Smart Meters and the ESB

Cabaal

Well,
Getting a house built at the moment as part of a development and wanted to know is it possible to get a Smart Meter fitted now in Ireland or must we continue on with estimated electricity bills for the foreseeable future?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter

10-10-20

No smart meters are being offered at the moment.

Cabaal

10-10-20 wrote:

No smart meters are being offered at the moment.

Abit crap to be honest, any idea when?

10-10-20

I can't remember but suspect it was down for 2009...

wazzoraybelle

I understand there is new legislation that will compel the esb to buy from microgenerators. I think the date for this is in November sometime as I was hoping to do a workshop on wind generation with Quentin from ecologics and he is not running another course until the details of this are announced ( see ecologics.ie and click on courses.

10-10-20

I have a feeling that in ESB land, microgeneration and SMART meters are two different meters, and you may not be able to push power back into the network via a standard SMART meter, you'll need a specialised meter.

I could be wrong... but that's my guess.

wazzoraybelle

From what I've heard on the proposed new regs. The esb will buy all the electricity you generate at a price of their choice and sell you back what you use at retail price! So the only way to make microgeneration viable is to have a smart meter which the esb will have to approve ( And while they haven't announced an approved one yet rumour is it is going to have the highest specs( and therefore v. expensive) in europe!

maniac101

I understand that a 12-month pilot programme must be completed before smart meters can be rolled out to the general public. Given that this pilot programme hasn't been embarked upon yet, the meters won't be available until 2009 at least. This timeline of course doesn't take into account technical and non-technical issues that might arise in the meantime that would further delay the rollout.
The CER plans to have them installed in all households. When you consider that there are 1.8 million connections and that the ESB will be tasked with replacing them, it could take several years before all households are equipped with smart meters.

probe

A recent article in the IEEE website mentions how smart meters could fit in with plug-in electric / hybrid cars:

Can plug-in hybrid electric vehicles keep the electric grid stable? By John Voelcker

First Published October 2007
Speakers at an IEEE-USA symposium on plug-in hybrid electric vehicles debate the promises and challenges of vehicle-to-grid (V2G) technology

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PHOTO: Ben Zweig
Click here for a slideshow about the event.

Google, a former CIA director, the Natural Resources Defense Council, a U.S. senator, and the IEEE aren’t often found together in the same room.

But the promise of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) aligns the stars in unexpected ways. The result of their meeting on 19 September is an early glimpse at a future with vehicles powered by electricity, emitting far fewer greenhouse gases than those of the last century—and playing a key role in the very stability of the nation’s electric grid.



Organized by IEEE-USA, the “Plug-In Hybrids:
Accelerating Progress” symposium was held on a beautiful day in Washington, D.C. A full slate of presentations blended lofty phrases (“Revolutionizing the energy paradigm”) with hard-core technical concerns (Can automakers work with electric utilities to set standards?).

Into the Policy Fray

The keynote speaker, Senator Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), plunged directly into the policy fray. “Many of us on Capitol Hill see the potential of plug-in hybrids,” Cantwell said, describing a bill she has introduced to encourage early production and purchase of plug-ins. It includes tax credits for consumers who buy or convert to plug-ins, tax incentives on tooling for carmakers who sell early models, and incentives for utilities to offer discounts for off-peak car recharging. It also encourages utilities to upgrade to “smart grid” technology, allowing electric appliances (for this purpose, a plug-in hybrid is a power-using appliance!) to communicate with the grid and charge themselves based on real-time power prices.

Next up was Jon Wellinghoff of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, who coined the term “cash-back hybrid,” which clearly describes the benefit to consumers of plug-ins that not only charge themselves when demand is lightest and prices are lowest, but supply energy services to the grid as well. Collectively, Wellinghoff proposed, the batteries in millions of PHEVs could provide five distinct benefits: lowering greenhouse-gas emissions, improving urban air quality, saving consumers money, bolstering power-grid reliability, and reducing oil imports.

How would those results be achieved? By making the energy stored in plug-in hybrids an integral part of the grid, using a few percent of each battery’s energy storage capacity to meet peak demand rather than adding new generating capacity—and by paying consumers accordingly.

