On Apr 19, 8:41*am, wrote:
On Thu, 19 Apr 2012 04:30:18 -0700, Erik wrote:
In article ,
wrote:
How do they read "Smart Meters"?
I've heard two different stories on this.
1. They can read my usage anytime, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, and
do so right at the power company. *Supposedly the signal is sent via the
power lines to their office.
2. They can only read these meters by driving past the residence or
business where the meter is located, the signal is sent by a radio wave
and is limited to a certain number of feet from the meter, which they
read once a month by driving past homes with their meters. *The vehicles
they drive have a receiver to read them.
Which of these is true?
---
This brings up another thought.....
What would happen if I removed my "Smart meter"? *Would an alarm go off
in their office? *In the old days, when I had to work on the mains or
service entrance (beyond the meter) in a home, I'd just pull the meter,
do the work, and put the meter back. *Then I'd notify the power company
to tell them that I cut the band on the meter, and why I had to do so. I
never got any complains since I had legitimate reasons to do it.
I'd hesitate to do that these days.... even with a legitimate reason.....
I've had a 'remote reading' electric and gas meter here in W Los Angeles
for some years now.
They drive by to read them... every 2 months for the electric, and once
a month for the gas.
The guy that installed the electric meter said they might want to
inspect it from time to time, but so far haven't. I have never cut the
seals and removed it, but have turned the power off a time or two to do
maintenance. It has a small visible antenna within it's glass enclosure.
I googled and found out that the electric meter will remember and 'blow
the whistle' next time it's read should it 'think' it's been tampered
with. There wasn't a lot of detail, but being subjected to a strong
magnetic field was disclosed to be at least one trigger parameter.
Far as the gas goes, all the installer clown knew was that it generates
it's own battery charge current somehow from the actual gas flow, and
that it's read via street drive by.
I've seen both the electric and gas reader trucks driving by.
The water meter is still read manually.
Here's mo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_Meter_Reading
Erik
What gets me is that my electric meter pole is located at the middle of
my farm, which is 3/4 mile from the road. *Yet I never see anyone from
the power company come down here, except once a year when they check the
wires and look for fallen or damaged trees near the wires. *Unless there
is a storm and wire problems. *I dont think the meter signal can go that
distance, but I could be wrong.- Hide quoted text -
- Show quoted text -
We don't have smart meters for electric here in NJ yet.
But I've had the drive by type of water meter for 10+ years.
The water utility swapped them all out to save money on
reading them.
I've also had a radio controlled device on my AC for 20
years. The electric utility can send out a signal to turn
off the compressor on days they need to shed some load.
They used to pay a flat fee, I think $20 a year, to customers
that chose to have them installed. A few years ago they
changed to paying I think $3 each time they activate it.
The old system worked better as they only do it a few times
a year.
With the radio control gizmo, they claim it doesn't
effect your cooling because they only turn it off for
short periods. I'm not sure I understand how exactly
that benefits them much. You would think that the
AC's would all be cycling on and off randomly
anyway and the only way to reduce the energy usage
would be cycle them off more, hence the temp
would have to rise. Or alternatively, there may be
a lot of ACs on peak demand periods that run
constantly. But again, if you cycle them off, you
aren't going to get as much cooling out.
I've never had any issues or even noticed it happening.
But again, they only do it a few days a year and
you don't really notice or have any way of knowing
it's happening.
I think with smart electric meters to do some of the
things that they are capable of would require at
least one way real time communication, eg this load
shedding concept. They also obviously need to keep
the clock inside it set correctly.