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Millions of Smart Meters May Over-Inflate Readings by up to 600% (bleepingcomputer.com)
"Lab tests carried out by Dutch scientists have shown that some of today's 'smart' electrical meters may give out false readings that in some cases can be 582% higher than actual energy consumption," reports BleepingComputer. An anonymous reader quotes their report:
The study involved several tests conducted on nine different brands of "smart" meters, also referred to in the industry as "static energy meters." Researchers also used one electromechanical meter for reference... Experiments went on for six months, with individual tests lasting at least one week, and sometimes several weeks. Test results varied wildly, with some meters reporting errors way above their disclosed range, going from -32% to +582%...
The results of the study also matched numbers posted on an online forum by a disgruntled Dutchman complaining about high energy bills... Researchers blamed all the issues on the design of some smart meters, and, ironically, electrical devices with energy-saving features. The latter devices, researchers say, introduced a large amount of noise in electrical current waveforms, which disrupt the smart meter sensors tasked with recording power consumption...
Long-time Slashdot reader ClarkMills points out the researchers estimate that "potentially inaccurate meters have been installed in the meter cabinets of at least 750,000 Dutch households," while the article suggests that worldwide, "the numbers of possibly faulty smart meters could be in the millions,especially after some governments, especially in the EU, have pushed for smart meters to replace classic electromechanical (rotating disk) meters."
The results of the study also matched numbers posted on an online forum by a disgruntled Dutchman complaining about high energy bills... Researchers blamed all the issues on the design of some smart meters, and, ironically, electrical devices with energy-saving features. The latter devices, researchers say, introduced a large amount of noise in electrical current waveforms, which disrupt the smart meter sensors tasked with recording power consumption...
Long-time Slashdot reader ClarkMills points out the researchers estimate that "potentially inaccurate meters have been installed in the meter cabinets of at least 750,000 Dutch households," while the article suggests that worldwide, "the numbers of possibly faulty smart meters could be in the millions,especially after some governments, especially in the EU, have pushed for smart meters to replace classic electromechanical (rotating disk) meters."
Trust the computer. The computer is your friend.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The one thing people were afraid of when they were forced to switch over the smart meters happened.
lose != loose
There is no discernible reason to invest scarce resources in "smart meters" (which are looking more like "dumb meters"). Ordinary old-style meters do an adequate job, and give employment to a lot of meter-readers. (That's a good thing, by the way). They are sufficiently accurate.
The arguments in favour of "smart meters" are ridiculous. Putting meter-readers out of work to save the company a small amount of money is a bad idea. Besides, most customers would be happy to read their own meters and send in the results by Web or phone. I do.
Transmitting people's energy consumption by wireless is completely insane. This is private information that does not need to be broadcast insecurely to anyone with the right black box.
Most normal people already have an excellent idea of how much energy they are using (often this is "too much", as in "I told you to turn off those lights!" or "Do you have any idea how much it costs to leave that running for so long?") If they really want to know in more detail, there are a lot of very nice cheap little meters you can install and read yourself.
Controlling people's energy supply by wireless is beyond insane - it is literally criminal. It's bad enough that energy suppliers would be able to switch off the supply on a whim (or a computer error). But those guys with the black box could do it too.
The only logical motive for installing "smart meters" is for the manufacturers to make loads of money. And that isn't a proper motive at all.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
The two largest worries about smart-meters were that they were going to be used to gouge and defraud us, and that, on top of that, they would also lack any sort of proper security and be easily hackable.
These were pushed unto us for two reasons, and neither of those reasons deserves a civil or peaceful response. We are being *stolen from*; the fact that it's remote and by committee does not change the need for self-defense.
So it's like inflation, but more of it? Does it mean that regular meters also inflate their readings, though not as much?
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Everyone here should know that the best possible and worst possible cases are usually extremely artificial and almost never happen.