The notion is called vehicle-to-grid power, or V2G, and its workings, economics, and practicalities were the meat and potatoes of the symposium. Wellinghoff’s model appeared to show the energy cost of a plug-in hybrid falling toward zero over time. Much discussion, and some derision, ensued.

“A Faster Horse,” or Cars on the Grid?
Clearly such a notion requires radical thinking. Whether consumers are ready to make that kind of leap—let alone the automakers or the electric industry—is open to debate. But the ghost of Henry Ford was invoked, with his legendary quotation on responding to consumer demands: “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said a faster horse.”

From the viewpoint of carmakers and consumers, one key concern is battery life—and the potential cost of replacing a 20-kilowatt-hour battery pack halfway through a car’s 10-year life.

After safety, the longevity of the batteries in a plug-in hybrid is the greatest unknown. Can a plug-in hybrid’s battery pack retain the bulk of its energy capacity over 10 years of daily use and more than 4000 full-discharge cycles? (For a deeper look at the challenges facing plug-in hybrid batteries, see “Lithium Batteries Take to the Road”.) As Don Hillebrand of Argonne National Laboratory, in Illinois, said tartly, “Batteries are the showstopper.”

Periodic demands from the grid, even for only a small fraction of the battery’s stored energy, would clearly affect the cells’ life span—but no one has data on how much. Another open issue is the development of creative financing models for replacement battery packs costing several thousand U.S. dollars even after mass production is achieved.

Third-party battery leasing could be one answer, if combined with a secondary market for batteries whose performance has fallen below automotive levels. Carmakers, electric utilities, and large consumer-financing groups are quietly batting around these notions to see if they can build a financial model that makes sense for all three parties.

Here’s one scenario: suppose you bought or leased your plug-in hybrid just like a regular car—except that your local power company actually owned the battery, charged you a set rate to recharge it, and paid you back when it took some energy out through the grid? That activity would all appear on your monthly electric bill. If your battery performance fell below a certain level, the utility would pay for a new one—and then rack the used battery with thousands of others, obtaining one thing the grid has never provided on any scale: distributed storage capacity for energy, particularly for variable natural resources such as wind and solar energy.

Electric Utilities + Google + Government = Big Challenges

During the day of lectures and debate, the engaged audience asked detailed questions of every presenter and panelist. Study data and projections from modeling exercises appeared on PowerPoint slides, sparking new questions and side conversations. The IEEE-USA plans to publish full transcripts of the day’s events in a future Proceedings. Meanwhile, a few highlights can convey the wide ground that was covered:

• Google now loans six plug-in Toyota Priuses to its staff, with plans to provide 100 altogether.
• Pacific Gas & Electric Co. of San Francisco is developing pricing to encourage off-peak vehicle charging.
• R. James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, views electric vehicles as one way to help “destroy oil as a strategic commodity.”
• Hymotion, a technology company in Toronto, is putting its PHEV conversion kit, in a Prius, through the full array of U.S. certification, safety, and emissions tests required for all new vehicles.

In the end, panelists and audience agreed, the promise of electric vehicles—to reduce oil consumption and stabilize the grid, among many benefits—demands both technology and policy advances.

That technology is under intense development all over the globe, from lithium-ion batteries to ever more sophisticated hybrid power-train control software. But Washington, where the symposium took place, is the seat of government for the world’s largest and most influential auto market. All eyes turn to policies that emerge from Washington, for they have a great impact on any car designed for this century.

.probe

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/oct07/5630

Gareth37

Cabaal wrote: »

Well,
Getting a house built at the moment as part of a development and wanted to know is it possible to get a Smart Meter fitted now in Ireland or must we continue on with estimated electricity bills for the foreseeable future?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter

You probably can buy one off the shelf. How come your gettign estimated bills?

Search of the web shows a Galway company selling them www.futumeter.ie . Their smart meters seem very advanced. I hope that the ESB go for the most advanced and not the cheapest. I hope that it will do more than remotely read meters and give a local display. Would be very dissapppointing if they did.

ircoha

FYI: One of the ideas behind smart metering is to enable differential pricing for power based on when it is used, so as to smooth out/reduce the evening post 'Coronation Street' peaks.

