New electric meters

[cdaigle430]

I resisted it and even paid an extra 12 bucks to keep the old analogue meter. Unfortunately when I installed my on grid 7kw solar system last year I had no choice but to update in order to get credit for power I send to the grid.

Even installed a meter to double check the power company on their charges and credits.....which I havent been able to figure out how to do yet lol.

 

[hawkeye08]

They (power coop) replaced our smart meter in the last month.. guy said it proactive after a large number of the old meter design had failed.. they were replacing all the meters. He said the mfg had sent someone and they examined a bunch of failed meters and determined they needed to replace all.

 

[BrokeFarmerJohn]

Those same people that complain about the so called health hazards probably have no concerns about cell phone usage.
I've had two smart meters for several years. My usage stayed the same and so did my bills.
Now I don't have to plow a path for the meter reader in the winter.

It’s a big a concern. Now that 5G is rolling out, we will see the effects it has on people’s health.

5G travels much further than 4G, the speeds will be truly awesome at up to 100 gigs per second. But since 5G reaches much further the danger zone around towers gets much further out as well.

I will be following it closely. 5G isn’t near my area yet. It’s not something I’m really looking forward to getting.

 

[PILOON]

My take is smart meters are like industrial installations.
They are smart enough to know what time of day U use more power and will charge U if you draw on peek hours.
They want to maximize usage so you'll need to wash dishes do laundry off hours so that they can export more to other areas.
Heck soon you'll have to cook supper during the night.
About the only direct advantage is that they know when you have a power outage at your location, that and they have eliminated meter readers.

 

[Gary Fowler]

Try looking at your bill.
What changed on your bill from last month?
...besides the amount due?

Did the Kw-hrs used double?
Did the Kw-hr rate double?
Did basic connection "fee" increase?

Some bills might have the raw meter total kw-hr number listed. Last months raw number total is subtracted from this month's number and the difference is this months usage that you're billed for. Ask for an accounting of these two numbers (or 4 numbers if they swamped meters).

House didn't change, just the shop. The bill for the shop showed 00 on the new meter. The charge was from the old meter. Either they double charged me or they misread the old meter when they replaced it. I didn't get to look at the old meter when they removed it.

 

[Grumpycat]

I've seen this problem many times. the electronic meters give a higher bill for some reason, and it has not been properly explained!.. the new meters can measure power factor, but, it has been said that is ignored for residential use.. perhaps time of use is being accounted for?. the bill would vary because of that!..

Meters fall under your state's Weights & Measures laws.

 

[Grumpycat]

It’s a big a concern. Now that 5G is rolling out, we will see the effects it has on people’s health.

5G travels much further than 4G, the speeds will be truly awesome at up to 100 gigs per second. But since 5G reaches much further the danger zone around towers gets much further out as well.

I will be following it closely. 5G isn’t near my area yet. It’s not something I’m really looking forward to getting.

5G will be bust. Its not anything like the hype has it made out to be.

First, no matter what, your current 4G cellphone is radiating the most power deemed safe and practical for battery life. 5G can not do more, the limits have already been reached. And are much much less than the original analog AMPS cellphones which could transmit 3W.

Cell towers generally transmit a bit more power to your handheld than the handheld uses to answer back, but the power requirement to maintain a quality link is the same in each direction.

5G's miraculous claims of high speeds are attained between 24 to 72 GHz. Have any idea how high in frequency that is? The range will be very short and not pass through walls, much less leaves on trees. Dish and DirectTV use 12 GHz which fails during heavy rain. This also means the RF won't penetrate your skin.

Done much with WiFi? Figured out yet that 2.4 GHz has longer range in your house than the 5GHz band?

 

[Diggin It]

Meters sending a signal are certainly no more hazardous than anything else sending a signal. Some use a sort of radio system, others use a wireline signal within the electrical system. You may see boxes mounted to poles every mile or so that gather and repeat the signal.

Got in a tussle with my utility a while back. Meter had been reading fine for years, then for some reason it stopped. They started sending meter readers out. High dollar/hour line field supervisors. I have gates, so they couldn't get in. They started hassling me over it. I put up a fuss. Like others in this thread have noted, we used to either send a card in or just call the meter reading in each month. I tried to get them to accept that again. They refused. I offered to email a picture of the meter so they could read it that way. They refused. They tried a new meter. It didn't work. A second new meter didn't work. Finally, after about 4 months or so of messing around, they tried a different brand of meter that sent a stronger signal down the line. That's been working fine for a couple of years now.

I put a web camera outside facing the meter so I can read it daily and record it on a spreadsheet. I use it for personal silly reasons of curiosity to try and keep my usage down. But I now have several years of daily readings, so if something starts going nuts and reading high, I can print all that out to support a complaint.


My understanding of 5G is that it travels less far. Higher frequencies, lower power, less distance, so more microtowers will be needed. LOTS more. I've read that they may be every few hundred yards in some urban places to get full coverage and handle the increased traffic. Advantage is that they'll use monopoles instead of the elaborate cell towers now blocking the view. In rural areas, they may use 100' utility poles within the same right of ways.

I'm not sure if or when they'll start removing the existing metal towers or what will happen to the property leases.

 

[PILOON]

Those new smart meters are scary.
While they can take readings for billing they also can be programmed to read consumption at peek hours etc.
I suspect they will soon start charging based demand during peak times.
Already the want us to do washing at night and cooking at mid day with timers.

Next we will get billed based on peak demand just like they do for commercial installations.

I do believe the smart meter is capable of reporting outages which si one good aspect.

What disturbs me is that they made us pay for that meter with a special rate increase.
Any other enterprise would invest their own money to increase their profitability.

Hey, will Esso buy me a new car in order to sell more gas?

 

[jmc]

I had to remove my tinfoil hat to type this but I suspect smart meters are part of the infrastructure to allow variable rate pricing at some point. So electric is cheap after business hours, for example, and very expensive when it's 95F.

The efficiency is nice, though. A farmer friend's favorite rant decades ago was how it took three people to read his meter. One guy to drive the pickup, one guy to hop off the tailgate and shout the reading back to the third guy on the tailgate, who wrote the reading down.