New Smart Meters

Lex Luthor

so what is the advantage for the consumer to having one of these new smart meters installed?

there is some info online about the possible potential increased levels of RF that these generate down through the cabling and in the air especially close to the meter itself which has made me question the actual need for having it replaced if its not necessary

whizbang

I dont suppose you refuse to use a mobile phone by any chance ?

Sleeper12

Lex Luthor wrote:

there is some info online about the possible potential increased levels of RF that these generate down through the cabling and in the air especially close to the meter itself which has made me question the actual need for having it replaced if its not necessary

Google flat earth & you will get lots of information proving that the earth is in fact flat.

As pointed out above, the mobile phone you carry close to your body and put up close to your brain is far more harmful than a smart meter.

Personally I can't wait to get mine. I expect different prices at different times of the day and night. I hope to save money on my bills when smart meters are up and running

Lex Luthor

Sleeper12 wrote: »

Google flat earth & you will get lots of information proving that the earth is in fact flat.

As pointed out above, the mobile phone you carry close to your body and put up close to your brain is far more harmful than a smart meter.

Personally I can't wait to get mine. I expect different prices at different times of the day and night. I hope to save money on my bills when smart meters are up and running

Thanks for the replies

So when these go in will you be able to get lower rates at night?

Currently I’m on a flare rate 24/7

flintash

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I expect different prices at different times of the day and night.

what do you mean by that? there will be more than nightsaver rate, more like variable rate depending on time of the day?

Lenar3556

flintash wrote: »

what do you mean by that? there will be more than nightsaver rate, more like variable rate depending on time of the day?

Yes that’s the concept. Potentially with applicance and managment system integration in the future. For example a connected electric car could be set to charge at a low cost rate when excess power is available on the grid.

Similarly, some of the new generation of electric storage heating could be configured to take on energy when the price is low for use at a later time. Likewise for customers with PV & battery storage systems.

At present, lots of renewable energy potential is wasted, because there is no demand for it at the precise point it is available. Smart metering is perhaps the first step in long list of actions to modernise our national electricity grid to meet the needs of today and the future, and in a more environmentally friendly manner.

Skeptics would say that we may pay more for electricity if we do not make some changes to the way we use it, and that may be case - it remains to be seen.

emaherx

Lex Luthor wrote: »

so what is the advantage for the consumer to having one of these new smart meters installed?

No more estimated bills, so more accurate billing. What are you expecting of it?


If you are worried about RF you'd be best off having your electricity disconnected and refrain from using any electronic devices.

Sleeper12

flintash wrote:

what do you mean by that? there will be more than nightsaver rate, more like variable rate depending on time of the day?

I thought that's more or less what I said

Lex Luthor wrote:

So when these go in will you be able to get lower rates at night?

Maybe not as soon as it goes in but when the whole system is up and running I expect increase at peak times and reduce at lower times. There could be several different tariff throughout the day.

flintash

Sleeper12 wrote: »

I thought that's more or less what I said

yes thats what you said. just wanted to clarify for myself because i dint find proper explanation on ESB website.

alan4cult

A normal meter tells you how much units you have used over a period, a smart meter tells you what time of the day you are using those units. A world of extra data is now available not just the old day vs night but hour by hour, weekday by weekday is now available.

Also they can be read remotely.

Alun

It's all good in theory, but I wonder, apart from charging electric cars and storage heating, where most people will already have the old fashioned night meters, how many opportunities there will be to spread the load. The vast majority of our usage is cooking, and I'm not going to be doing that at 3am.

Sleeper12

flintash wrote:

yes thats what you said. just wanted to clarify for myself because i dint find proper explanation on ESB website.

I confuse myself sometimes

Chet T16

alan4cult wrote: »

A normal meter tells you how much units you have used over a period, a smart meter tells you what time of the day you are using those units. A world of extra data is now available not just the old day vs night but hour by hour, weekday by weekday is now available.

Also they can be read remotely.

Is this data actually available to end users?

Decoda

What's the story about getting a smart meter installed? Is there many installed already and what's the time line on roll out?

Alun

Decoda wrote: »

What's the story about getting a smart meter installed? Is there many installed already and what's the time line on roll out?

They're being rolled out gradually. I've got one, but the system hasn't gone live yet, so no monitoring or remote reading.

Tuco88

Its just offering you more information better flexibility on your running costs.

And probably for the vast majority of people will completely forget, or pay no attention to it.

alan4cult

Chet T16 wrote: »

Is this data actually available to end users?