So I am curious about what has the actual impact of this has been? Because if companies managed to charge 5X what they did before, while delivering the same amount of power, the profits would have soared in an amazing manner. And that probably hasn't happened, because then this would have been noticed far sooner.
So I am curious about if a measure of the resulting average error can be made by looking at energy company economical info.
If I stick a webcam in front of an analog meter, couldn't it be considered a 'smart meter'? If so, is it the chips that measure current, an internet data corruption problem? Maybe a problem with the universe that makes all things that people don't like, not work properly. Is it a design problem, requirements problem, QA problem?
But...but... Progress is suppose to be good?
https://www.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/5ygto8/psa_if_your_city_light_bill_is_extremely_high/
They know most of us don't have access to our meters since they're behind locked doors.
In Ontario Canada there are about 4.8 million "smart" meters.
The Ontario Liberals forced electric companies to install them even when they knew there was a problem with them. And there still is a problem.
No really usefull comments yet. How do I use this to get something for nothing.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
We've had the same thing happening in Ontario and in BC. Because of similar problems Just remember the bullshit they peddled that that it was supposed to lower electricity costs too. Which is why every place they've been installed, the cost of electricity has skyrocketed. And in many working.
Om, nomnomnom...
From the picture you can see their set up is flawed. The current sensor they are using can be inaccurate but more importantly they are likely measuring power as current*voltage which is only correct in AC for purely resistive loads. The switching power supplies in the LED light bulbs or the ballasts in florescent lights or any inductive motor will cause this reading to be incorrect.
I didn't recognize any of the meters in the pictures. The big makers L+G, Itron, Elster and Senses go through an insane amount of testing and regulatory oversight. These are almost commodity items and the cost of a recall would wipe out tens of years of profit.
We do need smart meters. We need to have billing based on the cost of electricity production so that we can use things like wind and solar. I want people to use more energy when the wind blows or the sun shines and I want to avoid building and firing up peaker plants.
Lastly ask some former meter readers from Texas and the US south how much they miss being bitten by dogs and shot at while reading meters.
the smart readers are either paid for by the tax payer direct or a surcharge on the bill (which looks like a tax to anyone). Meanwhile the cost savings from firing all the meter readers went straight into the pockets of the folks skimming 10%-20% off every power bill.
Privatize the profit and socialize the expense. This is why you don't let companies run essential services for profit.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
There should be a roughly equal number of people who have been undercharged, rigtht?
Ask yourself a question: given that inflate (in a context like this which is not to do with footballs or Zeppelins) means to make something bigger than it should be, what would under-inflate mean?
So why the fuck so you feel the need to stick over in there?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
That is totally fucked up. What a surprise. I guess the liberals, socialists, and Trump lovers will be sad.
It is the bloody same to a power plant whether 100W go to John Smith and 900W to Joe User, or whether both of them use 500W.
It is even much cheaper and more accurate to measure the power where a multitude of users are connected.
The only reason for the introduction of "smart meters" has been to collect personal data to sell and to con people into more expenses for their particular pattern of power usage.
Exactly what I thought. A very simple device could be attached to the front of the meter and simply count the number of times the little black mark goes by. Not really a web cam, just a very simple system much like in an optical mouse. And there is probably enough EM radiation in the area to power the thing.
This would avoid the huge cost of having electricians come out and rewire the house.
But if one was installed, I'd like to keep the old meter in series, as a check.
We don't need no stinking badges!
...were given the same level of scrutiny as, say, weather stations whose readings are used to build climate models!
(ducks)
Here's a better thing, then: employ pairs of meter readers, where one does odd digits and the other does the evens.
Belay last pipe! Stupid idea. They'd have to read the digits to know if they were odd or even.
*ping*
Have a third guy who looks at the meter and tells the other two which digits to read.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
They say how great they will be for the customer. But this brings up some really good questions as to the accuracy of these smart meters. Really what smart meters bring is a chance to nag you on consumption, to eliminate labor going out to read meters, and yes to better monitor for power outages. I guess the flip side is that I have heard similar complaints about accuracy with the traditional meters too.
