On Fri, 18 May 2012 22:19:45 -0500, Jim Yanik
wrote:

Sjouke Burry s@b wrote in
. 12.10:

George wrote in :

On 5/15/2012 6:54 AM, wrote:
On Mon, 14 May 2012 23:35:39 -0400,
wrote:

One of my friends sends me an email about a local state rep who is
preseinting to the Md. Public Service Commission a "case" to allow
people to reject smart meters. Nowhere does it say what kind of
meter, and I'm thinking it might means taximeter or galvanometer, but
I guess it means electric meters. Or gas meters?

Is there any reason to reject one?


BTW, the state rep also has a 2-hour show each week on the local
wacko
radio station.

I suppose the electric company would charge you some extra fee because
someone would have to come and read it.


One of the features of smart meters is they are remotely read.

Yes, now a criminal working at a power company can check whether
you are at home, so they can "visit" your home safely......


to answer the original question,"smart meters" are electric meters for
homes that monitor your power usage continuously and keep record of how
much power is used at what times of the day and night,periodically read
remotely by the power company.

So they have a detailed record of YOUR lifestyle,when you do things that
use power. you may not like that data being accumulated and available to
gov't officials.(and maybe private companies too. It's data that is worth
something,thus salable.)

they may also have the capability to remotely CONTROL(shut off) some of
your home's appliances to aid the power company in load managment.

You may not like the power company turning off your AC,water heater,or
washer-dryer at peak demand times.

I'm not sure if these will also turn off electric car chargers.

and you won't KNOW when these items are off....there will not be any
announcement when it occurs.

A smart METER cannot load shed - it cannot selectively control loads.
A "smart center" can. We don't have them yet in Ontario, and I can't
see them coming for quite some time as they will rquire TOTAL RETROFIT
of EVERY service panel to make them work. The electrical utility won't
pay for it - and no provinvial government that mandates the homeowner
pays for it will EVER be re-elected.

On 5/21/2012 11:45 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 21 May 2012 20:15:02 -0400, wrote:



A smart METER cannot load shed - it cannot selectively control loads.
A "smart center" can. We don't have them yet in Ontario, and I can't
see them coming for quite some time as they will rquire TOTAL RETROFIT
of EVERY service panel to make them work. The electrical utility won't
pay for it - and no provinvial government that mandates the homeowner
pays for it will EVER be re-elected.

You are right, the meter has nothing to do with load sheading. I had
that in my condo for a while and it involves a sealed control box that
intercepts your feeds to the selected equipment.
They installed for free but when they stopped the program they
abandoned the equipment in place and I would have had to pay to have
it removed.
The HVAC guys ripped it out when I replaced the A/C unit.

Our local utility has offered that as an option for decades. If you
join the program, they install the switch on your a/c unit. It cycles
the a/c off and on at 15-20 minute intervals. In return, you get a 15%
discount on your electric bill from June through September. During
peak demand (10-15 days a year), they remotely activate the switches

As for all the fearmongering about smart meters and their mythical
health effects, it's hard to take that seriously when the very people
screeching about it don't. The majority of them think nothing about
using their cellphones and other radio frequency-employing convenience
devices. As for the supposed privacy issues, public and private
organizations already have access to so much household and personal
data, it wouldn't make much difference. Your local utility can provide
you with a spreadsheet showing energy consumption by household so you
can compare your usage to your neighbors. Smart meters would only
fine-tune the data by plotting usage against time.

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that they
allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts": shutting off heavy loads
in a house such as heating/air conditioning, water heaters, clothes
washers/ dryers, etc. without shutting off the whole house. It's
also one of the reasons for "smart appliances". This probably saves
the utility a lot of money. It still amounts to Unreliable Service(tm)
but they get to call it something else.

What they don't tell you is that the time they will shut off the air
conditioning is when it's 87 inside (with the thermostat set something
lower, it doesn't really matter how much lower because the A/C can't
keep up) and 108 outside (yes, this is in Texas).

In other words, the cost of electricity changes during the course of a
day, and smart meters allow utility companies to more equitably charge
individual home owers for the electricity they use.

TXU is now advertising a plan you can switch to "nights are free".
I think it's more of a gimmick to get people to switch electric
providers than anything else. But anyone taking that plan will
want to switch optional use (like clothes washers/dryers) to whatever
hours are considered "night".


But this represents a false economy when applied on such a small scale
as the individual home.

The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

I think removing the need to build generating capacity saves them more.

