so it's probably more cost effective that way.

originally posted by: Bedlam

Well, that and it's sort of obvious if you see grow lights at night from the street.

Those metal halides shining out through gaps between the roof tiles are a dead giveaway

originally posted by: Pilgrum

originally posted by: Bedlam

Well, that and it's sort of obvious if you see grow lights at night from the street.

Those metal halides shining out through gaps between the roof tiles are a dead giveaway

Back when I was fresh out of the Army, I had some interesting friends. Some were 1%ers, and one of them had rented a big suburban house, applied black shoe polish to the windows, filled the floors with plastic and sod, and had set up an elaborate mc grow house with timed sprinklers and grow lights. Occasionally, they'd go check out where the plants had got to, nip most of the males and harvest the big female plants, hanging them in the garage to dry.

It proved to be difficult to hide the piney aroma, and eventually the meterman/cop informant called the law on the suspicious power use and apparent lack of occupants. They laid in wait for my friend, but alas, not well enough, Popeye saw the suspicious vans and kept going. His tapping of the brakes proved to be too tempting, they followed him back to Georgia Tech into the dorm, Popeye bailed out a window, swung along a ledge with the agility of an orangutan and made his escape into Atlanta.

They gave up the idea of growing in empty rentals not long after. Popeye eventually beat the rap, got a degree in criminal justice and became a well-thought-of police detective in a large southeastern metropolis whilst also being a very highly placed mc member, and foiled many future intrusions into club business by channeling info on upcoming raids to the club members.