Happening now and I never even realised

Well this is sort of true but has been greatly sensationalised.

UK Business and Industry has long been charged and metered on a per hour basis to reflect the costs of electricity generation at peak times. You'd be shocked at how much difference there is at peak times to off-peak for some companies. There are a number of domestic pricing tariffs, giving 2 or 3 rate pricing structures across a day to also encourage off-peak usage and even out demand for energy across the day.

Bringing power stations online and then taking them offline costs lots of money and also adds much higher risks to the security of the national electricity supply (as well as ultimately the cost to the consumer). There have been a number of occasions when the nation has come close to maximum capacity down the years.

Smart meters will allow a much more accurate picture to be taken of when and where energy is consumed. This will allow more "flexible" tariff structures in the future. It will benefit some and not others. We may well find ourselves having to pay 50p a Kwh unit between 5pm and 7pm but only 5p after 11pm until 6am.

The looming problem is that the number of UK power stations that have already closed or are due to be decommissioned in the very near future. This is constantly reducing the spare capacity in the system and things will become much more problematic until new power stations are built. Suppliers are also having to source gas from abroad, as the North Sea reserves deplete, in a world where the thirst for energy is growing and growing. All those wind turbines are never going to replace the capacity we've already lost and are due to lose.

The political decision to sell off the power industry and then allow them all to fall into foreign hands simply stored a problem up for the future. The future we have now reached and where energy prices are sky rocketing and the capacity to supply it is less than it was a decade ago.

Prices are even higher in most of Europe, even though that's no consolation.



Source: BBC Nov 2013

Finally the meters belong to your local distribution company and if you check the terms and conditions of your supply contract you will probably find they can legally enforce you take whatever equipment they deem fit to measure your energy consumption. Unless of course it could be proven to be dangerous to health and safety. Nothing has changed much there for 25 years at least.

That's pretty much the facts and I've resisted the urge to rant.

reply to post by pavmas


It's all about profit.

reply to post by pavmas


I would like to know how the power company could know what appliances we are running?
The Power Companies charge through Kilo watt hours (KWH) so unless they know
the exact power consumption for each appliance and charge accordingly there is no
way for them to know which appliance is on and when! Say My computer uses 180 watts and
screen uses 150 watts then that is 330 watts for every hour used but my large screen
TV uses about 330 watts as well then there is no way for the power mongers to know
which of these appliances I am using!
Unless the electronics manufacturers start putting some kind on unit identifiers on these
appliances I could not imagine how any of this is possible! I would believe however that
the power companies would charge more for peek usage! I also remember these companies
installing smart meters for this very possible scenario! I expect those of us whom are smart
enough to go off grid to do so but I also expect the power companies to fight this type of
self sufficiency! As any of us that is well informed knows, that the Corpocracy wants the
public totally dependent on all aspects of life!
Until we the people grow some balls to take a stand against this kind of corporate control
we are destined to fall further into the bonds of our societal fear based enslavement!

reply to post by Trillium


Electric heat?
When I was living in Saskatchewan, and there was no natural gas in the area, my winter bills were approx $600 per month.
That was similar to other households in the area.
To offset that we had a wood stove, but that just transfers the expense to a truckload of wood.

That house sits empty right now (moved to Alberta for work), and just to keep the heat minimal in the long winter, to keep things from freezing too badly, and the power turned on for sump pumps, it's still over $300 per month (averaged through the year)

The house I'm living in now with natural gas, is only $200 a month for both gas and electric.
An empty house is costing more that what we're living in.

Yep. Our electrical costs are ridiculous, but we need the heat.

reply to post by nosacrificenofreedom


Well just for you I did some research.

Within 3 years from Apr 2013, all appliances are to be fitted with electronic chip. the chip will monitor the power wattage and when it drops below a certaing amount your appliance will turn off.

Thi will save the power companies millions of £££s, theose chips will be able to talk to the smart meter and vice versa.

So what that guy told m is true, power companies will be able to turn off appliances, but the technology now will turn it off automatically.

Which take us back to they can switch it of as you have went over a certain amount and are going to get in fuel debt, they will switch it on if you pay a fee by debit card.

I found out further that the energy companies did not want this, it is Government driven and in the UK it is driven by the EU and government. If they do not install meters by 2019 then the energy companies face massive fines from the E.U.

The energy companies are over charging us because they want their £21.1 billion back ( and I have to agree with them as they were forced into this)

Any fines that they get from the E. U will just be passed on.

So there we have it Government want all our power uses and appliances monitored and there was I thinking it was the greedy energy companies.

verschickter
reply to post by Trillium

 

Wow, do you run a shop or something similar? That´s the amount we need the whole year (4,500kW/h) for the house.
Or is this bill for 12 months? We pay 23/26 €cent per kW/h, although I have a photovoltaic system and get 43 €cent for every kW/h I generate

No this is the bill for December only
I operate a small tourist lodge two building
Main building is a 70 x 30 feet for customer unit for 4 and a unit for 6
fishing, hunting, ATV riding, snowmobiling, ice fishing,
second is a 30 x 25 where i live
I,m on equal billing so billing is 775.00 per month
This year they want 950.00 per month and the -45 to -50 C we had
the last few week is not helping LOL

pavmas
reply to post by nosacrificenofreedom

 

Well just for you I did some research.