On Sat, 26 May 2012 11:35:34 -0400, wrote:

On Sat, 26 May 2012 10:12:11 -0500, (Gordon
Burditt) wrote:

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that they
allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts": shutting off heavy loads
in a house such as heating/air conditioning, water heaters, clothes
washers/ dryers, etc. without shutting off the whole house. It's
also one of the reasons for "smart appliances". This probably saves
the utility a lot of money. It still amounts to Unreliable Service(tm)
but they get to call it something else.

What they don't tell you is that the time they will shut off the air
conditioning is when it's 87 inside (with the thermostat set something
lower, it doesn't really matter how much lower because the A/C can't
keep up) and 108 outside (yes, this is in Texas).

In other words, the cost of electricity changes during the course of a
day, and smart meters allow utility companies to more equitably charge
individual home owers for the electricity they use.

TXU is now advertising a plan you can switch to "nights are free".
I think it's more of a gimmick to get people to switch electric
providers than anything else. But anyone taking that plan will
want to switch optional use (like clothes washers/dryers) to whatever
hours are considered "night".


But this represents a false economy when applied on such a small scale
as the individual home.

The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

I think removing the need to build generating capacity saves them more.

Smart meters have nothing to do with selectively shedding loads.
You need equipment in each of those branch circuits to do that.
They can do metering by time of day.

What the smart meter does do, is give the PC a data link into your home, which
*can* be used for load shedding.

I also doubt they allow the PoCo to shut off the power remotely. That
would require a pair of triacs inside the meter that could handle
200a. The I2R losses of those triacs would melt the meter base.

AIUI, some do it. It's not likely using triacs, though. 250W, or so, would
make the meter a tad warm. ;-)

wrote:

Smart meters have nothing to do with selectively shedding loads.
You need equipment in each of those branch circuits to do that.
They can do metering by time of day.

I also doubt they allow the PoCo to shut off the power remotely. That
would require a pair of triacs inside the meter that could handle
200a. The I2R losses of those triacs would melt the meter base.

Oh, they can do it.

On Sat, 26 May 2012 15:21:25 -0500, "HeyBub" wrote:

wrote:

Smart meters have nothing to do with selectively shedding loads.
You need equipment in each of those branch circuits to do that.
They can do metering by time of day.

I also doubt they allow the PoCo to shut off the power remotely. That
would require a pair of triacs inside the meter that could handle
200a. The I2R losses of those triacs would melt the meter base.

Oh, they can do it.

Sure, but a triac has about a 1.4V "ON" voltage, probably higher at these
currents. At 200A, that's 280W. Number one, that's wasted power, and two,
it's a *lot* of heat to get out of the meter. Can, but does?

On Sat, 26 May 2012 10:12:11 -0500, (Gordon
Burditt) wrote:

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that they
allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts": shutting off heavy loads
in a house such as heating/air conditioning, water heaters, clothes
washers/ dryers, etc. without shutting off the whole house. It's
also one of the reasons for "smart appliances". This probably saves
the utility a lot of money. It still amounts to Unreliable Service(tm)
but they get to call it something else.

No, smart METERS cannot do that.
What they don't tell you is that the time they will shut off the air
conditioning is when it's 87 inside (with the thermostat set something
lower, it doesn't really matter how much lower because the A/C can't
keep up) and 108 outside (yes, this is in Texas).

A smart METER cannot selectively shut off, or shed, loads. A smart
"center" can (load center - or service panel)

In other words, the cost of electricity changes during the course of a
day, and smart meters allow utility companies to more equitably charge
individual home owers for the electricity they use.

TXU is now advertising a plan you can switch to "nights are free".
I think it's more of a gimmick to get people to switch electric
providers than anything else. But anyone taking that plan will
want to switch optional use (like clothes washers/dryers) to whatever
hours are considered "night".

As we now do with the 3 level charging - run the heavy, optional stuff
in the low charge "night" period.

But this represents a false economy when applied on such a small scale
as the individual home.

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.
I think removing the need to build generating capacity saves them more.

Most definitely.

On Sat, 26 May 2012 15:21:25 -0500, "HeyBub"
wrote:

wrote:

Smart meters have nothing to do with selectively shedding loads.
You need equipment in each of those branch circuits to do that.
They can do metering by time of day.

I also doubt they allow the PoCo to shut off the power remotely. That
would require a pair of triacs inside the meter that could handle
200a. The I2R losses of those triacs would melt the meter base.

Oh, they can do it.

SOME can do it. There ARE smart meters in use, world-wide, that only
supply power when you have a credit balance. When your credit runs
out, the power goes off - and you go to the meter with your credit or
debit card, and "recharge" the meter to turn the lights back on.