If this is a new dev, the meter will be outside and it will be read 3 times a year, so every second bill will be an estimate

maniac101

ircoha wrote: »

If this is a new dev, the meter will be outside and it will be read 3 times a year, so every second bill will be an estimate

The smart meter probably won't require anyone to read the meter locally. It will communicate with a data centre either across the power line or via RF. All readings used for billing will be done remotely and automatically.

10-10-20

It's my understanding that some of these meters have a 'walk-by' RF device which can be read by a meter-man a couple of meters away from the unit. They use these in France. Others may use a 'drive-by' (which allows for 30-40 meters of a distance) but it's up in the air as to what will be chosen.

probe

Drive-by meters are past generation stuff – and they are not really smart meters. Lots of countries have drive-by meter reading – but it doesn’t rank as smart metering. The latest generation of smart meters are networked – as in Italy.

Quote from Wiki smart metering:

Italy
The world's largest and arguably "smartest" smart meter deployment was undertaken by Enel SpA, the dominant utility in Italy with over 27 million customers. Over a 5 year period beginning in 2000 and ending in 2005 Enel deployed smart meters to its entire customer base.

These meters are fully electronic and truly smart, with integrated bi-directional communications, advanced power measurement and management capabilities, an integrated, software-controllable disconnect switch, and an all solid-state design. They communicate over low voltage power line using standards-based power line technology from Echelon Corporation to Echelon data concentrators at which point they communicate via IP to Enel’s enterprise servers.

The system provides a wide range of advanced features, including the ability to remotely turn power on or off to a customer, read usage information from a meter, detect a service outage, detect the unauthorized use of electricity, change the maximum amount of electricity that a customer can demand at any time; and remotely change the meters billing plan from credit to prepay as well as from flat-rate to multi-tariff.

In various publications Enel has estimated the cost of the project at approximately 2.1 billion Euros and the savings they are receiving in operation of 500 million Euros per year, an astonishing 4 year payback and a testament to the power of next-generation advanced metering systems.

Unquote

You need networked smart metering to make green energy work well. Example - lots of wind blowing with surplus electricity being produced - the smart meter starts charging your car battery or powers up your home hydrogen energy station.

.probe

ircoha

While electricity theft is a problem in ireland, the Italian market was renowned for the hugh levels of power been stolen so the short payback reflects this

probe

ircoha wrote: »

While electricity theft is a problem in ireland, the Italian market was renowned for the hugh levels of power been stolen so the short payback reflects this

You are diverting the topic from the big issue. Smart meters allow power suppliers to pass on the super-high cost of electricity consumed during demand peaks to the consumer to motivate them to reduce demand. The marginal cost of plant to meet demand peaks is extremely high. Ireland goes through a peak point between 15h00 and 20h00 toping out at around 17h40. There is at least 1 GW of capacity waiting in the background for this hour or two of peak when it reaches the top of the scale in Ireland. Italy has 13X Ireland’s population – so they probably have 10 to 13 GW of capacity waiting in the wings to do the job for a few hours every day. A 1GW gas turbine generator costs about €1bn. At the moment there is zero behaviour modification for residential users in Ireland – everything runs flat out and nobody cares.

On the other side of the coin, there are periods where demand is low – and as Europe moves to green energy sources – production from wind, wave, tidal and other sources may be high while demand is low. The price of electricity should fall dramatically during these periods and consumers with electric cars, hydrogen home energy stations, even storage heaters and electric underfloor heating should have the opportunity to benefit. Heat their houses and hot water. Charge up their cars. Turn electricity into hydrogen. Let the meter tell these appliances when they should be drawing power from the network.

If they have invested in solar or wind turbines which end up producing surplus energy or want to sell stored electricity from their car battery or home hydrogen system back into the network, the smart meter should be able to go backwards.

It is no different to Ryanair selling seats cheaply on the internet when nobody wants to fly. They fill the aircraft and make money in the process, and people get from A to B.

