In article ,
Tournifreak writes:
On Dec 12, 10:35*am, "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:
On Fri, 12 Dec 2008 01:24:37 -0800 (PST), Tournifreak wrote:
The readings are taken via GPRS or PLC.

The only false reading I've ever had taken by a meter reader was one taken
electronically by the reader holding his gismo up to the circular
indentation on the meter.
That shouldn't happen! The encoding system should pretty much
guarantee error-free readings. (CRCs etc) I can only think he read the
wrong register or something. There's a lot of data stored by meters
these days, and it's easy to pull out the wrong field.

Remote meter reading has been around for 25 years.
It has however consistently failed to deliver, and
that's certainly not from want of trying. That's
not to say it will always fail, but it's starting
with a track record of 25 years of complete failures.
This is not just a UK issue either. Indeed some other
countries have done substantial roll-outs of remote
meter reading, only to abandon it all. The reasons
tend to be social and commercial, rather than techincal.

Many also have contactors built-in so that the supplier can cut you off
remotely if you don't pay your bill on time.

I can see that being fun to sort out when (not if) a typo on data entry of
meter number to account association means that some innocent person gets
cut off. True computers never lie, but garbage in garbage out. The utility
companies barely manage to administer migration from one supplier to
another with anything approaching acceptable error levels.
Yes, I know. Scary isn't it? If you think billing is complicated now
though...man you should see some of the stuff the utilities are asking
for in the next generation. I can see a time when everyone has unique
tarrifs. You will be charged different rates at different times of
day, depending on how much power you've used in the last few hours, or
days. Readings are taken every few seconds and stored, then
transmitted back to the utility every few hours. Making comparisons
between suppliers will becoem impossible. (Not just rather difficult
as it is at present.)

It also opens the possibility to have different suppliers
at different times of day, or to change your supplier on
a minute by minute basis, based for example on their current
rates, as is currently done by the grid itself, or on your
environmental beliefs e.g. expensive wind power when the wind
is blowing, but cheapest non-carbon source at other times.
The suppliers are not so keen to see this happen, of course,
but it may (and should) be forced upon them when the technical
infrastructure is in place.

--
Andrew Gabriel
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