That is NOT the kind of "smart meter" being installed by MOST local
power authorities in Canada and the USA

SOME can do it. There ARE smart meters in use, world-wide, that only
supply power when you have a credit balance. When your credit runs
out, the power goes off - and you go to the meter with your credit or
debit card, and "recharge" the meter to turn the lights back on.

*That is NOT the kind of "smart meter" being installed by MOST local
power authorities in Canada and the USA

my dad lives in phoenix, there are controls on their AC and water
heater to shed loads at peak times.

another phoenix realtive has and likes the pre paid card for electric.
she is fiancially challenged and it works for her......

powering off a entire home, like the credit challenged, is pretty
simple using a contactor, a high capacity relay. they are pretty cheap

snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee to
the customer bill.

No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.

I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.

"Gordon Burditt" wrote in message
netamerica...
I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts": shutting off heavy loads
in a house such as heating/air conditioning, water heaters, clothes
washers/ dryers, etc. without shutting off the whole house. It's
also one of the reasons for "smart appliances". This probably saves
the utility a lot of money. It still amounts to Unreliable Service(tm)
but they get to call it something else.

No, smart METERS cannot do that.

TXU (in Texas) claims that a smart thermostat they sell communicates
with the smart meter and allows you (via their web page) or them
to shut off your A/C for what they claim will be 15 to 45 minutes
during peak load periods. It's been available for at least a year.
I don't have one so I haven't seen it work, or know how often the
turnoff is used. But customers can (have to?) use the web page to
program the thermostat, so the remote setting ability has to work
even if it's not used against the wishes of the customer (yet).

In our part of Texas the service also has a monthly fee unrelated to the
cost of providing the service.

NotMe wrote:

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item
fee to the customer bill.

See?

I told you so.

I told you people that these new smart-meters are costing home-owners an
extra $250 - $500 over the course of the life of the meter, while
conveying a $100 benefit in manpower cost-reduction to the utilities.
That's why it's a false economy.

If given the choice, I'd gladly make a one-time $100 payment to my
utility to pay for meter-reading for the next 10 years if it meant that
they didn't tack on an extra $5 a month for the "privledge" or "benefit"
of a smart meter.

No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still
read manually.

It's coming.

Mark my words - smart gas meters are coming. And they'll spin some
crock-of-**** argument for the need for time-of-use metering for natural
gas as the reason why it's needed for the residential market, when they
(just like the electric utilities) just want to reduce their
meter-reading costs - and not much else.

I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter
is recoverd.

Smart meters are more expensive - and have about half the life of
conventional analog wheel meters.

But those pesky software companies will charge utilites a fortune for
"needed" updates for the billing software for these smart meters. It's
a cash-cow for them too.

On 5/27/2012 1:37 AM, NotMe wrote:


snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee to
the customer bill.


No additional charge here.


No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.


Our gas supplier previously fitted remote readers on the registers of
inside meters. Then maybe 4 years ago they retrofitted all of them.
There is no additional charge. The water utility put remote readers on
meters maybe 5 years ago. No additional charge for that either.


I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.

On 5/15/2012 10:52 AM, Jon Danniken wrote:
micky wrote:
One of my friends sends me an email about a local state rep who is
preseinting to the Md. Public Service Commission a "case" to allow
people to reject smart meters. Nowhere does it say what kind of
meter, and I'm thinking it might means taximeter or galvanometer, but
I guess it means electric meters. Or gas meters?

Is there any reason to reject one?

Among other concerns, they will be used to implement "time of day" and
"demand" price structuring, increasing the cost of residential electicity.
A lot of "greens" are solidly behind this technology as a way to jack up
prices in an effort to reduce electricity usage (and reduce what they see as
the cause of global warming/climate change).


You mean just like commercial users who have had those options for a
really long time? For example I sometimes work at a facility that has
induction heaters. They can run them during the day for the regular
electric rate or run them off peak at a very reduced rate. So they run
those lines in the evening.

That way it is a win-win. They get cheaper power and the electric
utility doesn't have to increase capacity for peak load that occurs for
a short time since for all practical purposes you can't store electricity.


We actually have a fellow in the current election for electric board
commisioner who is running on that exact platform.

Jon

" wrote:

In other words, the cost of electricity changes during the course
of a day, and smart meters allow utility companies to more
equitably charge individual home owers for the electricity they
use.

"more EQUITABLY"? how is that "more equal",charging different rates
for different times of the day?

Because incremental kWh cost more than those already on line. If the
peaks can be clipped, less capacity is necessary.

Not quite. Consider this:

Household A and Household B both use 1000 Kwh per month. 45% of house
A's usage happens during peak hours (when electricity is more expensive
for the utility to purchase). But 35% of house B's usage happens during
peak hours. But the utility doesn't know this - because both houses
have conventional "dumb" meters that only record total use.

