Smart meters..

Author
Discussion

dickymint

24,088 posts

257 months

Monday 9th April 2012
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thinfourth2 said:
dickymint said:
Dangerous business purging a gas line!
No it isn't

A small gas line in the home will have an internal volume of close to feck-all.

So for it to explode you need

1 A method for air to replace 90 to 95% of the gas in the line
2 An ignition source in the line which is unlikely as the pipe is copper and earthed so zero chance of a spark.

And even if it does explode then the internal volume is so small it won't do jack. Even if it does explode while open to the mains the gas main is too rich for the gas to explode.


Before you ask i'm not gas safe qualified so i am not legally allowed to work on the gas boiler in your house however i am qualified to work on gas boilers bigger then your house as i used to be the cargo engineer/2nd engineer on gas tankers
You're forgetting what's in the gas meter itself.........

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuT2atJPpAg

wink

Also most cookers in use at the moment do not have flame shut off devices. If I shut off my gas at the meter the hobs go out - turn gas back on loads of gas quickly building in up in my kitchen. Kabbboooommmmm. wink

I've been Corgi trained (didn't take the final exams though) It's dangerous I tell eee!

Steameh

3,155 posts

209 months

Monday 9th April 2012
quotequote all
thinfourth2 said:
Yeah but you get 20Kw out of it

Combine it with a big battery bank and a heat store and it wouldn't be running 24/7

I'm seriously tempted if they start to get silly with energy supply to go off grid and say fk em

We have enough wind here to install a medium wind turbine, a back-up generator and solar/solid fuel heating
You can get biofuel and woodchip powered CHP plants iirc

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Monday 9th April 2012
quotequote all
dickymint said:
Hope they don't try it with gas. Unless they intend to send the entire population on a Gas Safe course. Dangerous business purging a gas line!
Gas meters will have the same functionality, this happens already with gas prepayment meters, people go off supply all the time and re-instate the supply themselves.

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Monday 9th April 2012
quotequote all
Fish said:
Sorry Dr is right,
No he's not smile

The Smart meter you have installed is almost certainly a non-compliant meter that will be replaced with a fully-compliant meter in due course.

I wouldn't worry too much about all of this at this stage guys, it would be in breach of the law to use them for targeted brownouts. All of the functionality that people are talking about here is needed for a variety of other reasons, for example:-

  • Remote switching to Prepayment mode (saves costs in obtaining warrants to enter and physically change it)
  • Remote top-up of Prepay, saves on having Key and Cards to top up and the infrastructure to support them (you'd be amazed how much it costs to service this system)
  • "Last-Gasp" functionality to help networks identify faults more quickly
  • Credit Limiting - for people who don't want Prepay but who shouldn't be able to run up too much debt to the supplier
  • Anti-tamper functionality (this involves the data logging and transmission of events)
Overall, there are huge benefits to moving towards this technology, and hopefully, we won't need to worry about brownouts now that we're finally starting to move towards nuclear, albeit a little later than we should have. smile

turbobloke

103,734 posts

259 months

Monday 9th April 2012
quotequote all
The Energy Act 2011 was and is framework legislation.

[Stingray]anything can happen in the next half hour[/Stingray]

Dogwatch

6,221 posts

221 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
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anonymous said:
[redacted]
Can't believe that a) the meter now in place is the original 1930's unit b) ditto the house wiring.

Our 'spinner' was routinely replaced in, I think, the 80's by another one and that in turn was last year replaced by something about the size of a letter envelope (but thicker!). When I first saw it among the fitter's tools and bits I thought it was a piece of his test equipment.
However it isn't a smart meter - more of a dumb one which still has to be read either by the meter reader or myself. Of course it could be a smart meter linked to a dumb leccy co who keep sending meter readers and, in between, emails asking for readings.

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Almost no chance of it being a 1930's unit. If you post the first few digits of the serial it will probably be easy to identify how old it is.

An electricity meter has to run within a very narrow percentage margin of error, companies only tend to test meters where a customer queries it's accuracy, of those meters, only a very, very small percentage are found to be faulty. It's highly unlikely that you will see your bills increase following a Smart meter install.

Glade

4,256 posts

222 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
quotequote all
Sure i read in the IMechE magazine that "smartmeters" would allow batteries in electric vehicles to beused for grid balancing.

So if gales are blowing at 0300hrs it tops up all the connected cars, then at peak times if/when the wind drops an army of batteries can be called.on for energy.

Must be years off, and have a lot.of rules... E.g. they could only call on a certain amount.of.power.from each car etc.

Eta: here's the link
http://profeng.com/features/balancing-act

Edited by Glade on Saturday 6th October 23:36


Ahhh its more than smartmeters, but still interesting.