System is not live yet afaik, but in time I imagine ESB will give stats and visualisations of this data. Releasing it to the public in raw form, probably not.

GarIT

flintash wrote: »

what do you mean by that? there will be more than nightsaver rate, more like variable rate depending on time of the day?

There was a proposal that the price of electricity would change every 15 minutes based on the last 15 minutes demand nationally.

A system like this will eliminate most cost savings at night as once the price drops a little all the electric cars will start charging.

440Hertz

If the price changed every 15 minutes I think you’d have a lot of very annoyed consumers as nobody would know what they were paying for anything and it would be unpredictable and non transparent.

There’s potential to use them for stuff like brining in or shedding loads like say off-peak hot water or car charging maximising lulls in demand during the day.

Lots of scope for new consumer focused stuff and better modelling of demand too.

Mostly I think it will just be used for more sophisticated versions of NightSaver and better data to model the load and automatic meter reading on a much more frequent basis.

I suspect a lot of it is hype though. ESB, to be fair to them, hasn’t been making ludicrous claims about the smart meter rollout. It’s useful but it’s unlikely to be all that exciting.

Stoner

Lex Luthor wrote: »

so what is the advantage for the consumer to having one of these new smart meters installed?

there is some info online about the possible potential increased levels of RF that these generate down through the cabling and in the air especially close to the meter itself which has made me question the actual need for having it replaced if its not necessary

My meter and as in the hall Lex, with the new smart meter I was able to bash out the wall and have it recessed in the cavity. It's all sealed off and much tidier.

Not really a technical reason.

I'm going to foil insulated the back of the recessed door now that you've mentioned extra RF.

Although I've an RF meter on it now

440Hertz

Stoner: please tell me you’re joking....

You might as well install pixie proofing while you’re at it. They’re always stealing the electrons.

emaherx

Stoner wrote: »

I'm going to foil insulated the back of the recessed door now that you've mentioned extra RF.

Although I've an RF meter on it now

Its got a 2G GSM modem, it's about as dangerous as having a nokia 3310 at your meter box. You'd probably pose a bigger risk to yourself lining your meter box with foil.

Stoner

440Hertz wrote: »

Stoner: please tell me you’re joking....

You might as well install pixie proofing while you’re at it. They’re always stealing the electrons.

LOL I'm not joking I just made a haymes of the reply sorry

The foil backing is for thermal insulation. The the compartment is leaking some cold air into the hall now. The wall is pumped and I've lost that insulation where it was removed to fit the new enclosure.

I've a Lightwaverf RF 433 CT in there moment, i was avoiding putting the insulation as it its difficult enough for the old lightwaverf monitor to reach the hub as it is. It was in the hall now it's in a compartment.
My lightwaveRf kit is not state aware and it struggles for range

As it stands I've a new wired CT on the Zappi car charger that's monitoring everything so I have that information, I just liked having the heating and electricity monitored on the same platform. I can insulate the door of the enclosure as RF is not an issue for me.

I understand I made a bollxxx of the reply

Overall the new meter is at the very least is a tidy unit. I might be able to get a better night rate with it in the future with little or no ESB works.

440Hertz

To be fair European style electromechanical electricity meters are by and large hideous looking devices. They really didn’t put any thought into the aesthetics.

The Irish and British approach, with the viable wiring orr the meter tails is even a bit extra ugly.

The electronic meters are far neater looking and much nicer designs, which matters if you’ve got to put them into your house rather than a cabinet.

The very old ESB meters, to the old German Siemens design were quite neat.

Any idea why this one is specified for 210 Volts ?

https://www.alamy.com/old-fashioned-electricity-meter-clare-ireland-image156526621.html

Westernworld.

440Hertz wrote: »

To be fair European style electromechanical electricity meters are by and large hideous looking devices. They really didn’t put any thought into the aesthetics.

The Irish and British approach, with the viable wiring orr the meter tails is even a bit extra ugly.

The electronic meters are far neater looking and much nicer designs, which matters if you’ve got to put them into your house rather than a cabinet.

The very old ESB meters, to the old German Siemens design were quite neat.

Any idea why this one is specified for 210 Volts ?

https://www.alamy.com/old-fashioned-electricity-meter-clare-ireland-image156526621.html

Not sure about the 210, we were 220v nominal

Interesting, it looks like a connection on top for lighting and sockets , 10 and 20 amp

440Hertz

Westernworld. wrote: »

Not sure about the 210, we were 220v nominal

Interesting, it looks like a connection on top for lighting and sockets , 10 and 20 amp

There were a few areas of Dublin, as far as I'm aware the Phoenix Park was the last of them (and not that long ago) which ran on closer to nominal 200-210V from some older spec. which likey was encompassed by 220V +/- 6% or some old allowed variances.