These tests are done using cheap switchmode power supplies and maybe even capacitative droppers, behind horrible 'chopper' dimmers. The power waveform in that setup would be horrid, and really hard to measure. It is also wrong, as those sort lights should no be used with dimmers.
Incidentally, problems with measuring works like this are the secret behind 'free energy' demonstrations!
Prediction for end of Universe #42: Fencepost error in Quantum_bogosort.cpp
I'm sure our American meters work just fine.
Why are 'scientists' doing the research? Everywhere I look, anything that is metered is regulated such that the meters are verified to be accurate (and for good reason). Department of Weights And Measures usually, or some city org. Water dispensers are checked that they are actually dispensing a gallon, and so on. So why aren't electrical meters subject to the same regulation? The article is about NL, but I bet in the US the answer would be that the energy companies bribed lawmakers to nix the regulation or get a special exemption, probably along the lines of "regulation will stunt innovation!" or some such bullshit.
This story has no value if it doesn't include a list of faulty meters. We can't complain that we got ripped off based on some meters being faulty. This is allâ hype, with no value.
What happens when John Smith uses 100W, Joe User uses 900W, and Joe moves across town? If they know that 90% of that region's consumption has moved to another region, they can adjust accordingly before problems arise.
Of course, they could do this before smart meters, as well, as we've had individual metering for decades.
Smart meters, implemented properly, provide the consumer a fair bit of insight into their actual usage; I can sign in to my provider's site and get my instantaneous usage, as well as 15-min interval usage history going back for as long as I've had service, including nice graphs. It helped me track down a blower motor on a rooftop HVAC unit that was arcing, causing an additional several hundred kWh of usage each month (more than doubling usage at that condo), so I could have it replaced and ultimately not only save money on electrical usage, but also likely prevent an eventual fire.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
The Truth Is Out!
600% above reality is the "Reality" of how the EU funds itself, i.e. its Eurocrats!
Welcome to the EUrocracy!
Ha ha
"It is the bloody same to a power plant whether 100W go to John Smith and 900W to Joe User, or whether both of them use 500W."
If it were the bloody same, there's be no peak-demand cost additions in many places on the globe. There goes your entire premise.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
If you read TFA, you can see they did a lot of testing with "energy saving" bulbs. Low cost LED and CFL bulbs normally have a very low power factor (PF), often below 0.50. Bulbs from suppliers that can't be bothered to pass CE are even worse.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
It costs the power company more to deliver power, if the PF of the load is low, so they charge you more - this is not new. Unfortunately, the general public has no clue about PF and just buys the cheapest junk they can find that says "energy saving" on the package.
Be smart, buy LED lighting with high PF. Those famous brand bulbs that cost 2x more are worth the price in most cases.
They "over-inflate"? What does that mean? Shouldn't they not inflate at all?
But our accuracy is far better: +50% to +400%.
Their smartness is undeniable. It's the point of view to be questioned, though.
Sent as ripples into the electromagnetic field. No single photon has been harmed in the process.
But if there are savings why is my bill not lower?
I was, briefly, a governor at a secondary (high) school in the UK (a legally defined volunteer role, similar to a director of a non-profit company). At the beginning of my role, I was tasked with looking at strange readings and hence billing from the school's gas meter. "We think they've been missing a digit" were the opening remarks. I asked how long this had been going on. "About 10 years" was the reply.
To cut a long story short, a digit was indeed being missed. The school was paying less for its heating annually than I was for my 4 bedroom home. But the staff at the gas company could not get their heads round it. "Old" gas meters in the UK can display consumption in various units - I think the one in question displayed in 10s of cubic yards, when most display in cubic yards; this was the root cause of the problem.
