On 08/11/19 14:59, Clive Page wrote:
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.

There's at least one other "Smart Meter" - and that's one used for the
water supply. We recently had a water main go in the road, and I was
chatting to a guy from the water company about the meters here. He said
they were read remotely during drive-by. They were powered by a small
generator which turned when the water flowed through them, as well as it
turning the figures on the dial.

What is interesting is something actually useful: "The new AMR meters
also have an inbuilt alarm system which will activate silently if water
runs continuously through the meter over a 24-hour period

This means that when we drive by to read your meter, the alarm will be
detected by us and we will investigate to see if there is a leak. This
helps us all save even more water, energy and money."

Considering that most leaks are "silent", that could be of interest -
even if it takes 6 months to actually notice when the next meter reading
is taken!

--

Jeff