smart meters

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
It is not like we have a choice. The power company is replacing old meters and eliminating meter reader jobs.
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
I hear Greece is hurting for jobs more than most, and most are hurting.

I'm hoping it will get better for everyone soon.
 
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Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
It is not like we have a choice. The power company is replacing old meters and eliminating meter reader jobs.
I was comically entertaining the idea of constructing a faraday cage around my meter and see what happens. I wonder if they would come out and investigate it or what. My guess is that they would try to accuse me of tampering with it, to which I would reply "I didn't tamper with it; heck, I never even touched the thing!". They really wouldn't be able to argue that.
 

Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
You really like to tamper with fire all the time, don't you? Aren't you convinced by now that if a well paid lawyer decides to take your life from you, you don't get to say anything about it?

But by all means, I don't mean to prevent you from going all Permit A 38 against your provider. Just remember that being a hero ain't easy at all.

Truth be told, it's once again a time where heroes are needed.
 

Markd77

Joined Sep 7, 2009
2,806
I'm doing my bit to save the meter readers jobs. Every month I ignore the email I get asking me to read my meter and send them the reading. I wouldn't even get a discount if I did it.
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,707
I think the message in the video has gone way past the point of paranoia. They can tell if I am using my electric toothbrush? Get real. If you want to stop invasion of privacy then you have to stop using credit cards, air miles, Facebook, Google and all of the internet. Just about every piece of your identity is already online, like it or not.
 

praondevou

Joined Jul 9, 2011
2,942
Apart from the people who do the reading and loose their jobs, what else is the disadvantage of having this device at home? (That's bad enough, I know)
Also, as far as I remember the smart meters they want to install here are not even manufactured here, so they couldn't say it has benefits for local economy.

But I don't see why it would be called "spying" if the power company monitors individual electric energy consumption.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
You really like to tamper with fire all the time, don't you?
Yes, but strange you would pick up on that. Have I left an easy-to-follow trail of evidence that leads to the conclusion that I am an "against the grain" type of guy?

Apart from the people who do the reading and loose their jobs, what else is the disadvantage of having this device at home? (That's bad enough, I know)
Also, as far as I remember the smart meters they want to install here are not even manufactured here, so they couldn't say it has benefits for local economy.

But I don't see why it would be called "spying" if the power company monitors individual electric energy consumption.
So far it's been an advantage to me. They send me weekly emails that tell me how inefficient I am, and I can log in each day and see what a worse steward of electricity I am than my neighbors:


So far it's all good, but next year when I start up my indoor pot farm and my black market weapons trading website server, it might pose a problem. :p
 

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Georacer

Joined Nov 25, 2009
5,182
strantor said:
Have I left an easy-to-follow trail of evidence that leads to the conclusion that I am an "against the grain" type of guy?
No, but maybe as the guy that won't think twice about the consequences of his actions. I could think of at least three possible bad outcomes of you posting your personal adventures with cars and your electrical bill and so on...

But that's also me getting paranoid, pessimistic and possibly not socially integrable (is the word used correctly?). Meh, each one has his way of thinking things...
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,707
We've had a smart meter for about two years now. I do not receive emails but I can go to a website and look back at our power consumption by the hour, day, week, month etc. I can tell when someone has used the clothes dryer when they're not supposed to. Since we now have time of day billing and shifted our heavy power usage to the evenings and weekends our electricity consumption and bills have gone down. And that was the original intent of the smart metering program.
 

Thread Starter

strantor

Joined Oct 3, 2010
6,782
I'm not a bad neighbor. My neighbor growing up threw heroin syringes over the fence. that was a bad neighbor.
 

MrChips

Joined Oct 2, 2009
30,707
Looking at your typical week in late October I would say you are above average at about 38kWh per day and paying about $0.14 per kWh. I can also see your A/C bill jumps in the summer, being in Texas.

Our energy consumption has gone down from about 35kWh to 25kWh since cutting back and we average about $0.12 per kWh. With smart metering we can easily spot the days that we did not do so well.

Here is a typical day for us. It shows the baseline, waking up and coming home for supper.
Charges are:
Green = Off-peak = $0.059 per kWh
Orange = Mid-peak = $0.089
Red = On-peak = $0.107

 
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