At a meeting of governors, I presented my conclusions and explained that the school could be looking at many hundreds of thousands of pounds in back bills. This was met with consternation. I opined that nobody present could seriously believe that a school with well over 1000 students could cost less to heat than my home. But they pointed to correspondence with the gas company that said the readings were OK, and the chairman stated that he wanted to avoid unnecessary costs for the school. I countered that taking something, not paying fully for it, and knowing that you were doing so, might reasonably be construed as fraud. And that if a group of people was involved, it was also conspiracy. This was met with laughter, so I resigned.
I haven't ratted them out. My kids were there. But boy are they going to be in trouble when their meter is changed to a smart one, which will happen within a year or two.
There are a few quantities that people need to be aware of:
Real Power, Apparent Power, Imaginary Power, and Power Factor...
Apparent Power is a complex number, having a real part and an imaginary part (and if you don't understand this, shame on you for even participating in this discussion). It is the product of the voltage and current, including phase information. When the current and voltage are not perfectly in phase, there is both real and imaginary power being delivered. The power factor is the cosine of the angle between the voltage and current.
The real part of power is the only part that does any work. The imaginary part does no work, but still contributes to the magnitude of the current.
Let's say you have a typical "power-saving" LED bulb that claims to only draw 5 watts from the wall. The "watt" is the unit of real power only, so this claim might be true. But, what you are not being told is that the power supply that drives the LED is a cheap capacitive power supply that uses a large capacitor to drop most of the voltage being applied to the bulb, and that this results in HUGE amounts of imaginary power (also called reactive power).
I bought some Philips "25 Watt Equivalent" LED "3.5-Watt" bulbs at Home Depot a while back and measured their apparent power using a calibrated standard. While the average power consumption across my 6 samples was 3.46 Watts, the average VAR consumption was, get this, 44.1 VAR. FOURTY-FOUR. This makes the apparent power basically 44 VA as the real part is negligible at that point. This means the LED bulb current magnitude at 122V (test voltage) is 0.36 amps.
So, why is this so important, you ask? It is because as far as the generator is concerned, it produces current. Magnetic devices are rated by their saturation current and VA capability and don't really care about voltage alone. Most everything in the power grid is limited by its VA-carrying capability, not voltage alone.
So, in other words, to the power company, a 3.5W LED bulb still looks like a 40W bulb in terms of their power generation capability.
Consumer device manufacturers take advantage of consumer ignorance and basically stick it to the power grid with these sleazy and deceptive marketing practices. They are they ones you should be outraged with, not the power companies that are being forced to deploy smart meters so they can understand the actual loads being placed on their grid by these phantom loading devices.
FTA:"The greatest inaccuracies were seen when researchers combined dimmers with energy saving light bulbs and LED bulbs"
Wait a minute, OVER-INFLATE!!!
So normal inflation is ok?
What about accurate logging of the power I use?
And what's this BS about increased error on energy saving and LED lights on dimmers?
This is supposed to save power (be cheaper to operate) not increase the bill exponentially!!!
I am also very concerned about the disparity between what big business pays for power and what I pay for power.
They are the ones putting the big hit on infrastructure, yet that hit ends up on my bill!
Rick B.
The only reason for the introduction of "smart meters" has been to collect personal data to sell and to con people into more expenses ... ...
You seem to forget that Netherlands is in Europe, not in the USA.