.probe

iasdiess

I'd like to add some little back ground...
Ireland is just starting out about smart metering (investigation).

It is likely that it will take several years before that really becomes a reality for each of you irish folks, although - looking at the way things are moving in Europe - it is now pretty likely to happen.

Now - everybody is selling and talking about big dreams on what smart meter can do and the connected home. I personally think this is all big talks and that this wont happens untill the first basic deployment of smart meters happen. So most of those guys are selling dreams of IP connected home and auto car refuel which most probably wont come to the scope of realisticly and economically viable before 5-7 years (being optimistics).

Then - the drive for smart meters is coming from regulation, but more importantly from Utilities themselves. The first thing Utility want to 1) metering operations improvements, 2) commercial operations improvements, 3) cost of supply optimisation. The first one is a direct consequence of smart metering deployment, the 2, 3rd and all the other benefits you derive, will probably require Utilities to revamp their whole IT systems and capabilities, which they cant do today if they dont know what and when will be installed. It clearly means that in order to accomodate dynamic pricing or load response programs (on top of that in a deregulated environment), it will take some more years.

Last - just deployment takes a lot of time (usually several years). And if I was a Utility, you'd want to return on the ACTUAL experience of massive deployments of smart meters with the providers. Otherwise you might end up with having to replace all the meters you deployed because of misconceptions (this return takes years of real life exploitation on the field).

From my standpoint, the most difficult for the Folks using electricity to see benefits of smart metering, is Utilities focus only on the smart meter provision but they underestimate the challenge that this will imply on their IT systems. So they end up having a good looking car, but with console to pilot it.
In the end, it might end up another 200 euros per consumer and limited benefits to them...

ircoha

probe wrote: »

You are diverting the topic from the big issue.[ Not intended, just stating a fact.] Smart meters allow power suppliers to pass on the super-high cost of electricity consumed during demand peaks to the consumer to motivate them to reduce demand. The marginal cost of plant to meet demand peaks is extremely high. as is the cost of having standby capacity to provide power in the event of there being no wind. Ireland goes through a peak point between 15h00 and 20h00 toping out at around 17h40. see http://www.eirgrid.com/EirgridPortal/ for the mismatch in almost real time There is at least 1 GW of capacity waiting in the background for this hour or two of peak when it reaches the top of the scale in Ireland. Italy has 13X Ireland’s population – so they probably have 10 to 13 GW of capacity waiting in the wings to do the job for a few hours every day. A 1GW gas turbine generator costs about €1bn. in fact it is more because the current trend is for smaller peaking systems so as u dont fire up the 1GW turbine just for a few extra keettles. At the moment there is zero behaviour modification for residential users in Ireland – everything runs flat out and nobody caresI agree wholeheartly: this applies right across this country: health care/crime/costs of doing business/ corruption.

On the other side of the coin, there are periods where demand is low – and as Europe moves to green energy sources – production from wind, wave, tidal and other sources may be high while demand is low. The price of electricity should fall dramatically during these periods and consumers with electric cars, hydrogen home energy stations, even storage heaters and electric underfloor heating should have the opportunity to benefit. Heat their houses and hot water. Charge up their cars. Turn electricity into hydrogen. Let the meter tell these appliances when they should be drawing power from the network.

If they have invested in solar or wind turbines which end up producing surplus energy or want to sell stored electricity from their car battery or home hydrogen system back into the network, the smart meter should be able to go backwards.

It is no different to Ryanair selling seats cheaply on the internet when nobody wants to fly. They fill the aircraft and make money in the process, and people get from A to B.

.probe

On the subject of smart metering I contacted the folks at
http://www.futumeter.ie/futumeter.htm
who would not enter into any discussion on their products: why? 'Smart metering is only for the benefit of the utility, not the customer!'

They finally referred me to
http://www.windtrap.co.uk/Electricity_Monitors/Electrisave.htm

anyone got anymore similiar links?

probe

iasdiess wrote: »

I'd like to add some little back ground...
Ireland is just starting out about smart metering (investigation).

It is likely that it will take several years before that really becomes a reality for each of you irish folks, although - looking at the way things are moving in Europe - it is now pretty likely to happen.