Edited by Glade on Saturday 6th October 23:41

WEHGuy

1,347 posts

172 months

Saturday 6th October 2012
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thinfourth2 said:
Sod it i'll be fitting a nice generator as well as a wind turbine then we can be completely off grid

We are already on our own water and sewage as well as oil fired heating
How much does a set up like that cost? I would love to be self sufficient.

Art0ir

9,401 posts

169 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
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Jasandjules said:
Mind, saying that, there are books out there which claim that the medical profession is one of the most corrupt in the world, I wonder how true that is.
If the huge fines that were slapped on Big Pharma over the past few years regarding paying off Doctors to skew the results on safety and effectiveness of various medicines is anything to go by, I'd say there's some truth there.

Digby

Original Poster:

8,230 posts

245 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
quotequote all
Privacy concerns.

Now including crims being able to tell if you are home or not possibly..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18407340

russ_a

4,568 posts

210 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
quotequote all
The idea being muted at the moment is to pay people to use less at peak times rather than charging more at peak.

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
quotequote all
anonymous said:
[redacted]
Ah, the meter has almost certainly been re-certified since 1969, the longest life meters I've ever heard of had a certifiable life of about 20 years before they need re-testing for accuracy.

The meter in my parents 1998 built home used to be from the 50's. It had obviously been recertified by Meterplus and reused when the estate was built, it didn't quite fit the look of the rest of the installation smile

AJS-

15,366 posts

235 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
quotequote all
Jasandjules said:
After the AGW lies I don't really trust "peer review". Mind, saying that, there are books out there which claim that the medical profession is one of the most corrupt in the world, I wonder how true that is.
Important point this. Peer review is a massively flawed proces, and really proves nothing. I would trust the open review mechanism on Wikipedia over scientific journals using the traditional technique of having 3-4 experts usually selected by the editor intending to publish the study from the same pool as the author.

Blue Oval84

5,276 posts

160 months

Sunday 7th October 2012
quotequote all
Digby said:
Privacy concerns.

Now including crims being able to tell if you are home or not possibly..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-18407340
It's a red herring, all a meter does is transmit a serial number (not an address), and a half-hourly meter reading to a central comms company. The data is meaningless until it is cross-checked against the central database to show which property the meter serial belongs to.

Even if a criminal achieved this, what use is a half hourly reading? How would a criminal know that you didn't just have most of your appliances turned off, or were having a nap? Why go to the trouble of cracking the encrypted signal and then gaining access to a secure database when it's far easier just to knock on the door to see if someone is home? If someone answers the door then make an excuse and leave, they've been doing this for years already.

Most of the anti-smart meter stories emanate from the US based primarily around the concern that the radio signals can irradiate you, a lot of the other arguments are just used to add weight to the anti-smart meter lobby.

furtive

4,498 posts

278 months

Wednesday 17th October 2012
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XDA said:
I save money as my fuel bills are no longer estimated but use the actual meter readings.
How does that save you money? Your net fuel use hasn't changed just because the method of reading your meter has changed.

XDA

2,141 posts

184 months

Wednesday 17th October 2012
quotequote all
furtive said:
XDA said:
I save money as my fuel bills are no longer estimated but use the actual meter readings.
How does that save you money? Your net fuel use hasn't changed just because the method of reading your meter has changed.
I'm only paying for what I actually use down to the exact number of units, opposed to paying an estimated bill?

jurbie

2,339 posts

200 months

Wednesday 17th October 2012
quotequote all
XDA said:
I'm only paying for what I actually use down to the exact number of units, opposed to paying an estimated bill?
If it's so important to you to pay the exact amount what was stopping you from taking 5 minutes to read your own meters and send the readings via phone/text/online? I do this and have done for years and it's not a particulary onerous task and I certainly don't consider it a way of saving money. Common sense surely?

XDA

2,141 posts

184 months

Wednesday 17th October 2012
quotequote all
jurbie said:
XDA said:
I'm only paying for what I actually use down to the exact number of units, opposed to paying an estimated bill?
If it's so important to you to pay the exact amount what was stopping you from taking 5 minutes to read your own meters and send the readings via phone/text/online? I do this and have done for years and it's not a particulary onerous task and I certainly don't consider it a way of saving money. Common sense surely?
I couldn't be bothered and because they used to send someone around to check the meters?

Makes little difference now as all my meter readings are automatically transmitted direct to my energy supplier.

furtive

4,498 posts

278 months

Thursday 18th October 2012
quotequote all
XDA said:
I'm only paying for what I actually use down to the exact number of units, opposed to paying an estimated bill?
But ultimately you will be paying the same. Ergo, you aren't actually saving any money.