The utility has to come up with a blended (and equal) rate to charge
these customers. Because the meters recorded the same usage, both A and
B will get the same bill at the end of the month. But because house B
shifted some of their usage to lower-cost hours, house A benefits from
this by seeing a slightly lower bill because of the conservation or
life-style efforts performed by household B.

House B can't *fully* realize or *exclusively benefit* from their own
efforts to time-shift their energy usage. Only a smart-meter on both
houses can make that happen. This is how smart meters make electricity
billing more "equitable" between customers.

It's a similar situation in retail commerce. Credit-card use costs
merchants money. So merchants increase prices to cover this cost. When
a customer pays for something in cash, he's unknowingly subsidizing the
merchant's credit-card operating expenses - and credit-card users
realize a small benefit because of this.

Now, all that said, the real question is - what is the possible
magnitude of this imbalance or inequity between house A and house B, and
does it warrant the huge outlay on the part of the utility for new,
expensive meters, network infrastructure and billing systems?

Remember, it's not a question about whether or not house B would benefit
if they used less TOTAL electricity per month compared to house A -
because even using old dumb metering B would see a reduction in their
bill compared to A in that situation.

The real issue is - how large a difference _can_there_be_ in the
peak-use between A and B as expressed as a PERCENTAGE of their total
monthly use, and what does that difference work out to be in terms of
actual dollars and cents.

It turns out that these differences are SMALL when we are talking about
individual residential customers, and do not warrant the huge
infrastructure costs associated with measuring / billing them.

And also consider this: Over time, as more and more customers change
their usage habbits and time-shift their usage, then you have a
situation where the gap narrows and the usage patterns are more equal
between homes, rendering the usefulness of time-of-use metering
practically zero.

Gordon Burditt wrote:

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that
they allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts":

The answer to that depends on how your electricity infrastructure is
constructed on a corporate level.

Some (or many, or most?) utilities just maintain a local distribution
grid and don't actually generate any power themselves - they just
purchase power for re-distribution to their customers.

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough, to be
about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the grid, and (b)
be able to move that spare capacity around so it gets to those that need
it, when they need it.

The free market (such as it is) has resulted in new,
privately-owned/operated plants (mostly powered by natural gas) to be
built and connected to the grid to supply "peak" demand power when and
where needed. And the owners are compensated accordingly by charging
very high rates.

I've never bought into the idea that there wasn't (or wouldn't be)
enough electricity supply to meet demand. At least not in eastern part
of north-america.

Now, perhaps there have been issues with there not being enough wire (or
big-enough wire) to carry this demand, but that's a different story.

I think removing the need to build generating capacity saves them
more.

Regardless who builds new plants: If the premis is that these costs ARE
ALWAYS FULLY RECOUPED during operation (and then result in a profit for
the owner/operator) - then what you just said doesn't make any sense.

On Sun, 27 May 2012 00:37:26 -0500, "NotMe" wrote:




snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee to
the customer bill.

No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.

I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.

Don't know about where you are, but here in Waterloo the 3 meters were
read by 3 meter readers before the smart hydro and remote water meters
were installed. Waterloo North Hydro, Union Gas, and City of Waterloo
for Water.

I believe Kitchener had only one or 2 - as water and gas were both
Kitchener Utilities, while electric was Kitchener Wilmot Hydro

George wrote:

A lot of "greens" are solidly behind this technology as a way to
jack up prices in an effort to reduce electricity usage

You don't need to impliment smart-meters or time-of-use metering to
reduce electricity use.

You just need to increase the cost per kwh (or add a new tax or increase
any existing tax).

You mean just like commercial users who have had those options for a
really long time?

The commercial / industrial electricity market is FAR different in terms
of metering individual customers compared to the residential market.
The scale of use in terms of kwh per month is vastly different.

Individual residental customers do not use enough electricity on a
monthly basis to warrant the costs of new electronic time-of-use smart
meters, nor the associated costs of setting up and running the
communications network nor the new billing systems.

(example of how one company time-shifted their useage)

You're asking for lifestyle changes on the house-hold level to achieve
the same results as in your example.

Do you really think it's realistic to expect that to happen - when the
benefits (in terms of $$$ savings) are measured in pennies-per-day?

wrote:

Don't know about where you are, but here in Waterloo the 3 meters
were read by 3 meter readers before the smart hydro and remote
water meters were installed.

Where I am (a relatively large city near you) we have (or - had) 2 meter
readers.

One for electicity and water, and one for gas. Our electicity and water
are billed on the same bill.