Now - everybody is selling and talking about big dreams on what smart meter can do and the connected home. I personally think this is all big talks and that this wont happens untill the first basic deployment of smart meters happen. So most of those guys are selling dreams of IP connected home and auto car refuel which most probably wont come to the scope of realisticly and economically viable before 5-7 years (being optimistics).

Then - the drive for smart meters is coming from regulation, but more importantly from Utilities themselves. The first thing Utility want to 1) metering operations improvements, 2) commercial operations improvements, 3) cost of supply optimisation. The first one is a direct consequence of smart metering deployment, the 2, 3rd and all the other benefits you derive, will probably require Utilities to revamp their whole IT systems and capabilities, which they cant do today if they dont know what and when will be installed. It clearly means that in order to accomodate dynamic pricing or load response programs (on top of that in a deregulated environment), it will take some more years.

Last - just deployment takes a lot of time (usually several years). And if I was a Utility, you'd want to return on the ACTUAL experience of massive deployments of smart meters with the providers. Otherwise you might end up with having to replace all the meters you deployed because of misconceptions (this return takes years of real life exploitation on the field).

From my standpoint, the most difficult for the Folks using electricity to see benefits of smart metering, is Utilities focus only on the smart meter provision but they underestimate the challenge that this will imply on their IT systems. So they end up having a good looking car, but with console to pilot it.
In the end, it might end up another 200 euros per consumer and limited benefits to them...

Postings like this give off more than a whiff of vested interest – especially when they appear in a “Green issues” topic. (One might expect them as par for the course in a “How best to preserve the ESB expensive carbon energy monopoly for as long as possible” section of boards.ie. Of course there is no such topic – because that is “Washington behind closed doors” material, Irish style).

I don’t think anyone is expecting a national roll-out of smart metering in Ireland during 2007. There is however no reason why trials couldn’t be started in 2008 using kit that can be software upgraded over the net like set-top boxes and many other consumer appliances.

As far as utilities are concerned, they might start off with meter reading applications. And over time progress to real-time pricing tariff options, and providing customers with the option of putting groups of appliances in their household on a circuit which gets powered up based on certain price/power availability criteria data supplied by the network.

.probe

probe

ircoha wrote: »

On the subject of smart metering I contacted the folks at
http://www.futumeter.ie/futumeter.htm
who would not enter into any discussion on their products: why? 'Smart metering is only for the benefit of the utility, not the customer!'

They finally referred me to
http://www.windtrap.co.uk/Electricity_Monitors/Electrisave.htm

anyone got anymore similiar links?

One wasn’t suggesting that power suppliers in Ireland use 1GW power stations – my use of 1GW = €1 bn is simply a round figure to demonstrate the costs involved of a gas turbine generation plant by way of example. [Doesn’t apply if you are going nuclear Finnish style where a 1.6 GW station will probably end up costing €2.34 bn per GW – ignoring the €20 bn+ future cost of dealing with the waste over the centuries].

While the vendors of smart metering systems are only going to sell to service providers, once a proper regulatory framework is in place, the consumer will be the ultimate beneficiary from smart meters, because they will help make the market more transparent in real-time – and that is the essence of an efficient electricity marketplace.

You’d probably get the same treatment from IBM if you called them up for information on their point of sale systems which you may have come across in a Carrefour, Walmart or Dunnes – telling them you were a retail customer of one of these chains. Though IBM would probably be more polite, and they might even send you a glossy brochure or refer you to some information on a website.

.probe

http://www-306.ibm.com/software/success/cssdb.nsf/CS/CSAL-6VRM9F?OpenDocument&Site=default&cty=en_us
http://news.thomasnet.com/companystory/489585
http://www.elektrosandberg.com/en/Electricity/Control_Meter_Reading_/
http://www.helio-international.org/projects/SmartMetering.Paper.pdf
http://www.energywatch.org.uk/uploads/Smart_meters.pdf

CJhaughey

Timely thread as apparently 20k houses are going to be fitted with smart meters in a trial next year. I wonder how the households are selected?

ednwireland

http://www.rte.ie/news/2007/1105/energy.html

eamon ryan announced this morning on morning ireland apparently 25000 homes in pilot scheme

ircoha

CJhaughey wrote: »

Timely thread as apparently 20k houses are going to be fitted with smart meters in a trial next year. I wonder how the households are selected?