Within 3 years from Apr 2013, all appliances are to be fitted with electronic chip. the chip will monitor the power wattage and when it drops below a certaing amount your appliance will turn off......
.

Can you explain what you mean exactly by the chip monitoring the power wattage and when it drops your appliance will turn off?

reply to post by ChefSlug


A very large Supermarket chain in the UK.

mirageman

pavmas
reply to post by nosacrificenofreedom

 

Well just for you I did some research.

Within 3 years from Apr 2013, all appliances are to be fitted with electronic chip. the chip will monitor the power wattage and when it drops below a certaing amount your appliance will turn off......
.

Can you explain what you mean exactly by the chip monitoring the power wattage and when it drops your appliance will turn off?

it monitors the power supply and if it dips by a certain amount then is switches its self off,


www.dailymail.co.uk...
gigaom.com...
michiganstopsmartmeters.com...

ChesterJohn
reply to post by pavmas

 

Smart meters are not that smart to pick out which appliance you are using and when you are using it, and while the smart meter can be used to turn off your electric from a remote location there are legislations in place to protect elderly and children from having their electric cut off.

All it can do at this point is record the amounts being used per house and what are the peak hour use per house.

Tt cannot Identify each appliance attached to each socket or outlet. In order to do that the home would have to be rewired and placed on a home grid prior to your fuse box. Each point on the grid would then be designated to use a certain appliance then they might be able to shut one section of the home grid off but then run and extension cord from another outlet which is on a different part of the grid.

Sounds to me is that they may be inventing new smart meters to replace the old ones but they still cannot dictate which outlet or light is which and what is plugged into it. Now smart appliances plugged into such a grid may be able to do such but that would be in the future and whole homes would have to be built with smart grids to function the smart appliances and smart meters.

edit on 17-1-2014 by ChesterJohn because: (no reason given)

Sorry dude but thats just wrong!
Every single appliance produces its own signature. There is no need for any rewiring!
The meter supplies your entire home, and all appliances draw their power from it. For a start there's inductive and resistive loads, both very identifiable. A fridge/freezer is inductive, it draws a known amount of power and it switches on at VERY regular intervals. An electric cooker is resistive, and it draws huge amounts of power that intermitantly switches on and of via its thermostats. An electric fire is resistive and very easy to identify. Light bulbs are risitive devices, they draw a small amount of power and can easily be detected. Small devices like laptops etc use switch mode power supplies, they chop the mains many times per second and are very easy to identify. All of these devices can very EASILY be identified using one very cheap chip that already exists within the smart meters! The meters dump all this data back to the suppliers where their software monitors each housholds usage.

This thread is rubbish, Ive worked with Smart Meters - they help the houselhold to reduce costs by showing them how much they use and how much it costs.

For example, you are going to bed, you look at the smart meter, its reading a level of consumption, you can now see what it is costing you to leave your TV on standby so you go and switch everything off - go back to the smart meter and hey presto - you can see what you have just saved and have a peaceful and less expensive nights sleep.

Electricity/Energy - check out the percentage of Commercial usage vs. private use - in Aus its around 75% - 85% Commercial. I wouldnt imagine that Australia is massively different to other civilised countries. The point I am making, if the largest percentage of usage (and profit) is in commercial use, then why have a conspiracy on residential use - add to that you are not allowed to kill people by freezing them to death - its illegal and guess what - its a PR nightmare, thats right, there isnt a monopoly on Electricity - it isnt allowed, if you pi55 off your customers, they will go to your competitor.

Finally - there is not a shortage of Electricity, the more we need the more can be generated. In Germany for example, the ammount of Solar Panels homes have has dramatically changed the energy generation pattern, they can run fewer base load systems (usually coal / nuke in a country with nuclear) but then when a cloud passes over you need to release either stored energy (pumped storage) or rapid generating Gas Turbines to level the load until the sun generates again. Same with wind or other renewables. If the demand grows - guess what...we can open another power station.

I run 2 Pc's with 750W each - sometimes overnight if I am downloading, run 2 50" plasma which sit on stand buy. I am about to get solar panels which will mean that during the day when I am at work, my pool, fridge, TVs on standby etc. etc. will all be free meaning at night when I have to run the aircon, my bills will be lower.

Next thing, electric car? Charge it for free from the solar panels during the day when I am at work, run the kids to sports and do the shopping in the evening. Smart Meter will help me plan and balance so I can make best use of my solar and download movies when my electricity is free (less cost of solar) and not when I am being charged - its about giving power to the consumer (you) not to have a psychotic controll of essential infrastructure and what is now a basic human right in civilised countries.