Our water meters were changed last year and now they are read via some
sort of RF/wireless radio link (not quite sure how that works). So now,
nobody comes by to read either the electricity or the water.

I think it was a dumb/stupid idea to do that for water, since we still
have union gas doing manual meter-reading so why not simply combine that
(ie - have the same person read both the gas and water meters).

Now, here's another twist on this issue of remote meter reading:

It's been said that "facility monitoring" is (or was) a BIG part of
having someone come by to read the meters.

In other words, when a human is coming by to read a meter every month,
what they're also accomplishing is making sure that nobody has tampered
with the meter or the hook-up.

So utilities that have switched to smart-meters to reduce manpower costs
still have to deploy people to check on the equipment and hookups from
time to time.

Again, smart meters = false economy.

On 5/27/2012 8:59 AM, Home Guy wrote:
....

I've never bought into the idea that there wasn't (or wouldn't be)
enough electricity supply to meet demand. At least not in eastern part
of north-america.
....

Well, if you force enough large-scale generation (coal-fired baseload
plants) offline at one time owing to onerous regulation it's quite
possible there won't be sufficient time to have alternative generation
online to provide the necessary margins for peak loading.

So much of the recent additions to the grid is non-reliable sourced
(wind/solar) so there's a pretty large risk.

IMO the use of natural gas, while currently plentiful, for
central-station generation is an egregious error in judgment for the
longer term.

--

On 5/27/2012 9:13 AM, Home Guy wrote:
George wrote:

A lot of "greens" are solidly behind this technology as a way to
jack up prices in an effort to reduce electricity usage

You don't need to impliment smart-meters or time-of-use metering to
reduce electricity use.

You just need to increase the cost per kwh (or add a new tax or increase
any existing tax).
....

Sure, and make the US even less competitive. That's a sure-fire winner.

The commercial / industrial electricity market is FAR different in terms
of metering individual customers compared to the residential market.
The scale of use in terms of kwh per month is vastly different.


Made up for in large part by the relative numbers of residential
customers as opposed to commercial.

Individual residental customers do not use enough electricity on a
monthly basis to warrant the costs of new electronic time-of-use smart
meters, nor the associated costs of setting up and running the
communications network nor the new billing systems.
....

Simply nonsense. They're not doing it for the fun of it.

--

dpb wrote:

IMO the use of natural gas, while currently plentiful, for
central-station generation is an egregious error in judgment
for the longer term.

I agree, because natural gas should be used for residential / commercial
heating in the winter - not to generate electricity to run air
conditioners in the summer.

Because when the natural gas runs low (10 years, 50 years from now)
there's going to be a calamity to try to figure out how to keep people
warm in the winter...

dpb wrote:

You don't need to impliment smart-meters or time-of-use metering
to reduce electricity use.

You just need to increase the cost per kwh (or add a new tax or
increase any existing tax).

Sure, and make the US even less competitive. That's a sure-fire
winner.

I didn't say that I agree with any sort of hyper-green agenda to force
people into energy conservation.

What I meant was that if you're hell-bend on doing it (forcing people to
use less) then simply making it more expensive in an up-front manner
(with a tax of some sort) is more logical than incurring the costs
associated with implimenting crazy and expensive new ways to measure
it's time-of-use.

The commercial / industrial electricity market is FAR different in
terms of metering individual customers compared to the residential
market. The scale of use in terms of kwh per month is vastly
different.

Made up for in large part by the relative numbers of residential
customers as opposed to commercial.

No, that does not make up for it.

If I manage a plant, and if I can save $10,000 a month by altering some
aspect of when I use electricity (and it doesn't add other costs
somewhere else) then yes, I say give me a smart meter, and let me
impliment the change and save money - even if the smart meter is going
to cost me an extra $20 a month in some new fee invented by the utility.

If I'm a home owner, and if I time-shift 10% of the 1000 kwh I use per
month to save 5 cents for those 100 kwh, then I'm going to be rewarded
with a savings of $5. After you add the $5 a month extra new fees for
the smart-meter, there's no savings - no reward for time-shifting my use
(or setting my A/C to a higher temperature).

So do the math, and tell me if an individual home-owner is going to turn
off (or turn down) their A/C during the hottest months of the summer -
just to save a lousy $5 a month (the cost of a latte at Starbucks).

Collectively - yes. Residential electricity use is huge. But
residential usage decisions are made on an individual level, and that's
where your reasoning breaks down.

Individual residental customers do not use enough electricity on
a monthly basis to warrant the costs of new electronic time-of-use
smart meters, nor the associated costs of setting up and running
the communications network nor the new billing systems.

Simply nonsense. They're not doing it for the fun of it.

