What Did You Do Today (2016)

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

Posted by Michael Gilligan on 18/07/2016 23:19:22:

Today … Just a few minutes ago … I opened the [postal] Mail, which included a letter from e-on, informing me that the power supply for my Smart Meter display might present a safety hazard. They will be sending out a replacement, and meanwhile I am to stop using it, etc.

Whilst I accept that they have 'done the right thing', I do find it rather pathetic that a national electricity supplier can find itself in this situation.

MichaelG.

.

Press Release, for info.

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 18/07/2016 23:48:08

Exactly the same thing happened here in Ontario Canada, as I recall they actually had attributed two house fires to failures in these things. I never thought the "smart" meters as they were billed here were a good idea but they were compulsory. One old hand I know who worked at Ontario Hydro for 40 years (the provincial generation company, now called Ontario Power Generation) claimed the only reasons they installed the "smart" meters were a) to be able to shut off power to anyone's individual home or b) to a subdivision area (ie rolling blackouts) in case of non payment or in case of supply problems, from a chair in the control room. The program to replace the defective meter model across Ontario ran into hundreds of millions of dollars as I recall. Why wouldn't such a defect show up in product tests? (oh, yeah….. test method was defined by the supplier, not by Hydro. Hydro and CSA have lots of people who know exactly what to test for in equipment reliability tests, but were never asked.) JD

Edited By Jeff Dayman on 19/07/2016 00:31:01

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Posted by duncan webster on 18/07/2016 23:26:52:

My wife has a lawn mower as well. Me. I also do all the lifting, digging, compost making, hedge cutting etc etc, and I'm not allowed to have a little railway round the garden. Talk about downtrodden

perhaps it (you) might develop a fault…….

[Roger HeadParticipant @rogerhead16992]

Posted by Jeff Dayman on 19/07/2016 00:28:54:

…. Why wouldn't such a defect show up in product tests? (oh, yeah….. test method was defined by the supplier, not by Hydro. Hydro and CSA have lots of people who know exactly what to test for in equipment reliability tests, but were never asked.) JD   (My emphasis above, RH)

But is that true today, Jeff? Undoubtedly it was true in yesteryear, but if Canada is anything like here in Oz, where all federal, state, and municipal entities are rushing headlong into the sale of public utilities, or those utilities are shedding staff at a furious rate until they are only paper offices that send out invoices to consumers, then the situation you describe is exactly what is to be expected. The decades, or even generations, of knowledge about how things should be done, and why they should be done that way, is lost forever. The counter-argument that the experience is not lost, just moved to a different place, is nonsense because many of the most experienced (i.e. older) staff will simply take their redundancy payments and retire, while those who do move to the private sector rapidly learn that if you want to keep your job, then don't even think about anything that could hurt the bottom line, let alone say anything.

However, NMP, I'm retired and my better half and I are off tomorrow for a couple of weeks cruising the South Pacific. Internet is available on the ship, but it costs an arm and a leg so I doubt that I'll be logging in again until sometime next month.

Roger

Edited By Roger Head on 19/07/2016 02:19:59

Edited By Roger Head on 19/07/2016 02:21:23

[Sam Longley 1Participant @samlongley1]

Posted by NJH on 18/07/2016 21:57:44:

Sam …..you say YOUR WIFE'S LAWNMOWER !!! – good grief how did you work THAT one ?!

My wife is the gardener here – and very nice it looks too – but it is made quite clear that lawn mowing is quite clearly NOT included in her garden input!

I' m very happy to settle for that compromise !

Norman

That is where you are making it so difficult for the rest of us.

Please please set the blades too low & cut the grass away completely. Then put on weed killer so you grow plenty of moss in its place, then leave grass clippings up the drive & do not forget to tread plenty through the house

Oh dear!!!! you really do need training in the art of doing nothing

To many forumites are complaining that they are not allowed enough time to go out into the man cave. Get it right & you do not ask to go — you get SENT into the man cave

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

The lawnmower is the older one with the petrol tank under the carb, yes, it is cleaned well and I used air to blast through the holes etc. I will report back later as I want to dismantle and see those gaskets again.

