DougRoss- “Smart meters” aren’t about saving power; they’re about government control. Witness the latest from Johannesburg, South Africa where authorities are pleading with residents “not to panic” when power is shut off to households that are consuming more than their fair share of electricity.
Load Limiting is a technology that enables City Power to accurately identify and ascertain household consumption in real time in relation to the available generating capacity.
I’m agreeing with the first person that responded (on the linked site). Much ado about nothing.
We have a “smart meter” and the best thing about it is they don’t have to come into the yard though the gate to read the meter.
We don’t have any “smart appliances” that they could control.
Now it the thing was made by Apple, I’d really be complaining.
You have a shoice for now. But smart meters are such a good idea that you won’t have a choice in the near future, so don’t sweat it. It will just be a part of the new normal that we all get used to. Military bases installed these in family housing decades ago. They would absolutely shut off air conditioning in the hottest part of the summer to help conserve energy. Sine the power companies own every meter, there is no reason why they need your cooperation to install the new ones.
I like to remember the Chicken Little story and look up once in a while, but I do not live in fear of the sky falling except during hurricane season. Doug Ross is interesting reading but I’ll take his notions with a shaker full of salt.
I recall reading an article about smart meters causing cancer because of the strong RF signal it emits.. It makes me laugh and shrug my shoulders.
AMR meters track and record you usage by the second. This data is turned over to local law enforcement when it becomes obvious of a pattern related to a certain indoor gardening hobby.
Just so you know. Pay your bill on time always and maybe they wont rat you out for being a good customer. 🙂
My friend who has orthorexia refuses to have a smart meter installed on her home. She claims it causes cancer of the brain and sends unwanted radio waves around her house. She’s not only a power hog, she’s a water hog as well. She’s got the greenest grass on the street and the wettest driveway around. So here we are, 100 degrees today and her air conditioner is running full blast and her grass is green. Sigh…..
Paranoia can destroy ya.
; )
LED systems are the way to go, just for the “increased power consumption” issue. ; )
So? You get no sympathy from me. It is her electricity that she buys with her own money. It is her water that she buys with her own money. The power company and water company establish those prices as reasonable. She agrees and buys them. It is called “commerce”. I wouldn’t care if she were running her AC and heater at the same time and using her garden hose to wash the storm drains.
Yeah, they emit an rf signal, unlike my 1000 watt ham radio station. Ha.
Agree with you 100%, Mr. “Backwoods Engineer” pretty much sums it all up. If you agree to power cuts, expect it to happen when it’s really really hot. If you opt out, expect to pay more for your kilowatt hours during those same periods. It’s coming.
Demand resource (“DR”) is a lucrative financial power market in the PJM interconnection. In times of high electric demand, customers who entered the DR market are required to reduce their power consumption by ‘X’ KW. If a factory can suspend enough equipment to reduce their consumption by one megawatt, the net result on the grid is exactly like adding another megawatt of generation. The DR payments across a year make it worthwhile to participate, but the penalties are also large should you fail to attain your contracted power cut.
I’ve watched the result of DR on PJM’s load curve on hot days. It’s amazing to see a skyrocketing system load curve slow, then level out, once DR is called into play. This information is publically available.
Once smart meters are in widespread service, I expect to see similar DR agreements for residential customers.
Just don’t subscribe for service in Johannesburg!
We still have “old-fashioned” electric meters that the power company reads from the street. I don’t need or want the power company/water company/gas company arbitrarily shutting down my utilities because of high demand. There’s absolutely no reason for it.
“Overload” is only caused by Obama and the Watermelon Communists limiting power-plant capacity, trying to regulate CO2 in their naked bid for control over the citizenry. Power companies would be more than happy to accommodate demand by building more infrastructure and nuke plants but the commies in DC won’t let them.
We live in the USA, not some Third World hell hole. We wrote the book on civilization and I’m getting tired of those telling me I have to take my medicine and live like someone in sub-Sahara Africa because my “betters” want to get even with the rabble! Screw them!
I’d wager a paycheck that the writer of that article uses a cell phone, too.
I have solar panels and have a contract for 15 cents per kilowatt hour. And if I had A/C, I would run it on hot days and there’s not a damn thing the gov’t can do because even with the A/C on, I would still be putting more power ONTO the grid than I use.
I’m paranoid with an inferiority complex.
I think the people who are out to get me have lost interest.
$150/MW!? That’s a helluva good contract. I’d love to see your storage/inverter/sync setup.
In a free market, suppliers would be delighted for you to purchase just as much of their product as you liked; the more the better for them.
The reason that there is any call for reducing demand is that electricity is supplied by utilities that are not free to act in ways that in any other industry are standard, accepted business practices. In other words, govt has totally fscked it up.
you sure you’re just not jealous of your ‘friend’ goldenshower?
Isn’t that her perfect right, to keep her house the temp she likes and her landscaping green? In return she supports both utility co’s by paying her bill each month.
Or was that sarcasm? If so, we agree.
Correct, Al. The electric industry is the only US enterprise that is required by law to spend money to get their customers to use less of their product.
Now that’s FUNNY.
🙂
An attempt was made not that long ago to require homes being sold to have all appliances upgraded, won’t be long until everyone is on the grid.
Testify!
The whole point of monopolies and cartels guaranteed by the gov’t is so the gov’t can control the monopolists and cartels.
Perfect paranoia is absolute awareness.
Nope, I just hate seeing water wasted and running down the street when we’re told to conserve. Besides, she’s a liberal and feels entitled. I laugh when she complains that her electricity bill runs her $850 a month. I’m jealous of that? Seriously?
She does keep her house the temperature she likes, she just doesn’t want one of those evil cancer causing meters put on her house. She loves getting those $850/mth power bills. I just laugh!
P.S. She’s paying my husbands pension. Cha Ching!
When I lived in Europe, power and water was shut off once or sometimes twice a day. You didn’t get to know when, why, or for how long. Because as a paying customer, it’s really none of your business.
PG&E charges 13 cents per KWh as their heavily subsidized base tier. Those tiers go all the way to 35 cents per KWh. My solar contract is locked in at 15 cents. Go here to read about it.
Or you can leave CA and pay around 10 cents/kwh (+ or -) for all the electricity you care to consume.
BTW, your system only works because of the subsidized (by other CA rate payers) feed in tariff that the owners of your solar panels collect in addition to the highly subsidized panels and installation. The unsubsidized feed in tariff of excess electricity is essentially zero since most power companies can buy power at 3-4 cents/kwh wholesale.
Above replay was for Stranded in Sonoma.
We opted, “out.” Have a generator and the house/well wired and; if it gets worse, we have a hand pump into the well that will draw from 300ft. F’these controlling basteroids.
Who doesn’t like to rub entitled
liberalssocialist, fascist and communists’ noses in their own hypocrisy? Say, have you heard about Barbara Streisand’s $20,000 water bill?Thanks, Stranded. Great write-up.