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The Smart Grid Has Arrived
SternisheFan sends this excerpt from MIT's Technology Review:
"The first comprehensive and large scale smart grid is now operating. The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent, and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it. ... Dozens of utilities are building smart grids — or at least installing some smart grid components, but no one had put together all of the pieces at a large scale. Florida Power & Light's project incorporates a wide variety of devices for monitoring and controlling every aspect of the grid, not just, say, smart meters in people's homes. ... Many utilities are installing smart meters — Pacific Gas & Electric in California has installed twice as many as FPL, for example. But while these are important, the flexibility and resilience that the smart grid promises depends on networking those together with thousands of sensors at key points in the grid — substations, transformers, local distribution lines, and high voltage transmission lines. (A project in Houston is similar in scope, but involves half as many customers, and covers somewhat less of the grid.) In FPL's system, devices at all of these places are networked — data jumps from device to device until it reaches a router that sends it back to the utility — and that makes it possible to sense problems before they cause an outage, and to limit the extent and duration of outages that still occur. The project involved 4.5 million smart meters and over 10,000 other devices on the grid."
This really isn't anything new, just a bunch of hype.
The Smart Grid Has Arrived
But the "dumb grid" remains and is so entrenched that it will take generations or two to finally get rid of it. The up side is that when the last remnants of the "dumb grid" are replaced they'll be replaced by whatever is replacing the aged and out-of-date "smart grid".
OG&E in Oklahoma has had theirs done for well over 6 months. They have 3/4 of a million customers. That sounds plenty large to me.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
" and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it. "
I'll believe that when I can see an actual measurable decrease in my power bills. I'm only slightly less skeptical of utility companies than I am of politicians and cel providers.
Three Squirrels
"The $800 million project, built in Florida, has made power outages shorter and less frequent."
Can someone help me, I'm from old Europe, what's a 'power outage'?
approves of this upgrade and already has all the passwords and access.
Let's wait and see what ELSE they start to use those smart meters for.
And every node has electronics made in China complete with a well hidden back door for the PLA to remotely control it :)
I only remember three outages, the most severe caused by a remarkable flood ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Sea_flood_of_1962 ), the other two by a lightning striking into a transformer station.
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
In many cases in the past building a power grid resilient to small power outages, automatically rerouting power around failed components
only leads to it being more susceptible to large power failures caused by cascading failures.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_outage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure
My power company installed 'smart meters' and an r.f. control and data acquisition grid over a decade ago.
Several decades ago, I used to work for them. Back then, we began a task to build a database of customers, transformers, distribution lines and substation circuits. All with the idea of eventually implementing such a system. Customers records were linked to a 'grid number' which was tied to their serving transformer, circuit and substation. These grid numbers are actually put on every pole (and other physical asset) in the company.
One of my engineering tasks was to review and correct errors in the database. At times, reports were generated that showed one small transformer feeding 50 or 100 customers (impossible without burning it up). A quick field review showed that many customers had been assigned to a few grid numbers many miles away. My suspicion was that some engineers were completing their paperwork sitting in a bar and these grid numbers were the ones visible out the front window.
Fast forward to a few years ago: My cabin (build recently) lost power when a tree took out my service line during a large storm. After doing repairs, I called the power company (I no longer worked for for the past few decades). I told the service rep that I would be ready to have the transformer re-energized. She said, "Sorry. We have to wait for the other customers on that transformer to have their services inspected." Well, I happen to be down a long, lonely road. And my cabin is the only one feeding from that point. I know this because that used to be my business. I explained this to the c.s.r. She said, "But the computer says ..."
"The computer's data is screwed up. It was screwed up 20 years ago when I worked there. It still is. Send a lineman out to put the fuse back in." She did.
If this little anecdote reflects the current state of even a fraction of our utility infrastructure, its going to take much more than a few smart meters to straighten this mess out.
Have gnu, will travel.
US: Look! Less power cuts!
Rest of the world: Whats a power cut?
Every time I read about US infrastructure it makes it sound like a third world country...
http://blog.nexusuk.org
It's interesting that the utility says "and helped some customers save money, according to the utility that operates it", but was there an overall average savings across all customers, or are customers paying more overall to pay off the $800M investment while the utility cuts their generating and transmission costs, earning more profit?
My guess is that all of this "smart" gear is tied into the internet, using default or no passwords. It will probably take some hacker shutting down a large section of the grid for the industry to get serious about security.