Clive

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Everything is on hold now as the wife has the vomiting bug. awaiting orders now to see the Dr. which means a bowl to be carried in the car incase. This is not Norovirus but just the stomach as she cannot keep anything down.

I do suspect it is from the trolley handles in the local supermarket as I have not had any symptoms at all. We shop with two trolleys and I take a wet wipe and clean the handles as I am fed up with picking a trolley covered in snot and sticky sugary stuff. Whereas, wife only uses a hand wipe!

Clive

[Mick HenshallParticipant @mickhenshall99321]

Windy I do like the look of that lathe,did you buy it or do you have anymore photos of it?

Mick

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

In the UK, the gov't has decided that we must all have "smart meters" installed. The total cost is estimated (currently!) at £11Bn and of course it's the consumers who will be paying in the end.

The smart meter manufacturers must be cock-a-hoop about this bonanza but unfortunately they haven't actually managed to standardise these "smart"(?) meters, so there is a high likelihood that if you change suppliers frequently (which is the government's solution to the current energy cartel), your "smart" meter won't work with the new supplier. You will then either find you now have a "dumb" meter or will have to have the original "smart" meter changed for another "smart" meter.

Here's an impartial guide.

It seems we will be calling this process the "smart meter rollout". Very trendy terminology – or was 15-20 years ago.

Perhaps we could also stop spending tax payers' money exhorting ourselves to "get superfast broadband". Why do I need to be told to do that??

[Anonymous]

Posted by Muzzer on 19/07/2016 10:02:21:

Perhaps we could also stop spending tax payers' money exhorting ourselves to "get superfast broadband". Why do I need to be told to do that??

That's what happens when the political 'elite' are technically ignorant, and assume that the electorate are as dumb as they are.

I've had a FTTP link (76Mbps) link for over a year now. Fast broadband is more of an implementation problem than availability. After months of missed appointments and incompetence by Openreach my neighbours gave up and stuck with their slow wired broadband.

As for 'smart' meters I've been getting letters saying I must have my meter changed for 'safety' reasons for a couple of years now. I've binned them, actually shredded and recycled. I'm not planning on a smart meter for several reasons:

1. I have a three phase supply at home which might complicate matters – better to leave sleeping dogs and all that

2. I already have an electricity monitor (free from a manufacturer for whom I did a small consultancy job) so I know what my base load is (~60W), how much electricity I use and where it goes.

3. I don't trust the companies with any data they collect, and I am anti power line communications as it interferes with HF radio communication

4. Although the meter is in the corner of the garage by the door the lathe is in front of it, and I sure ain't going to move the lathe!

Andrew

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

I'm inclined to say Andrew is correct, the power companies already have the ability to monitor their output and consumption so you as a consumer don't really benefit from anything, it just makes it easier for them to collect money (and sometimes incorrectly) and also deprive the consumer of their right to privacy.

Michael W

[JAParticipant @ja]

I am not sure the UK government have decided that we must have smart meters but the certainly want us to have them. As yet my provider, nPower, has not tried to get me to change, they seem to be too busy trying to force customers to pay by direct debit.

JA

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

Posted by JA on 19/07/2016 11:33:33:

I am not sure the UK government have decided that we must have smart meters but the certainly want us to have them.

It seems fairly clear to me but perhaps you read things differently?

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

No objection … But I'm a little surprised that people have progressed political aspect of the 'Smart Meter' rather than the 'product safety' issue.

MichaelG.

[Anonymous]

That's because it's nowt to do with product safety………………

Andrew

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I personally like the promotional comment that "Smart meters will mean consumers get accurate bills – you will only be billed for the energy you actually use" – how is this any different from estimated bills that are 'trued up' with a meter reading? At the end of the year you have still paid exactly the same amount for the actual quantity of gas/electricity you have used.