I suspect they will include some of the ones that have pv or wind setups since part of the exer is to test feeding power back to grid. It will be interesting to see how this will work given the hassle re connecting up a real wind farm.

shakeydude

ircoha wrote: »

While electricity theft is a problem in ireland, the Italian market was renowned for the hugh levels of power been stolen so the short payback reflects this

Hi irocha,

I might be a bit slow on the up take but what do you mean about stolen electricity????

Shakeydude

ircoha

shakeydude wrote: »

Hi irocha,

I might be a bit slow on the up take but what do you mean about stolen energy????

Shakeydude

Its like losing your virginity, its hard to explain what you have lost:D

Stolen power is power that is got by avoiding the various electricity meters.

In italy, there are lots of places where the 'esb' meter man, or for that matter, any meter man, cant go because of the mafia....

shakeydude

ircoha wrote: »

Its like losing your virginity, its hard to explain what you have lost:D

Stolen power is power that is got by avoiding the various electricity meters.

In italy, there are lots of places where the 'esb' meter man, or for that matter, any meter man, cant go because of the mafia....

Basically you mean individual houses getting someone to hook them onto the grid, I had Soprano-esque images of entire power plants under their rule.I have attached a picture of how electricity is distributed in Brazil.....must be similar in Italy

Does anyone have an idea as to how much a smart meter would actually cost?? Would it be up to the individual or the service provider????

dhaslam

probe wrote: »

One wasn’t suggesting that power suppliers in Ireland use 1GW power stations – my use of 1GW = €1 bn is simply a round figure to demonstrate the costs involved of a gas turbine generation plant by way of example. [Doesn’t apply if you are going nuclear Finnish style where a 1.6 GW station will probably end up costing €2.34 bn per GW – ignoring the €20 bn+ future cost of dealing with the waste over the centuries].

The bigger wind turbines cost €1 million and produce 1000 kilowatts at peak but their output is normally rated at one quarter to one third of maximum output. Over seven years at 5 cents per unit they repay their cost at about 33% of maximum output. Obviously the gas and oil and peat stations are much cheaper in terms of capital cost but they need fuel and have high labour costs.

There are probably two steps to eliminating fossil fuel. The wind generators will need to store some power and consumers will also need to even out their demand by using storage as well. One part of this would be some communication to allow consumer storage to be topped up when spare capacity is available. It seems that batteries are now becoming available which can be charged quickly which will allow vehicles to be fully charged in about twenty minutes so it won't be just houses and commercial premises that will benefit. I don't expect that any of this will actually happen.

ircoha

http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20071119/tts-uk-dutch-criminal-a8bf950_1.html

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Dutch police have arrested one of Britain's most wanted criminals, James Hurley, 13 years after he escaped from British custody after killing a policeman.



In a statement on Monday, Dutch police said they found him in the Hague on November 9 when investigating a house which had raised suspicions due to its high energy use, sometimes a sign of illegal drugs factories.

"Officers expected to find a cannabis farm but instead found a large quantity of hard drugs," the police said.

The Dutch public prosecutor will discuss with British authorities whether and when Hurley is to be handed over.

riccol1966

The concept of smart metering, from the consumer point of view, is that it opens up a 2-way channel for power, as opposed to the one-way channel that we currently have i.e. ESB -> Consumer becomes ESB <-> Consumer. But Joe Public does not benefit unless he actually has something to give back, i.e. power being fed back into the grid and he being paid for it.

So it becomes irrelevant for the vast majority of people. Then, for the minority of people who actually could use this, and who have power that could be fed back into the GRID, the ESB are unwilling to give fair market prices for the generated electricity, despite the fact that these micro-generating points are actually generating the cleanest electricity from a green source. In fact, they should be given a unit price higher than the going rate, backed up by goverment regulations. In other Europen counties the consumer is incentivised to do this; here we are ignored.

