With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone’s watching and hit them with targeted advertising

Bastards !

I want adverts for totally random things that I’m almost certainly not interested in !

I’ll fight to my last breath to avoid advertising being tailored to things I might actually be interested in.

I’m always getting adverts for penis extensions, male pattern baldness and extended credit.

Those guys are really good with their target market.

Are they the same meters throughout the country, with the same security coding? In a few years, will billy burglar be able to drive around town looking for data that shows a house to be uninhabited this weekend?

It seems in the same area as the naughty people who’ve spoofed the prepayment cards for leccy meters. The ones used across the whole country.

Which covers them pretty well. The rollout cost will be £11 Bn nationally for something that won’t, in itsef save any energy. I know what the appliances in my house use.

http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/smart-meters-and-energy-monitors-explained/what-is-a-smart-meter/

No more estimated readings? I already e-mail my readings to them.

Saving money by no meter readings? I’m already on a cheaper tarrif because it’s done by e-mail and online.

Ofcom think the average household will save about £23 per year. With an average annual leccy bill of around £1000 that £23 is pretty trivial. Worth spending £11 Bn? I don’t think so.

Smoothing out peaks and troughs in demand? The bigger problem in the future will be peaks and troughs in generation as a larger and larger percentage of capacity comes from unpredictable wind.

To clarify changing supplier, BG offered to install a smart meter. We had it for about 6 months then changed supplier. The SM still works with our new supplier for us monitoring, but we have to manually provide meter readings to our new supplier, no harm done.

£11bn is about 5 grand per household. So either £11bn is twaddle or someone is getting fleeced.

Smoothing out peaks and troughs in demand? The bigger problem in the future will be peaks and troughs in generation as a larger and larger percentage of capacity comes from unpredictable wind.

Partly right but partly the “unpredictable” wind can give lots of cheap energy to the grid if there is capacity to use it, I know of some people bringing to market smart infrastructure devices that allow for things like chillers, ice makers, freezers, heating to be ramped up when there is an amount of excess generation (Sunny and Windy) and therefore take advantage of lower spot prices. Couple that with the traditional behaviour of using energy during low demand times (as the traditional fixed infrastructure generators demand with their slow response times and the inability to shut down for short periods of time)

Also when defining the balance of power consumption in the future it would be really good to know what the current usage patterns are, if smart readers can deliver that information then maybe we could use science and evidence to determine the power needs rather than guess work and assumptions.

As for the link to the no to smart meters invading your brains with their thought wave controlling BS and those who think it’s possible to tell what your watching from the background of all the other electrical activity in the house (if your fridge comes on while your watching Eastenders does it make it look like you were watching Playboy?) and targeting the ads more than – look he is watching the channel with the programme on lets give him the ads we give people who watch this program (like we have done for the lifetime of commercial TV)

This bothers me a lot.

why?

Partly right but partly the “unpredictable” wind can give lots of cheap energy to the grid if there is capacity to use it,

But wind isn’t cheap.

Parasitic wind killing its host

Also when defining the balance of power consumption in the future it would be really good to know what the current usage patterns are,

We know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced? Have a look at gridwatch for daily, weekly, and annual usage patterns.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Assuming the numbers in the pictogram are costs whats the basing? I assume it’s current pricing for renewable and Coal/Gas. Is it a full lifetime cost for wind generation? (some units might be nice) All that requires is a doubling of Coal & Gas prices for wind to become the cost effective solution. As it’s a finite resource that will happen. Couple in stricter emissions trading and/or formal carbon pricing and coal/gas will get more expensive.
Based on experience here in Oz there are currently times where due to the variability in wind turbines are shut down as there is no demand for wind, there are people working with tech that allows larger users to pick up on that excess in supply and ramp up equipment to use the energy that would not be produced otherwise, that is being sold wholesale very cheaply.

Then factor in replacing the current stock of power stations, would you really invest in new coal fired at this point knowing coal prices will go up, carbon pricing will go up, emissions targets will fall? Moving from a carbon based burn it economy is going to happen.

We do know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced?

How does the grid watch differentiate between domestic and industry? Identify local trends? Being able to work with the data from the Grid side and the home user side would then give a greater depth of understanding, throw in correlations against local weather events etc. and the forecasting could get better. Better forecasting = less short term energy buying which is the really expensive bit.

Estimating usage is nigh on impossible because there’s so many variables. because power sources are so slow to start, even the fast ones, it’s much easier to balance the grid by spinning stuff down, not up. That’s why companies like Open Energi are doing very well. They approach big electricity users and then reach an agreement where they can spin down big energy drains when the grid looks like it’s struggling. The changes happen in seconds rather than hours and currently at least, reduces drain enough to cope with peaks.

We know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced? Have a look at gridwatch for daily, weekly, and annual usage patterns.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

A lot less diurnal variation than I expected.

Thought the OP said ‘power meter’ then and wondered why anybody would let British Gas install a power meter on their bike

@konabunny

because just like I ‘insist’ on using the train in peak hours and ‘insist’ on going away in the school holidays, as a family man in the SE of England with young children I will be using power in peak times to frivolously cook, bath my children and wash their clothes etc

Handing the power companies a license to print money to set up variable pricing where I will be the loser doesn’t thrill me too much.

Ok Winston, you choose to use power at the most expensive time and refuse to adjust your behavior to reduce cost. Get you, soon you will have a smart meter and then you might have to think about things.
Some simple stuff..

Hot water tank with good insulation and a timer heater to heat water off peak or even solar hot water. (should work fine in the SE)
Washing machine with timer that they all come with these days, load in the morning empty when you come home
Cooking? Not that much of a use is it?

Professor Ross Anderson has written some good stuff on the security economics of smart meters and the possible unintended consequences.

As far as I’m concerned, as long as vital public utilities such as power companies are in the hands of private organisations and being run for profit rather than the general good then there’s only one motive driving the installation of these meters, and it’s not environmental concerns.

Loving this, paranoid that someone in a van might know you’re a sadact that watches Eastenders but still happy for your ISP to log your w*nk bank.

As explained it’s a tool to even out grid consumption, it’s actually a very good thing and if people are serious about climate change, efficiency or whatever then they should be embracing them.

Notice nobody commented on the fact that in the table nuclear is the second cheapest option. Anyone know what type of thermal generation REALLY relies on a stable base load? Anyone?

Flaperon – Member
How could a smart meter know what TV channel you’re watching?

@Jambo – Don’t have a Sky box. Problem solved.

I can see the upside of this anyway. You know when someone asks you whether you saw such-and-such a TV program the other week, and you think you did, but you can’t quite remember? Just ‘phone up the leccy company and they’ll tell you.

As for meter surveillance being a problem only if it’s in the hands of private, for-profit firms, phhhtt…