I took the liberty to highlight your errors
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
There were savings for me, because the added capabilities afforded to me by the smart meter enabled me to track down and fix an electrical issue. If you do not have an electrical issue to fix and/or you don't utilize those capabilities to track it down and fix it, or you don't reduce your usage through some other means (again, aided by the additional usage tracking capabilities afforded to you by the smart meter), why do you think you're entitled to pay less than you were previously?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
There's a reason some of us don't think Smart Meters are anything more than a precursor to the energy company being able to temporarily disconnect you at will from the power the grid. Smart Meters have 0 use for me. I don't run things I don't need, and I already have transitioned to the most power saving items I can for everything I'm willing to spend money on. So how, exactly, is a Smart Meter going to benefit me? Same with Smart Water meters, for that matter, although in that case there's less privacy issues because the majority of my water usage is automated anyways.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
It doesn't have to benefit you for it to benefit others. that said, how have you confirmed that you have no electrical issues currently that are causing increased usage? How do you confirm this on an ongoing basis? For me, it's made pretty damn simple by looking at a monthly chart of my usage and pinpointing any anomalies. As I said a couple comments up, that ability actually prevented an eventual fire by helping me identify a damaged motor in a rooftop unit I otherwise would never have looked at; that happened regardless of any other energy-saving steps I took, and it can happen to you regardless of the energy-saving steps you are taking, as well.
Further, what advantage would the power company have in the ability to temporarily disconnect customers at will, other than not having to roll a truck when someone doesn't pay? If they were interested in that ability, they would install addressable disconnects at the pole, meter be damned.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Further, what advantage would the power company have in the ability to temporarily disconnect customers at will, other than not having to roll a truck when someone doesn't pay? If they were interested in that ability, they would install addressable disconnects at the pole, meter be damned.
Oh, there's lots of advantages, like, say, it's 100 degrees, houses 5, 8 and 207 are sucking up 2x power than their neighbors, we'll disconnect them for the next 30 minutes instead of browning out block 6. Then it'll quickly be, wait, unit 207 is on the more expensive D plan, just cut 5 and 8 for 60 min.... instead of actually upgrading the power grid like they should be.
What I'm partly interested in is how did your smart meter help you figure out that motor was arcing any faster than looking at your meter would? Smart meters purport to only record in 15 min intervals. I saw elsewhere that in your meter appears to be located disproportionately far from your residence, but for most, that's not an issue. For instance, I pass mine on the way to my car, mailbox, etc and I am by far not alone in having the meters at most a few steps away from something I do on a regular basis.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Oh, there's lots of advantages, like, say, it's 100 degrees, houses 5, 8 and 207 are sucking up 2x power than their neighbors, we'll disconnect them for the next 30 minutes instead of browning out block 6. Then it'll quickly be, wait, unit 207 is on the more expensive D plan, just cut 5 and 8 for 60 min.... instead of actually upgrading the power grid like they should be.
And I'll repeat, though you quoted it yourself:
If they were interested in that ability, they would install addressable disconnects at the pole, meter be damned.
Beyond that, utility regulations prevent them from wholesale disconnecting service in this manner. They can get away with opt-in devices attached to certain appliances, but they can not make opting in a requirement for service, either.
These are actually quite popular on AC units in my area, as you get a bill credit for having one and the agreement limits the terms under which the cutoff device may be activated; if they violate their own terms, or lean them too much in their own favor, they run the risk of additional regulation, so that's not really a concern.
Currently, they may activate devices for events occurring between May 1 and October 31, for up to 6hr per day and 100hr total per year. During an activation event, signal to the AC compressor will be blocked for 15 minutes, then unblocked for 15 minutes, cycling for the duration of the event. You can also call in to opt out of an event, as well; say you don't care if they cut off your AC during the day when you're not home, but there happens to be an event on your day off. I, personally, don't have one, as I have a number of servers that wouldn't last 15 minutes without AC on a 100+ degree day; many of my neighbors do, though and, while I've heard a few "you should look into getting one", I haven't heard anyone complain about it.
What I'm partly interested in is how did your smart meter help you figure out that motor was arcing any faster than looking at your meter would? Smart meters purport to only record in 15 min intervals. I saw elsewhere that in your meter appears to be located disproportionately far from your residence, but for most, that's not an issue. For instance, I pass mine on the way to my car, mailbox, etc and I am by far not alone in having the meters at most a few steps away from something I do on a regular basis.