They're doing it because (a) customers will end up paying the entire
cost (meters, network, billing) and (b) the utilities will save on
meter-reading costs.

Customers will end up paying $500 in new costs over the life-span of the
new meter, while the utilities will save $100 in manpower costs.

Why?

Because local utilites are in a monopoly position. There is no
competition when it comes to metering. Home owners can't choose Company
A vs Company B when it comes to the DELIVERY of their electricity.
There is only 1 set of wires going to your home - not 2 or 3.

On Sun, 27 May 2012 12:36:40 -0400, Home Guy wrote:

dpb wrote:

IMO the use of natural gas, while currently plentiful, for
central-station generation is an egregious error in judgment
for the longer term.

I agree, because natural gas should be used for residential / commercial
heating in the winter - not to generate electricity to run air
conditioners in the summer.

Because when the natural gas runs low (10 years, 50 years from now)
there's going to be a calamity to try to figure out how to keep people
warm in the winter...

Right, and oil should be used for transportation. Everyone knows that coal is
a better fuel for electricity!

On 5/27/2012 12:12 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
....

... Everyone knows that coal is
a better fuel for electricity!

And if the C-sequestration people are intent on actually accomplishing
something, nuclear is even better (just to light the fuse ).

Besides heating, NG is extremely valuable as a chemical/fertilizer
feedstock as well.

--

On 5/27/2012 11:56 AM, Home Guy wrote:
....

Customers will end up paying $500 in new costs over the life-span of the
new meter, while the utilities will save $100 in manpower costs.
....

You have the data to prove that contention?

We (local rural electric co-op) are switching and like many others that
have posted here, are _not_ charging a dime to the end user for the
remote-reading meters (even if some have).

Collectively, it will save money for the end user because the collective
demand leveling will show up on the overall grid.

Your focus on an individual doesn't address the larger issue that the
utility has to provide for the peak demand and the peak is controlled by
a very large number of little loads. Getting those spread out by
modifying habits of a sizable fraction of those numbers (and yes, while
you may be one of the intransigent and refuse to change any habits
simply out of obstinacy if for no other reason, many will look to save
that small monthly amount) will wind up allowing for far larger savings
than simply the meter readers by minimizing upgrading of substations,
transmission lines and even generation. If it doesn't eliminate growth
demand, it can at least slow the rate.

--

On Sun, 27 May 2012 13:37:11 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 5/27/2012 12:12 PM, zzzzzzzzzz wrote:
...

... Everyone knows that coal is
a better fuel for electricity!

And if the C-sequestration people are intent on actually accomplishing
something, nuclear is even better (just to light the fuse ).

Besides heating, NG is extremely valuable as a chemical/fertilizer
feedstock as well.

One word: "plastics"

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that
they allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts":

The answer to that depends on how your electricity infrastructure is
constructed on a corporate level.

Some (or many, or most?) utilities just maintain a local distribution
grid and don't actually generate any power themselves - they just
purchase power for re-distribution to their customers.

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough, to be
about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the grid, and (b)
be able to move that spare capacity around so it gets to those that need
it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then. It happened
in Texas during both peak load times in the summer, and in the winter when
the excuse was that some of the plants on standby had some equipment freeze
or fail when they were needed.

If you get a chance, please read the book "1984" by George Orwell. It
explains a bit about the constant shortages, and why the system can't meet
everyone's needs.

Christopher A. Young
Learn more about Jesus
www.lds.org
..

"Gordon Burditt" wrote in message
...
The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough, to be
about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the grid, and (b)
be able to move that spare capacity around so it gets to those that need
it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then. It happened
in Texas during both peak load times in the summer, and in the winter when
the excuse was that some of the plants on standby had some equipment freeze
or fail when they were needed.

Gordon Burditt wrote:

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough
to be about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the
grid, and (b) be able to move that spare capacity around so it
gets to those that need it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then.

You did not quote the following paragraph which was part of the same
post:

--------
Now, perhaps there have been issues with there not being enough wire (or
big-enough wire) to carry this demand, but that's a different story.
--------

It happened in Texas during both peak load times in the summer,
and in the winter

Texas is doing strange things when it comes to power.

There's a town in Texas that has a huge battery building (molten sodium
battery). The battery is charged during off-peak time, and then feeds
power into the town's grid during peak demand. The single power line
supplying power to the town is not large enough to supply the power the
town needs during peak demand, and instead of beefing up the line or
adding a second line, they built this battery at about half the cost.

Where else in the US besides Texas is having rolling blackouts during
the past year or two?

On 5/28/2012 8:55 AM, Home Guy wrote:
Gordon Burditt wrote:

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough
to be about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the
grid, and (b) be able to move that spare capacity around so it
gets to those that need it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then.