Plus, your mate is an inventor.....we arent talking about new technology here, just different ways of using current technology, why is an inventor (is that his job title) involved in this - surely its a software coder and an electrical engineer?

Meh - can you mark negative stars for those who listed to paranoid schitzos or are blatant liars??

It might help if people used more energy efficient appliances or devices, or not use those that are not essential.

reply to post by IamSirDrinksalot


I believe I may have jumped the gun when I saw this Thread!

But still, the Energy suppliers do take the pi55 and it wouldn't surprise me if they could switch things on and off at their leisure!

Message to OP nice story... BUT

You are basically saying they plan on charging people extra for the proper-gander box(TV) as its a luxury..
Wouldn't the proper-gander distraction box be a N.I(national interest)
as its a tool for for the governments to control the people...

The governments would be losing on this... not every family has the money to burn.. they would soon would say no stuff the tv and they would do with out it....

after this happens the people would be not distracted anymore and would have more time to think about things....

reply to post by MyHappyDogShiner

But you get to allow the wifi connection or not.

No wifi refer connects to the smart meter. these supposed conveniences are for your mobile apps to make you life easier and someday could be used to control your life but as of the moment any wifi units in my house are not allowed to use my wifi.

the consumer has the choice to buy wifi or not and to use it or not.

Ad that would be more of a Baaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

reply to post by VoidHawk


so prove that the Electric company can identify each appliance in your home by asking them to give you and itemized bill of consumption that list each appliance by name and usage.

don't be so naive. The meter cannot tell the difference between my electric stove and my old floor strip heater and both are rated the same and use the same amount when turned on or there location in the house or on my fuse box. It cannot tell the difference between my refer upstairs and my freezer downstairs or its location in the house. and it also cannot tell the difference between my smoke alarm and my cell phone charger both use 5v. or my printer and my laptop both of them use 19v or there locations in the house seeing they are wifi connected.

reply to post by randyvs

The whole earths consumer population is under attack. OPs story here isn't BS.

Part of it is BS, part isn't.

It's true that the idea behind 'smart' metering is to make electricity charges better reflect the cost of consumption. But more precise billing will help consumers too, so long as they're willing to make some adjustments to their electricity usage.

'Peak' and 'off-peak' billing rates already exist. Smart metering makes it more precise, that's all.

It's not a conspiracy against consumers. It's a way of making billing fairer.

Considering the bigger picture, the current paradigm of advertising-driven consumer culture is unsustainable anyway. In the end, we'll just have to learn to consume less. Better get used to it now. The Earth's resources aren't infinite, you know.

reply to post by ChesterJohn


As I said I dont know to much about it but have done some research.

It appears right now that smart meters cant determine a fridge from a n Iron, but they can say what appliance is using the amount of energy, when you turn it on it will say that this is costing 97p

So if they can tell how much an item is costing to run then its not far fetched to assume they could turn it off with wirless wifi.

I can turn my printer off from here and its in another room by wi fi, I can get it to print etc etc it will report to me here when it is short of ink.

That is 5 years old.

So its fair to assume that modern smart meters can do this.

But we have already established that on there own this might not be possible.

Thats why each appliance is to be chipped, all appliances withing the EU are to be chipped, you will no longer be able to buy a non chipped appliance.

The chip and smart meter will be able to communicate just as my laptop does with my printer.
Thats as much as I have been able to find out,

but the energy companies have had to pay out £12.1 billion in the uk and they will want that back.

( i wonder who from)

reply to post by Astyanax


Well I don't know what part is bull and what is not, I just posted something I was told and never knew anything about smart meter.

I had only read that when your milk runs out your fridge will order some more, and I thought that was tied in with smart meters.

But after researching, each appliance is going to be chipped and 3 years from now you wont be able to buy an appliance thats not chipped.

by 2020 every house in the uk will have a smart meter, but it must be sooner because if its not done by 2019 the E.U will fine energy companies.

So 6 years from now all this will be in place and the energy companies billions out of pocket for installing smart meters.

But its for our benefit and its to reduce our bills.

Anyone really believe that this is for our benefit.

reply to post by amraks


All I can say is that was what I was told, I was hoping someone would come on who has looked into this and say yes thats what is going to happen this, that, but not that.

I said the Xbox, but reports I have been reading say that they will turn off your fridge de froster in peak hours, that is available now online (please do a search)

Now if they can mess with your fridge, they could mess with your heating etc.

What I have read is a lot worse than what I was told, they are not going to just bill you extra for appliances the deem luxury, they are going to turn them off to save them having to start up addional turbines to save them money

They might say its not to cold in that area we will cut the heating off in that area. they will decide what appliances we will need on and off, when and when not, I was not told this, and this is far worse than what I was told.

And the best of it is, its all online for anyone to find, its going to happen, chips in appliances and smart meters installed.

I never heard of any of this a week ago, its all news to me and I have to say Im amazed at what a search is throwing up.