Paying someone close to minimum wage to go around reading meters, or better yet having the customers send them in themselves for free, is thousands of times cheaper than rolling out smart meters.

British Gas started rolling out smart meters a few years ago, but it is only in about the last year and a half that they have actually been able to do anything useful with them – their software for dealing with what came in from the smart meter simply didn't work.

Now they finally have a working set of software they are pushing harder for rollout of smart meters.

They have also been investing heavily in 'Big Data', this system has feeds from their billing systems and also from the smart meter system, as well as many of their other systems, so that they can better predict when someone is likely to default on their payments.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Andrew Johnston on 19/07/2016 13:34:21:

That's because it's nowt to do with product safety………………

Andrew

.

Sorry, Andrew … I don't understand

Safety recall on 190,000 power supplies

… Presumably you know something about this that I don't.

MichaelG.

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

it looks like the object of the exercise is to make it easy for the utility companies  to remotely disconnect your supply

since a lot of the companies will buy the cheapest smart  meters they can

your going to put in danger by faulty smart meters and remote displays

**LINK**

 

**LINK**

 

John

 

 

Edited By john swift 1 on 19/07/2016 14:15:38

[Roderick JenkinsParticipant @roderickjenkins93242]

I think we are talking at cross purposes here. I assume the safety recall is for the wall wart that powers the remote display that gives, amongst other things, a traffic light display of instant power usage. We have one of these and I am not sure that the fact that a red light comes on when the oven, toaster and tumble drier are all beavering away is telling me anything I didn't already know.

Rod

Edit – cross posting: as confirmed by the 2nd link above.

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 19/07/2016 14:07:14

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Rod ,

Yes, John's second link [which is what I posted yesterday] is about the e-on recall of 'wall warts'.

… His first is a completely different matter.

MichaelG.

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

How much juice does a smart meter consume.?

If the UK has 25 million dwellings each with a smart meter consuming say 1W that would be an extra 25MWatts generating capacity required.

OK it's not great compared to the 30GWatt total load but I thought the idea was to save energy.

Martin

[john swift 1Participant @johnswift1]

adding to my previous links to defective Smart meter equipment

a link to remote control of your appliances –

 

" **LINK** "

 

 

John

Edited By john swift 1 on 19/07/2016 14:23:42

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

The question there would be – is this actually more or less than the myriad of current watt meters consume?

The idea being that the supplier is not supposed to charge you for energy consumed by the meter itself.

Ultimately they may be saving energy by rolling out these meters if they are more efficient than say the huge industrial style Sangamo ones that many older houses have – Sangamo believe that "big is beautiful"

[Martin KyteParticipant @martinkyte99762]

Well as far as I can tell the analog meter uses around 2 watts for the voltage coil and up to 2ish for the current coil.

The energy consumed by this type of meter is thus at least proportional to the load. This will nor be the case for smart meters which would be power independent of load.

So we still need an estimate of smart meter power consumption.

Martin

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Is it really worth getting excited about how much power the smart meters will use. It would only take 1 in 10 households to see what they are using and to then change a single 60w lamp that gets used 1hr a day to LED and you have cancelled out any increase in load.

Or put it another way if it makes each household look at their usage and make a very small effort save 25w a day then all is equal. You have all probably used that mach power reading this thread!

J

[KWILParticipant @kwil]

Its nothing to do with safety, accurate billing or you knowing how much power you are using.

N.B. The system provides for a 30 minutes update of usage, that means you WILL be charged at different price when you use power when at lowest availability. IE keeping the lights on when the supply system cannot cope with demand.

This coming winter we have I am lead to believe only a fraction of % of capacity above the necessary minimum level. Many many years of dithering, indecision about building new Nuclear capacity, the headlong plunge into renewalbles etc means the lights may well go out.

On top of all this, the transmission system needs £100M spent to make the proper use of renewables without the network instability that all these sources cause.

Don't believe it? The data is all there if you look for it.

 

Edited By KWIL on 19/07/2016 16:10:03

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