National Grid Wants to Install a “Smart Meter”

Well, we have a smart meter on our house, one they can turn on or off from somewhere at the power plant, and nobody has to come read it anymore either. It was provided free by the power company and it's implementation was paid for through some part of the government. I talked to one of the people at the power company and he told me that it can be shut off or turned on by them in case of shortages of electricity, he mentioned in an emergency, it would be cycled so about eight hours during the day there would be power instead of shutting most people off and unfairly giving some people full power. He also mentioned that grocery stores would have priority over residential homes for full power. He also stated that hopefully we will never need that capability. We used to have two big power plants here, but now there are two small natural gas ones, which cannot supply the power if the transmission lines connecting us to the grid go down somewhere so it is beneficial to have this in place.

I believe he is telling the truth, if a big plant goes down that supplies most of the power to our power company, we will be on our own and these little power plants are inadequate to supply our areas needs. Face it, if they reroute the power to a big city elsewhere, our low population area is screwed....just like when a tornado hit a warehouse that supplied veggies to Milwaukee and part of Chicago in Wisconsin, the store shelves were bare of lettuce and other veggies within four days. We are Yoopers, we are supposed to know we are pions in the country. To feed the masses in emergencies they will restrict deliveries of food from our area for a while...we are not important and we are supposed to know how to take care of ourselves up here.

I have a few generators and also extra fuel for them. We have a wood cookstove and wood to keep us warm for maybe three months if needed. The smart meters are also being used now to vary rates for peak times you pay more locally in the future, they have not started varying the rates yet till they get all the meters in...they are getting prepared. So if peak rates are in the day, then if everyone goes do things at night, then the peak times will shift to nights and people will get screwed that way too. The normal rate is not being lowered but the peak will be higher...another way to say they are hiking rates. I guess my daughter said they will use that extra money to give to those that are poor so it is basically another tax to help low income people instead of the government giving it directly to these people it is done by the power companies and does not require oversight or us even know it is happening. We ask a lot of questions in my family, local people do give you info, that is why they want everyone to contact someone in another area who is hired because they have no commitment to a community they don't live in...they can parrot deception with little or no effect on their personal life.

a reply to: Sisavran

tell them you dont have internet access at home as you cant afford it

Be careful with them my house had one installed when I bought it and was using the indoor monitor doodah over winter to keep to my energhy budget - I was using around £1 a day but got a suprise overdue bill from EON saying I owed a few hundred quid.

Turns out the indoor unit is never accurate and doesn't update to new rates or service charges and EON told me never to trust it or use it for budgeting as it's always wrong.

Despite this they still told me I had to keep the indoor monitor on even though it's useless and a waste of energy - It's been unplugged for a couple of years now and they haven't noticed or complained.

TL;DR -They're useless and innacuratem - the 'monitor your energy useage speil is a load of bollocks as energy companies say never to trust one as they're always wrong.

Wow, thanks for your responses guys!

I love that not a single person on here has been like “nah, you are nuts” 😂 Definitely not gonna be getting the smart meter installed.
My plan ultimately is to go solar because I own my home and am not planning on moving anytime soon. In my area solar installation for 1000 sqft is like $15,000+ though, so I have to save up for a little while for it.

Hope everybody has a great long weekend!

Are you saying that the peak rates become custom for each person depending on when they use their power and are charged more for that? Cause if so that’s F’d

a reply to: rickymouse

I didn’t even think about that 🤦🏻‍♂️ Imagine you get a SCS and you were rude to someone out in public. Oops you don’t have power at night time now cause of that😂
Hopefully that never happens
a reply to: TzarChasm

Do you mind if I ask how much this costed you to do roughly?
This is what I want to do ultimately.
And YES! Thank you! I have always said that NG was just a legalized and condoned MONOPOLY on the people. No real freedom to choose an affordable way of electricity, except solar apparently.
a reply to: AdultMaleHumanUK

originally posted by: Sisavran
Are you saying that the peak rates become custom for each person depending on when they use their power and are charged more for that? Cause if so that’s F’d

a reply to: rickymouse

No, the rate time is determined by the usage of the whole grid in the area. It can be altered if a lot of people switch their consumption and then they can adjust their peak to an altered timeframe. I got a vague discription of this from the woman I know who worked behind the desk at the office. I went there to find out whether we still had to shovel out our meter and she gave me a bunch of information...rattling it on without me having time to even ask any questions. So, I cannot say that I interpretted everything right, and as of yet, our power company has not completely switched all the meters to those kind, but my daughters town is on a different power company, and the city does the billing for it and hers has peak and off peak totals on it, but still one rate for all for now. She called to find out what all the numbers were on her bill and they explained around the same stuff to her, but she had a slower talking person explaining it...I suppose not everyone gets buzzed up on coffee at work.

Our small town has a municipal utility district. The governing board is 1) local and 2) elected. They know there are limits what they can do before facing reprisals. They are very open about their plans and decision-making, to the point of putting announcements on social media pleading with people to attend the board meetings and give feedback.

The meters are read via receivers on the power poles. Not connected to home wifis.

We live northeast of Houston. They installed smart meters (and water meters) in our little burb several years ago. We didn't have a choice. It just happened. Texas now has brown outs on a regular basis. Several times during weather events buth hot and cold, they would brown us out for varying periods of time to send our power somewhere else. During Beryl, we were without power for days. Fortunately we have a 5K generator for backup. Even so, we had to take our elderly pet to the vet since she cannot stand the heat.

Note: they can now just shut down our power at will. Even we are late on the bill, they can flip it off from wherever their office is. Don't know if they can turn off the water but our meter reports our usage. We now get detailed day by day usage reports for both. We can now go outside and push a button on our power meter and cycle through minute by minute data for our usage.

Me thinks that nefarious utilization is going to be here someday...