As I get older, I'm realizing that when an Industry slaps "Smart-"something on a product, it's more about the marketing and less about the architecture. This technology basically uses wi-fi in a mesh topology. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
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frying appliances and computers
The amount you would have to mess with a simple sine wave input to get waveforms that could damage simple switching power supplies or things with motors would make me thing it is uneconomically to make smart meters that did this on purpose, let alone by accident. There are some things more sensitive to power quality, but typically not those too short of the power being really bad (e.g. generator with square wave output not being good for motors).
Do you even know what FUD is? It stands for Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt. In other words, your entire post is FUD.
Health problems? Where is real, documented evidence of health problems caused by smart meters?
Inaccurate readings? Happens with analog meters too (and gas meters and water meters). Big difference is, when someone with an old meter has a problem they call the power company, not the local TV station.
'Caught' using 'stealth like tactics'? What does that even mean. I don't know how it is in BC, but in the US part of the deal when signing up for service is that you give permission for the power company to come onto your 'private property' for the purposes of reading meters and maintaining their equipment. They don't need any more permission than that. And the meters are THEIR property, not the homeowners, so it is no surprise that they would just cut off illegally installed locks. What is kind of surprising is that, having cut off the lock, they don't just remove the meter and leave you without service altogether.
The obvious weak point in the "smart" grid are the so-called "Smart" Meters. Which apparently aren't all that smart , are already being hacked, and tools for hacking them are readily available. It seems probable, even almost certain, that someone will use the authentication in the meters to hack into the grid itself. And from there, much mayhem, either intentional or unintentional (anyone remember the Morris Worm ?? ) I'd pass, but, of course, my utility didn't care, they installed one anyway, over both my objection and my HOA's objection. And, gee, ever since the "money-saving Smart Meter" was installed, my electricity bill has skyrocketed. . .
Power quality sensors also provide information about load balancing tri-phase, which can result in more efficient power distribution. Another big problem power companies have is detecting recloser operation. They are essentially big mechanical switches that operate during a fault, and most power companies systematically replace them based on a time interval, rather than the number of times that they operate. There is a huge overhead in the costs of replacing good reclosers that can be avoided by power quality monitoring. Current harmonics and direction also something that companies are pushing us to report. The line temperature is also very important for line SAG analysis and the fact that conductors can be permanently disfigured at high temperatures.
There's also a Canadian company planning to use our sensors to track down marijuana grow operations that illegally tap power to run their systems.
"All the interfaces and controls from the power plants down to your thermostat have been rationalised to use the same username (admin) and password (password) to save unparalleled amounts of time and money to be passed along as executive bonuses".
"Now, that's PHB-level smart!"
and helped some customers save money
How many customers did it help cost more money?
A real "smart grid" would store excess energy when it is not needed and releases it during periods of most need. It would provide a buffer enabling more reliable, effecient and distributed means of generation.
A "smart meter" just browbeats people into accomplishing a similar task with ultimatly much less resiliant outcomes.
In Illinois were getting a "Smart Grid" which is supposed to make ComEds system more efficient. So of course that means we need to pay up front for the new meters and our electricity rates are going up. Yays for efficiency.
You know, because, as long as you have a "secure network" it's ok to have remote power shut off spanning an area as big as southern california, amiright? Who would want to (or even be clever enough) to hack a system like that?
/S
Your post should have started...
From Hell's heart, I stab at thee...
The ultimate purpose of smartmeters is for utilities/government to implement electricity rationing. They won't officially call it rationing, but the effect is the same. During a heat wave, don't you dare turn on your air conditioner or run your refrigerator because the utilities are now charging you more than 50 cents per KWH and will send you rapidly into the poor house. Instead of increasing generating capacity to satisfy demand, utilities can simply charge through the roof and failing that remotely switch off power to random houses for random periods of time to shed load. Simultaneously, they get to reap huge profits by doing this, so there is little incentive to increase capacity. Government gets to be happy because the utilities paid them off and people not having affordable electricity when they need it also happens to be very green. Think the state public utility will protect you against this price gouging? Think again. The state utility commissions though the nation have been gutted over the years and simply yes men for the very utilities they regulate.
Lightning strikes or NOT
Ive lived and worked in a number of countries around the world.
In my home country and in europe - IVE never seen a power outage - even in the worst storms.
I have to question if perhaps part of the issue is that the network is being built to a price and not for relibility.
Let's hope they hire some actual security professionals to consult on these projects, and keep all these "smart" devices off the fucking Internet. The last thing we need is little Bobby Tables guessing the '1234' telnet password to the control systems for the 100MVA substation down the street.