Oh, it's not far from my residence, it's attached to the side of the building. I'm on the 3rd floor, it's outside at ground level, and this residence isn't where it proved useful. In that instance, the meter was in a locked utility room (with a lockbox for utility worker access) that required HOA assistance to access (e.g. they have the key and no, you can't have a copy), so reading the meter directly was not an option. Further, while they do only report aggregate usage in 15 minute intervals (thus this is all the granularity I can get out of usage charts), some of the better ones can be polled for current load. The one at my current apartment, and the one at the condo where it proved useful, both have that capability; neither apartment I lived in before that condo had a meter with that ability.
Beyond that, being able to have my load displayed right next to my thermostat as I'm toggling the blower motor off and on, well... it should be really obvious how that's helpful. I *know* the thing is trying to operate when I've just toggled it on, whereas I don't know if it's overheated and tripped a protection circuit in the HVAC unit by the time I walk to the meter, assuming I had direct access to it in the first place.
It was the 15 minute usage charts that hinted to the existence of the problem in the first place. Without those, which a mechanical meter can't provide, I never would have even gone looking for it.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
If they were interested in that ability, they would install addressable disconnects at the pole, meter be damned.
Beyond that, utility regulations prevent them from wholesale disconnecting service in this manner. They can get away with opt-in devices attached to certain appliances, but they can not make opting in a requirement for service, either.
You know as well as I do that once their foot is in the door, they're going to start abusing it by making the non-opt in option more and more expensive.
I'll admit I hadn't considered the HOA locked closet aspect as that's never occurred. Not having access would be very annoying. Current load readings are interesting as well. You imply that you can read load in real time. That's a major change from 15 min intervals.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
You know as well as I do that their foot is already in the door; they've been offering this for at least as long as I've lived down here, going on 7 years now, and it seemed to be an established offering at that time, so I'd estimate well over a decade. It doesn't matter enough for me to look it up. As for them making it more expensive, the electricity delivery market is very strictly regulated; there's really no way they could. They can increase their supply prices, but there's plenty of competition for supply and we can just elect to buy from someone else and use them only for delivery which, again, is regulated.
The meters report aggregate usage (what you're billed for) in 15 minute intervals. Realtime usage is just the V/A readings; this must be polled upon request. And instantaneous snapshot of this information doesn't really do anyone any good aside from troubleshooting, and the network over which it is sent simply doesn't have enough bandwidth for them to be capturing it widely enough to leverage it. It's simply not a concern.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
You know as well as I do that their foot is already in the door; they've been offering this for at least as long as I've lived down here, going on 7 years now, and it seemed to be an established offering at that time, so I'd estimate well over a decade.
That's untrue. They're just in the process of foisting these things on us, at our cost no less. If it's supposed to save money, let the savings pay for it, otherwise... don't throw away perfectly good meters.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
That's untrue. They're just in the process of foisting these things on us, at our cost no less. If it's supposed to save money, let the savings pay for it, otherwise... don't throw away perfectly good meters.
First, when you referred to them "making the non-opt in option more and more expensive", yo usure made it seem as though you were attempting to contrast against the opt-in appliance control program, to which I was referring and for which they offer a bill credit. The installation of the device is done at no cost and the bill credit represents the savings.
That said, it seems you're attempting to confuse two separate issues in order to make a point, in which case, I must ask: After how many years will you be satisfied that they're no longer "in the process"? My provider had been deploying smart meters for some time when I moved to the area 7 years ago, since which I've not been without one; they completed their deployment project nearly 4 years ago.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
I guess we have entirely different experiences with smart meters. I've gotten billed for the "upgrade" twice now. I've seen no benefits. The appliance opt-in thing you're talking about has nothing to do with what they're discussing here ("They" = power utility folks) They're discussing doing effectively micromanaged rolling brownouts on those people in the "lower cost opt in" power program that are high users during a high use time period, staggering the outages. Nothing like what you're talking about, and I'm certainly not trying to confuse the point.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.