Victorias mandatory rollout of the "smart" electricity meter

[Fibrofeend]

I am in agreement with most said on this thread.

I think it is indicitive of where society has been headed since 9/11

There is this air of paranoia and every one wants to know everything about everyone.

 

I am not up to date on other states electricity supply set ups, but VIC has the SUPPLY company that

does the readings and manages lines and poles and supply. They take your readings and send it to the

retailer who doesnt care about how much you use as long as you pay for it.

 

Most of the news articles i have read/seen regarding hydro growers being caught out on power usage is because they were stealing power.

It usually takes the supply company a while to narrow down the area where the power is going missing. ie: the metres read

are not matching up to the supply demand.

They then have to find the fault/hot connection, then they report to police, who then have cause to get warrant and search.

 

So if you are running a 400w to 1000w light and paying for you elec, yes the companies computers will have detailed accounts of when and how much you use.

But as long as the supply company can match the usage that they read, with supply demand, it shouldnt be much of a problem.

They would be forever reporting to police about people drawing certain amounts of power at certain times.

Even then the cops would only have cause to get a warrant if you had been caught for growing before.

You could just be growing your own veges, or flowers for all they know...?

Or heating a spa or pool ect......

[Al B. Fuct]

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

 

You can forget about improvements to CFL- it already does what it's supposed to rather well, that being producing low-intensity light efficiently. I can safely say that no fluoro light will ever be suitable for flowering.

 

As regards LEDs, there's a limit to the substrate and junction temperatures and heat dissipation based on the physical size of the devices. LEDs are also unlikely to ever to be made to produce intensity suitable for flowering.

 

HPS is the most efficient source of high-intensity light and in all likelihood will remain so for decades to come.

 

Most of the news articles i have read/seen regarding hydro growers being caught out on power usage is because they were stealing power.

It usually takes the supply company a while to narrow down the area where the power is going missing. ie: the metres read

are not matching up to the supply demand.

 

Power theft is usually detected after the grow is found out through other means (anon tipoffs from former spouses/dissatisfied ex-grow partners are the most common). Power theft is never smart but the smarter power thieves generally only connect the grow lighting upstream from the meter instead of jumpering it out entirely, meaning there's some (household) power use being metered.

 

What you & I consider to be a huge amount of power consumption (even 10-15kW) can (and usually does) blend into error 'background noise' when you're dealing with measuring megawatts, as you do at the substation level, with hundreds to thousands of subscribers served by each substation. Power theft thus isn't usually the primary cause of attracting a technical audit. The exception is grows in residences where the meter is fully bridged out, so no power, not even mundane household consumption, is being run through the meter. The pwr co billing dept will note lack of activity on an acct and send a techo to replace the meter. When Joe Techo replaces the meter and it does not spin, the jig is up.

Edited July 27, 2009 by Al B. Fuct

[nouseforaname]

hey,

Got one of the meters.... wait n see how long till me door is smashed down

[Innocent criminal]

Another thought, to hide the 12/12 power demand of a bloom room, run two rooms off one set of ballasts with the globes on a flipflop, that way the ballasts are on 24/7 so no power spikes (maybe a small one while igniting cold bulbs, but the 30min resolution on their meters shouldnt show that).

Hiding an 18/6 veg room would be harder, maybe just veg under 24/7?

Of course this I am only thinking grows using a few kw, bigger grow opps would be harder to hide but they already have to deal with that problem, so not lot will change.

 

[flatcat_auz]

Surely power usage even high would not be reasonable ground for a search warrant. I like to think it requires more evidence than that.

[Wrangler556]

They need "grounds for reasonable suspicion", bout doubt a high power usage is enough for a warrant alone, but it may lead to them having a closer look at your place...

[Innocent criminal]

They need "grounds for reasonable suspicion", bout doubt a high power usage is enough for a warrant alone, but it may lead to them having a closer look at your place...

 

High power usage alone they cant really use but what we are talking about is tracking usage spikes, if they can show that you have 2000w running 12 hrs a day, every day, then that may be a different deal hopefully it doesnt come to that (still only a planned rollout, if proved uneconomical it will be ditched like so many other govt initiatives). The jury is still out on whether or not it will lead to lower power usage, although the power companies will probably go ahead with it just for the cost savings from remote meter reading.

[Al B. Fuct]

Surely power usage even high would not be reasonable ground for a search warrant. I like to think it requires more evidence than that.

 

You're quite right, high consumption alone does not constitute 'reasonable suspicion' of indoor cannabis cultivation. For now. This may change when smart meters are widely implemented, since they can reveal much more detail than a quarterly reading of a cumulative kWh usage meter.

 

However, when police have other 'evidence of drug activity' at a premises, they can apply for a warrant for the power use records to support an application for a general search warrant.

[Wrangler556]

Maybe we'll get lucky and they'll legalise the damn stuff before they roll out this techonology, then we can use as much power as we want.... ah... one can dream...

[Al B. Fuct]

If we get legalisation, a lot of growers will go back to outdoor cropping.

 

I love my veggie patch up the back, but if we get legalisation, I'll be buying tomatoes at the market 'cos my patch will be packed.