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Who pays for power to power "smart meters"?

I would be willing to bet that newer digital meters use less electricity than the old analog ones.
 
mmntech said:
IIRC, we had to fork over $50 to get these stupid things when Ontario mandated them. The everyone's bills went up. Damn Liberals. Didn't do a thing to reduce electricity consumption. Just another cash grab.
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Yeah they make you pay for something that is going to result in higher utility bills.. hah But yeah they're not there to save you money in any shape or form.
 
BoomerD said:
Sadly, I have to agree with flea-dip.

You, the consumer, pays the electrical costs of operating said smart meter...
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No, You're not directly billed for it anyway. The reported usage is always your usage, never the meter's. The metering is separate from the "smarts". If you include rate hikes or fees then, yeah, you do.
 
I have a smart meter, and they've been replacing most of em around town. They're probably done now. My last bill said that from now on they will use a new time based system where power is more expensive at certain times of the day.

If I had the money and was really good at this stuff I would build a 200 amp / 240v UPS with a center tapped xformer that only charges during the cheaper periods of time. :twisted: Then again I'd kinda never make up the cost. 😱
 
RedSquirrel said:
I have a smart meter, and they've been replacing most of em around town. They're probably done now. My last bill said that from now on they will use a new time based system where power is more expensive at certain times of the day.

If I had the money and was really good at this stuff I would build a 200 amp / 240v UPS with a center tapped xformer that only charges during the cheaper periods of time. :twisted: Then again I'd kinda never make up the cost. 😱
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Not to mention the losses you'll incur rectifying the AC input and inverting the DC output...
 
RedSquirrel said:
I have a smart meter, and they've been replacing most of em around town. They're probably done now. My last bill said that from now on they will use a new time based system where power is more expensive at certain times of the day.

If I had the money and was really good at this stuff I would build a 200 amp / 240v UPS with a center tapped xformer that only charges during the cheaper periods of time. :twisted: Then again I'd kinda never make up the cost. 😱
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If you were going to spend money on a 200 amp, 240v UPS with enough storage capacity to power everything in your house during the hours when rates are highest, you'd probably be better off spending that money on solar panels.
 
mugs said:
If you were going to spend money on a 200 amp, 240v UPS with enough storage capacity to power everything in your house during the hours when rates are highest, you'd probably be better off spending that money on solar panels.
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Or on slightly more expensive electricity from the grid, with no additional effort.
 
RedSquirrel said:
I have a smart meter, and they've been replacing most of em around town. They're probably done now. My last bill said that from now on they will use a new time based system where power is more expensive at certain times of the day.

If I had the money and was really good at this stuff I would build a 200 amp / 240v UPS with a center tapped xformer that only charges during the cheaper periods of time. :twisted: Then again I'd kinda never make up the cost. 😱
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Here in Phoenix there are places that do 'thermal storage' to take advantage of cheaper power at night. For large campuses with multiple buildings they'll have a central plant that has large chillers that produce chilled water. They let the chillers run all night and dump all the cold water in massive insulated tanks. Then during the day they don't run the chillers and just use all the cold water for the air conditioning all day. They use a bit more power to do this because of extra pumping and losses through the insulation but the difference in cost for off peak power can be enough for really large users to save some serious money.
 
Bignate603 said:
Here in Phoenix there are places that do 'thermal storage' to take advantage of cheaper power at night. For large campuses with multiple buildings they'll have a central plant that has large chillers that produce chilled water. They let the chillers run all night and dump all the cold water in massive insulated tanks. Then during the day they don't run the chillers and just use all the cold water for the air conditioning all day. They use a bit more power to do this because of extra pumping and losses through the insulation but the difference in cost for off peak power can be enough for really large users to save some serious money.
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That's pretty cool, and makes a lot of sense.
 
So does anyone have any figures for how much power one of these smart meters does in fact use?



And yes, one way or another, the end user is paying for the electricity. I doubt that the executive board of your friendly neighborhood power plant will be holding any bake sales or bikini car washes to offset the costs of running smart meters.
 
Jeff7 said:
So does anyone have any figures for how much power one of these smart meters does in fact use?
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That's a good question. Wikipedia says that electromechanical meters use ~2W.

Even with the limited computing power necessary, Id bet that the smart meters use more than that. Especially with the integrated wireless technology.
 
MrPickins said:
That's a good question. Wikipedia says that electromechanical meters use ~2W.

Even with the limited computing power necessary, Id bet that the smart meters use more than that. Especially with the integrated wireless technology.
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A device we have here at work that probably has a similar complexity and processing power to a smart meter uses a maximum of 125mW (including LCD display). So I would say it's easily possible to be more efficient than the 2W mechanical.
 
Demon-Xanth said:
A device we have here at work that probably has a similar complexity and processing power to a smart meter uses a maximum of 125mW (including LCD display). So I would say it's easily possible to be more efficient than the 2W mechanical.
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Yeah I can't see what probably amounts to a very small microprocessor and an LCD screen use that much power. I know this is simplifying the device to the bare essentials, but those two alone would account for most of the power requirements IMO.
 
Demon-Xanth said:
A device we have here at work that probably has a similar complexity and processing power to a smart meter uses a maximum of 125mW (including LCD display). So I would say it's easily possible to be more efficient than the 2W mechanical.
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I just checked mine (I'm at home today). It's one of these:

http://www.landisgyr.com/na/en/pub/...ducts=products.ProductDetails&ID=232&catID=32

It lists 3W on the actual unit. The pdf only gives voltage burden (which isn't the same thing, if I understand correctly).
 
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