You did not quote the following paragraph which was part of the same
post:

--------
Now, perhaps there have been issues with there not being enough wire (or
big-enough wire) to carry this demand, but that's a different story.
--------

It happened in Texas during both peak load times in the summer,
and in the winter

Texas is doing strange things when it comes to power.

There's a town in Texas that has a huge battery building (molten sodium
battery). The battery is charged during off-peak time, and then feeds
power into the town's grid during peak demand. The single power line
supplying power to the town is not large enough to supply the power the
town needs during peak demand, and instead of beefing up the line or
adding a second line, they built this battery at about half the cost.

Where else in the US besides Texas is having rolling blackouts during
the past year or two?

CA? I believe I recall.

TX is also not very well connected to the rest of the US grid so if they
do have a problem they don't have much in the way of interconnects to
make up the difference.

There are always the occasional "gotcha's" -- during the cold streak
spoken of earlier, it was an unusual event and did cause some plants to
either go offline or not be available owing to freezing of lines that
simply weren't designed for the issue as it is such a rare event wasn't
accounted for as a design feature.

Also, sometimes a few plants will be off for either scheduled or
unscheduled outages and so not available and if the external event
happens during one of these times there just may not be enough standby.

One interesting event in TX panhandle about four(?) years ago had to do
w/ the new wind generation becoming a significant fraction of the
mix--the particular utility was taking about 20% from wind during a very
hot period when an unforecasted small wind shift line moved across the
area of the wind farm and winds went from 15-20mph to near zero in a
couple of minutes. The resulting drop in generation was so rapid it
nearly brought the entire region down before they could ramp up enough
generation and shed enough load. They managed to save it, but it was
close...I'll see if I can find the post-mortem report again--I posted it
once but it was shortly after so has been at least a couple of years
since...

--

(Gordon Burditt) wrote in
:

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that
they allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts":

The answer to that depends on how your electricity infrastructure is
constructed on a corporate level.

Some (or many, or most?) utilities just maintain a local distribution
grid and don't actually generate any power themselves - they just
purchase power for re-distribution to their customers.

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough, to
be about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the grid, and
(b) be able to move that spare capacity around so it gets to those
that need it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then. It
happened in Texas during both peak load times in the summer, and in
the winter when the excuse was that some of the plants on standby had
some equipment freeze or fail when they were needed.



not all electric utility area grids are connected to the "national grid",if
there is such a thing.
It's probably more like several areas have their own local grids.
trying to transfer power across the entire US would be wasteful and
inefficient.

--
Jim Yanik
jyanik
at
localnet
dot com

On 5/28/2012 11:30 AM, Jim Yanik wrote:
(Gordon Burditt) wrote in
:

The often-stated case for smart meters (for electricity) is that
they allow for time-of-use billing.

I thought one of the cases for smart meters was that they allowed
the utility to avoid having to build more generating capacity for
peak loads and replace it with "greenouts":

The answer to that depends on how your electricity infrastructure is
constructed on a corporate level.

Some (or many, or most?) utilities just maintain a local distribution
grid and don't actually generate any power themselves - they just
purchase power for re-distribution to their customers.

The north-american power grid is large enough, and diverse enough, to
be about to (a) always have spare capacity somewhere on the grid, and
(b) be able to move that spare capacity around so it gets to those
that need it, when they need it.

Please explain the existence of "rolling blackouts", then. It
happened in Texas during both peak load times in the summer, and in
the winter when the excuse was that some of the plants on standby had
some equipment freeze or fail when they were needed.



not all electric utility area grids are connected to the "national grid",if
there is such a thing.
It's probably more like several areas have their own local grids.
trying to transfer power across the entire US would be wasteful and
inefficient.

Actually pretty efficient if HV DC lines are used. But there is no
national grid. Our supplier was one of the founders of and belongs to
the PJM (originally PA-NJ-MD) interconnect:

http://www.pjm.com/

It now covers 13 states and DC. According to Wikipedia it serves 51
million customers and has 167 GW (GigaWatts) of generating capacity.

On 5/28/2012 10:29 AM, wrote:
....

I think I heard on he history channel that Texas is not on the
national grid at all. They are totally self sufficient. (as well as
that works for them)

That may have been accurate for the time (it was history, right? )
but not entirely free of interconnects now.

Just posting from Wikipedia summary for lack of ambition to actually get
the precise time frame...but it's basically correct.