So, if you can generate your own power, its best to use it all yourself and therefore slow down your current meter that way.

R.

my green house

The smart meter is slowly being introduced. My parents were selected to participate in the roll out and had a smart meter fitted in the last week, i am not currently living at home with them and not fully aware of what it will do or how it will affect there currently high bills. Can someone fill me in if you know anymore.

Heroditas

my green house wrote: »

The smart meter is slowly being introduced. My parents were selected to participate in the roll out and had a smart meter fitted in the last week, i am not currently living at home with them and not fully aware of what it will do or how it will affect there currently high bills. Can someone fill me in if you know anymore.

The bills will look a lot different.
They plan to supply some homes in the trial with an in-home display.
This will indicate how much their electricity bill will cost at current consumption rates, how much they're using etc.
There is a lot of scope to the customer behaviour trial but essentially the main aim is to try out different tariffs on people and see if they react accordingly.
The customers will still get billed at the current rate but they will receive a "shadow bill" which will indicate what they would be charged if they were really on one of these new tariffs.
The main aim is to try and cut down on electricity usage during the peak hours. Also, the domestic users will then be able to feed power back into the grid if they can generate small amounts themselves.
Previously this couldn't be measured and was not possible. With a smart meter, it will be possible.

drunken_munky52

Smart metering is also the start of the the electricity internet. Just like the internet, electricity "routers" will ensure that unpredictable renewable power does no mean the lights go off when the wind stops blowing, becuase electronics will "route" power from other sources on the network.

janeha

Hopefully we will all see new tariffs that will encourage us to use electricity at off peak times.
This move to smart metering should mean that the ESB (and all the other generating companies) can build fewer power stations and use the existing ones more efficiently. In that way we all pay less!

My concern is that the transformation of the ESB distribution network into a massive IT/Computer/Communications network with over a million "smart" nodes will be hugely expensive and problematic.

bigtam

Was reading this yesterday:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/17/immersion-heater-renewable-energy


dhaslam refered to the need for customer storage capacity in this thread some time ago but I cannot help wondering if the ESB smart meters will have this capacity. Regulating supply and demand of electricity is one of the major obstacles to significant renewables expansion. Options are still emerging and smart metering is one of a range of tools.

Does anybody know if the smart meters being installed will be able to control hot water storage (or indeed any other customer storage capacity). It would be a real shame (and a little expensive) if they all need replacing in a few years time

Heroditas

bigtam wrote: »

Does anybody know if the smart meters being installed will be able to control hot water storage (or indeed any other customer storage capacity). It would be a real shame (and a little expensive) if they all need replacing in a few years time

No they won't be able to do that.
They're simply digital meters that can record incoming and also outgoing electricity flow.

iasdiess

Heroditas wrote: »

No they won't be able to do that.
They're simply digital meters that can record incoming and also outgoing electricity flow.

Well this might not be the case in the first pilot implementation but that is certainly on the requirement list in the most advanced initiatives:
- load limitation (if you dont pay)
- Home Automation applications (home devices connected to the home hub/and-or intelligent meter) can be managed (load management, programming, imagine you are in your car, you can switch the oven before arriving home... ;-o)
- Demand Response programs: utilities controlling through either price signals (sent to the meter, so the meter based on set up will optimise your load), or through direct command (for instance boilers, or in the US air conditionning) the load of the customers

So watch out -- it's coming... :pac:

kilomike31

If you want to see where and when you are using electricity you could get a wireless energy meter. It has a little clip-on gadget that goes around one of the wires coming into your house. This then transmits a wireless signal to a 'meter' that shows you immediately what power you are using. The meter also converts the usage to money (if you give it the current unit price) and gives historical totals by week, month etc.

One of these sitting in a prominent place in your house makes the whole family take energy saving seriously and people have reported saving up to 20% on electricity bills. It was on one of the Duncan Stewart TV programmes last year (About the House ?) and people were getting these kinds of savings.

You can order one of these meters at www.energymeter.ie for €49.99.

