Victorias mandatory rollout of the "smart" electricity meter

[smokinjoe]

Hooray,

 

I knew living in a backward piss ant state like Qld has it's benefits.

[Budman2012]

Nicely done Thread , very informative

 

Agree with most of what has been said so far ... but after reading all that , I think Chuffer is right in that it may not become as bad as It sounds

Correct me If I'm wrong but do the articles not suggest that some of these applications will be a voluntary option? (specifically the shutting down of electrical equipment) ... Not mandatory.

This would still make sense in that there would be a good profit to be made from the "concerned environmentalists" among us (that haven't been bothered to embrace Solar etc) ...

Already these days there are a great many people who use all sorts of methods to decrease their electricity usage and other "Carbon Footprint" like activity ... often on a very miniscule scale ... whilst all the while ... Massive Corporations and Industry use more and more and more along with the rest of the consumerers who simply "don't care".

 

This could also be seen as a measure undertaken by the "Power" companies to combat the ensuing Solar Power Technology growth and the growth of other alternative alternatives ... offering "energy" saving and Cost saving in one neat package ... over Solar Powers commonly perceived expense over efficiancy.

 

As for the ridiculous amount of $money$ going into this "scheme" ... this is what should anger the most imo , ffs there are people with no place to live and no food to cook , let alone have electricity connected

Aside from that ... "They" like to say that this will somehow decrease Energy Consumption and Emissions (although studies show the opposite is possible) without factoring in the other "costs" affecting such a grand ploy .. manufacturing and the resulting Emissions associated are just one example

 

Such a waste of Time , Money , Resources and Intelligent Mind ... all of which could (and should) be put to better use ...

And for WHAT!? benefit of what or who and how!?!?!?

Can the people vote on it?

 

Oh yah ........................ Democracy!

 

Budman

[Martvic]

What scares me about this is, if they see the 1000W spike everyday at the same time for 18 hours on, then it changes to 12/12 do they take a look just to see what is happening at a particular residence? It seems they can get household info like never before.

[luciddreaming]

I agree Martvic and yeilds - Nothing is EVER 100% tamper proof.

For instance, and I have no idea how to go about this btw, but it's just an idea. You could make a device that you would attach to the 'smart' meter and it would replace the readings coming from your house to the meter with fake reading from the device, which would then be sent to the 'headquarters' or whatever they have to check all this shit.

Also I agree with Budman that industry is jsut using as much electricity as ever. And we have these useless carbon tickets or whatever coming in.... wtf is that? It's so WE can pay more while Krudd pays the massive polluters to pollute! If you want a good and easy way to stop polluting put a tax on every tonne of greenhouse gas they emit! Simple, easy and effective!

Mind you we are the ones buying this shit the industry produces but it's quite hard to avoid that if you wanna live here.

Edited July 3, 2009 by luciddreaming

[Al B. Fuct]

I think it sounds worse that it really will be - annoying yes but not a serious problem. That someone draws an extra couple of amps at 7pm may mean that they've put the tv on to watch the news, but they might as well be watching cartoons on another channel, or the fridge and freezer just tripping together, or a few more lights on - its all just noise. Experts may make claims about how much useful information they can extrapolate from such data, but remember its 'experts' that tell us all sorts of stuff, they're just full of it.

 

I disagree, this is a very serious problem for growers. With a 30 minute resolution, it'd be absolute child's play to datamine usage records to see what accounts have big steady loads popping on for exactly 12h/day. The only common household devices which draw power at grow lighting levels are aircon/reverse cycle heaters and electric resistance heat, but those do not turn on and stay on for exactly 12h, every single day. A big, steady load for exactly 12h/day could even be deemed 'reasonable suspicion.'

 

Someone with a better legal mind than mine should get a look at Aus privacy legislation and see if it is fine enough to apply to elec usage records of this level of detail. Since such a capability is new, the laws might need a bit of tightening up from a civil liberties perspective.

[Innocent criminal]

I disagree, this is a very serious problem for growers. With a 30 minute resolution, it'd be absolute child's play to datamine usage records to see what accounts have big steady loads popping on for exactly 12h/day. The only common household devices which draw power at grow lighting levels are aircon/reverse cycle heaters and electric resistance heat, but those do not turn on and stay on for exactly 12h, every single day. A big, steady load for exactly 12h/day could even be deemed 'reasonable suspicion.'

 

Someone with a better legal mind than mine should get a look at Aus privacy legislation and see if it is fine enough to apply to elec usage records of this level of detail. Since such a capability is new, the laws might need a bit of tightening up from a civil liberties perspective.

 

Interesting point on the privacy issues here Al, although I dont think we have much chance of anything positive happening in that department.

As you say, it will be a piece of piss for them to pick up any growroom of decent size (a single 400 would get by them if run during the day so other appliances break up the usage rate).

I wonder how many solar batteries you would need to run 1200w for 12hr? (given a decent sine wave inverter ect...) could you trickle charge them off the mains 24/7 to hide the usage peaks?

Edited July 26, 2009 by TheHeadCing

[CannabisMan]

im with jack green natural energy i dont use coal i wonder how it will effect us

http://www.jackgreen.com.au/site/

Edited July 26, 2009 by LawnMowerMan

[Al B. Fuct]

Interesting point on the privacy issues here Al, although I dont think we have much chance of anything positive happening in that department.

 

It'd be worth an inquiry to the NSW Council on Civil Liberties.

 

I wonder how many solar batteries you would need to run 1200w for 12hr? (given a decent sine wave inverter ect...) could you trickle charge them off the mains 24/7 to hide the usage peaks?

 

While running from batteries would be a successful dodge, you'd need a seriously big-assed battery stack (read: expensive and fixed life, replace them every few years) and an inverter capable of dealing with the startup current of the lighting. If recharging the stack from mains, bear in mind the inefficiencies of storing electric power in batteries and that of the charging system. All it sounds like to me is mo money and mo money...

 

In terms of how much battery you'd need, I'd bet that you'd find photovoltaic solar equipment sellers' websites would give a clue if you applied a bit of Google-fu.

 

It's all bad news, however you look at it.

[Al B. Fuct]

This topic merits a bit of further comment.

 

With regard to charging batteries, I'd hazard an educated guess that only about 60-70% of the kWh a charger shoves into a battery can be recovered by discharging the battery into an inverter. The charger itself will lose 10-20% of the power it takes from mains through converting the 240VAC mains to the DC voltage of the batt stack. Inverters would be of similar (in)efficiency, losing about 10-20% of the input power through the conversion back to 240VAC. In a worst case, presuming 20% loss in charger, 40% loss in batteries and 20% loss in the inverter, if you want 1000W out of the inverter, it will require 2016W mains input to the charger. AC power consumption is thus instantly doubled.

 

In terms of masking the power usage profile, you're suddenly doubling the power draw, but the load would not be steady. The battery stack will initially pull current at a very high rate and taper off as the batteries approach full charge. It won't be as easy to datamine, but it's still doable.

 

I tend to agree that mandatory 'smart' meters will probably cause more growers to risk pre-meter connections, which would have to be wired while hot.

 

Nothing like harm reduction. *sigh*

[Rocker]

At least for small growers using a 600W HPS it is quite easy to break up usage patterns.

 

These smart meters are going to spread like a disease right around Australia. They are being trialed in QLD now.

 

Hopefully techology will greatly improve CFL's and LED sooner rather that later.