Home Improvement → Smart Meters Blamed for Fires

Very good analysis. Thanks for dispelling all the nonsense.

Good `ol GE I-210+ here... Wish there was a way I could monitor the meter the same way the utility does...

One possible reason to oppose the use of these meters is that they create the infrastructure for real-time pricing of electricity, which is not a good deal for everyone. Your privacy may be sold, not only to marketing firms, but to thieves. (o wait) And finally people who live in states with overzealous regulatory bodies may find themselves paying alot more. Then there will be the question of how easily the police can access meter data as a source of circumstantial evidence.

With real time pricing, the price will go up by 5-10x during peak usage hours, and cost substantially less at night. The principle reason is that it takes many hours for coal or oil fired plants to stabilize. These plants have to be ready by the time peak demand occurs, or even have to be fired up just because of a weather forecast, whether it is accurate or not. And so they incur charges even if they dont produce 1 kwh of energy.

The real-time pricing is supposed to economically discipline every one to minimize having to run these plants. This is easier to stomach if you dont work at home or are not retired or dont have kids or elderly to keep cool. But even on weekends, you are going to have to manage your air conditioning/cooking/laundry or you are going to have a big big surprise on your bill.

It is also well-known that energy usage patterns which will now be recorded versus time-of-day are predictors of behavior and demographics which marketing firms would love to buy, either in aggregate or by household.

Coupled with architectural data from the town hall, I suppose DEA will be able to compute a likelihood that you are using electricity for illegal purposes. And will the police be able to gather this data without a warrant?

Again with architectural information, your state agency to declare that you have too much air conditioning. Therefore you need to pay a tax.

Hackers who can get into the databases will to be able to determine when you are home or not and sell the information. Do the utilities intend to protect these records with the same IT protections required by MasterCard and Visa?

All the POCO needs is the total used so they can bill you for it. They already know their loads every second of every day and have computer programs and algorithms to predict demand.

The most efficient plants and generators are base loaded and the least efficient are allowed to float with the load. Not rocket science for the controls engineers.

Not true when time based discounts come into play.

Wayne

"IF AND WHEN" if ever. All of us don't share your enthusiasm for excessive control of every facet of our lives. If customers fight with a united effort it would never come to pass. Only those who roll over and accept anything will allow the company to dictate what the terms are instead of the customer telling the company what they want. There is a big difference.

Time based discounts can only happen here if allowed by our elected representatives. We have the ability to remove any that dare vote for it and so far they are not willing to take the chance.
Right now it would be political suicide for any that do.