Heroditas

In Home Displays are also being trialled in the smart meter trial. If/when the national roll-out is complete, there won't be much of a market for those clip-on meters. However, in the meantime, they're excellent. The only downside being the replacing of batteries every so on.

Regarding the smart meter pilot, a document has been published on the CER website outlining the shadow tariffs to be used for the customer behaviour trial. http://www.cer.ie/en/information-centre-reports-and-publications.aspx?article=c03aebf5-8048-456c-ba8b-33a79319a818

I'm divided ove rthe proposed shadow charges. On one hand, they're not too high for the peak time and that is a good thing but on the other hand, if they're not overly harsh, what hope do they have of changing behaviour, particularly between the 5pm and 7pm time period?
It all boils down to how people actually view their energy costs as a % of their total outgoings. It'll be hard to convince a family with 4 kids who spend a couple of hundred euro a week that it is vitally important they save a couple of euro on their electricity bill. It's all about perceived priorities.

kilomike31

Heroditas wrote: »

In Home Displays are also being trialled in the smart meter trial. If/when the national roll-out is complete, there won't be much of a market for those clip-on meters. However, in the meantime, they're excellent. The only downside being the replacing of batteries every so on.

Do you have any more details of these 'in-home' displays ? Is it a plug in unit that communicates over the mains circuit with the smart meter ?

Thanks.

Heroditas

kilomike31 wrote: »

Do you have any more details of these 'in-home' displays ? Is it a plug in unit that communicates over the mains circuit with the smart meter ?

Thanks.

That's the plan anyway. I've only seen the conceptual mock-ups of them. Elster were still developing working models for the ESB the last time I heard. I'll have a sniff around and see if there's any more updates though.

quentingargan

kilomike31 wrote: »

Do you have any more details of these 'in-home' displays ? Is it a plug in unit that communicates over the mains circuit with the smart meter ?

Thanks.

If you want a display like this, they are availble online from a number of outlets. I have one and it certainly throws up interesting information and can help to change habits.

kilomike31

Heroditas wrote: »

That's the plan anyway. I've only seen the conceptual mock-ups of them. Elster were still developing working models for the ESB the last time I heard. I'll have a sniff around and see if there's any more updates though.

Ok, thanks for the information. I you get any update could you post it here please ?

Thanks

sparcocars

kilomike31 wrote: »

Do you have any more details of these 'in-home' displays ? Is it a plug in unit that communicates over the mains circuit with the smart meter ?

Thanks.

The in house display will communicate wirelessly with the smart meter. The modems on the smart meters in the pilot project are currently being changed to facilitate this. They can also communicate with the esb for readings so no meter reader will need to go around to the unless the comms are malfunctioning. I work for the ESB and fit these meters so thats how i know.

mchammer

apologies as this may have been answered somewhere - but how do I know if my esb meter is capable of accepting an electricity output from an appropriate inverter? i.e. if i produce electricity and output via an inverter can I just wire in the output of the inverter to the meter and wind the clock back (legitimately)?
Also, My house was added to grid last Jan 09 and is a dual tariff digital meter.

quentingargan

mchammer wrote: »

apologies as this may have been answered somewhere - but how do I know if my esb meter is capable of accepting an electricity output from an appropriate inverter? i.e. if i produce electricity and output via an inverter can I just wire in the output of the inverter to the meter and wind the clock back (legitimately)?
Also, My house was added to grid last Jan 09 and is a dual tariff digital meter.

The procedure is a bit different to this I'm afraid. If you are plannning to export electricity to the grid, you apply to the ESB using form NC6. After two weeks, you are free to go ahead with your install, but it won't send the meter backwards, unless it is a very old one - they put a ratchet on that...

After your spark has signed off on the installation, ESB will then change your meter.

kilomike31

Thanks for the detailed information. Also, if you need to measure and record electricity usage in a more detailed way (especially if, like most people, you don't have an ESB smart meter) you can take a look at the wireless electricity meter here .

A friend of mine has a wind turbine and finally started seeing 'credit' on his ESB bill a few months ago. If you're in a suitable location, and many people of course aren't, there is almost constant wind energy available in Ireland !