"In 1962, when the Eastern Interconnection was established in its
current form, The Interconnected Systems Group (composed of Southern and
Midwestern utility companies), the PJM Interconnection, and the
Canada-United States Eastern Interconnection (CANUSE) formed the
Interconnection Coordination Committee to recommend an informal
operations structure, which led to the formation of the North American
Power Systems Interconnection Committee (NAPSIC). NAPSIC eventually grew
to also include the Texas Interconnection and most of the companies in
what is today the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC),
operating within the Western Interconnection."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NERC-map-en.svg

--

"George" wrote in message
...
On 5/27/2012 1:37 AM, NotMe wrote:


snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee
to
the customer bill.


No additional charge here.


No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.


Our gas supplier previously fitted remote readers on the registers of
inside meters. Then maybe 4 years ago they retrofitted all of them. There
is no additional charge. The water utility put remote readers on meters
maybe 5 years ago. No additional charge for that either.


I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.


dig deeper it's there but perhaps not as a line item.

Recall phone company charged and still do for touch tone service when it was
actually cheaper for them to use touch tone than dial pulse.

On 5/28/2012 12:10 PM, NotMe wrote:
....

Recall phone company charged and still do for touch tone service when it was
actually cheaper for them to use touch tone than dial pulse.

Not what I recall--we were still on pulse until SW Bell finally
converted the tie-in to the switches in town (within the last 15 years)
and afaicr the base rate didn't change.

--

On Mon, 28 May 2012 12:10:47 -0500, "NotMe" wrote:


"George" wrote in message
...
On 5/27/2012 1:37 AM, NotMe wrote:


snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee
to
the customer bill.


No additional charge here.


No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.


Our gas supplier previously fitted remote readers on the registers of
inside meters. Then maybe 4 years ago they retrofitted all of them. There
is no additional charge. The water utility put remote readers on meters
maybe 5 years ago. No additional charge for that either.


I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.


dig deeper it's there but perhaps not as a line item.

Recall phone company charged and still do for touch tone service when it was
actually cheaper for them to use touch tone than dial pulse.

In what universe do you live?

On 5/28/2012 10:11 AM, dpb wrote:
....

One interesting event in TX panhandle about four(?) years ago had to do
w/ the new wind generation becoming a significant fraction of the
mix--the particular utility was taking about 20% from wind during a very
hot period when an unforecasted small wind shift line moved across the
area of the wind farm and winds went from 15-20mph to near zero in a
couple of minutes. The resulting drop in generation was so rapid it
nearly brought the entire region down before they could ramp up enough
generation and shed enough load. They managed to save it, but it was
close...I'll see if I can find the post-mortem report again--I posted it
once but it was shortly after so has been at least a couple of years
since...

Here's one of the winter 2011 incident reports; I've not found my link
to the above incident again at the moment...

http://www.nerc.com/files/RISA%20Cold%20Snap%20report%20September%202011.pdf

--

wrote in message
...
On Mon, 28 May 2012 12:10:47 -0500, "NotMe" wrote:


"George" wrote in message
...
On 5/27/2012 1:37 AM, NotMe wrote:


snip

Not if every home does the same thing. It can ammount to several large
power stations not needing to be built.
The REAL unspoken reason for smart meters is that they save manpower
costs (meter-reading costs) for electric utilities.

At the cost of significant investment in technology - so no, I have
to disagree that it is "the REAL" reason. Remote reading could be
added to a standard meter, or "customer read" with quarterly or
by-annual "agent read" to verify honesty can also be used - and have
been in several areas.

Cost of smart meters in this area are an add on, monthly, line item fee
to
the customer bill.


No additional charge here.


No real savings because the other meters (gas and water) are still read
manually.


Our gas supplier previously fitted remote readers on the registers of
inside meters. Then maybe 4 years ago they retrofitted all of them.
There
is no additional charge. The water utility put remote readers on meters
maybe 5 years ago. No additional charge for that either.


I also expect the fee to remain long after the cost of the meter is
recoverd.


dig deeper it's there but perhaps not as a line item.

Recall phone company charged and still do for touch tone service when it
was
actually cheaper for them to use touch tone than dial pulse.

In what universe do you live?

One where they paid me to track/follow various phone company tariffs and
assorted applications including the real world back story of the process.

On Mon, 28 May 2012 12:25:38 -0500, dpb wrote:

On 5/28/2012 12:10 PM, NotMe wrote:
...

Recall phone company charged and still do for touch tone service when it was
actually cheaper for them to use touch tone than dial pulse.

Not what I recall--we were still on pulse until SW Bell finally
converted the tie-in to the switches in town (within the last 15 years)
and afaicr the base rate didn't change.
Up here on Bell Canada we still had a pulse line until last year when
we replaced our last rotary phone. Charge went up when we got touch
tone. They had been a bit miffed for years that we had not changed
up.