I remember reading an article about the removal of the last of some era of LV transformers, including underground ones that were used in a few suburban areas.

I know we had a far more standards based system than the UK much earlier on. They used to use a whole array of voltages until the early 1970s (200V to 250V) and if you go back further there were even pockets of DC power. For for some daft reason they initially chose 240V rather than 220V as their harmonised standard, completely oblivious to the emerging single market and need for global norms for 220V 50Hz appliances. There were some odd ball voltages in Australia too, western Australia had standardised on 250V.

In general, except for the plugs and sockets, we seemed to follow very much whatever the most widespread international norms were, to avoid lock in to a single supplier as we had no motive to create barriers to entry, unlike say the UK at one stage or France back in the day or Japan even now has weird voltages 100V 50Hz and 100V 60 Hz. Japanese stuff that might have narrow tolerances can fail on US supplies or EU to US transformer / adaptors, people importing early games consoles often found that out the hard way!

Tuco88

The large pharma plants in Ringaskiddy are all 240v/415v I'm not sure whats daft about it?

Westernworld.

Tuco88 wrote: »

The large pharma plants in Ringaskiddy are all 240v/415v I'm not sure whats daft about it?

Nothing daft about higher voltage

440Hertz

The daft bit about having obscure standards is lack of scale of market and causing unnecessarily expensive equipment or even making it unavailable.

The background to that was a plant designed in the UK in the 1970s without any reference to the European spec here, which was overcome because a plant is connected at MV anyway, with its own LV systems so they can run their systems are whatever voltages they like in reality. It's still a rather bizarre thing to have done as it results in unnecessary weirdness for no advantage.

The 220/380V spec put us in line with a massive market for appliances and equipment of all sorts and the move to 230/400V brought the UK, Australia, NZ etc in the same huge market.

It really makes no sense to have systems running on isolated local standards.

You've basically got two sets of standards: European derived or US derived, with pretty much only Japan being an odd outlier at this stage.

Westernworld.

440Hertz wrote: »

The daft bit about having obscure standards is lack of scale of market and causing unnecessarily expensive equipment or even making it unavailable.

The background to that was a plant designed in the UK in the 1970s without any reference to the European spec here, which was overcome because a plant is connected at MV anyway, with its own LV systems so they can run their systems are whatever voltages they like in reality. It's still a rather bizarre thing to have done as it results in unnecessary weirdness for no advantage.

The 220/380V spec put us in line with a massive market for appliances and equipment of all sorts and the move to 230/400V brought the UK, Australia, NZ etc in the same huge market.

It really makes no sense to have systems running on isolated local standards.

You've basically got two sets of standards: European derived or US derived, with pretty much only Japan being an odd outlier at this stage.

Higher voltages are better for heavy duty equipment like concrete, sawmills etc

coylemj

Smart meters will allow for variable pricing based on time of day without the need for a separate (night) meter. For the initial rollout of variable tariffs, the regulator has decided that there will be three rates: Day (08:00-23:00 excl peak), Night (23:00-08:00) and Peak (17:00-19:00).

The various suppliers will be rolling out price schemes which encourage you to avoid periods of peak demand. It's was supposed to happen by 2021, might be delayed a bit but my smart meter was installed during the first lockdown last March so it could happen next year. The plan is that the consumer will be able to track their usage in near realtime (prevous 24 hours). You won't get the data direct from the meter, you'll get it via an app or website, from your supplier.

Essentially, the new tariffs will encourge people to set the immersion timer to heat the water before 8 a.m., not use the dishwasher or washing machine between 5 and 7 p.m. and avoid giving the immersion or storage heaters a boost between 5 and 7 p.m. The aim clearly is to flatten the demand curve which will result in more efficient power generation.

This is from the ESB FAQ on smart meters....

Currently your electricity meter is manually read by ESB Networks up to four times per year. Smart meters will be able to automatically send your meter readings to ESB Networks so the need for estimated bills will be significant reduced.

When smart meters are fully operational, you will have a choice to be provided with more accurate information about your energy usage to allow you to better manage your bills with greater accuracy than at present. This information will also enable you to be more energy efficient, helping to reduce your carbon footprint.

From 2021 onwards, electricity supply companies will begin to offer new smart products and services, giving you more choice and enabling you to shift some of your consumption to off peak times of the day when electricity is cheaper

440Hertz

Westernworld. wrote: »

Higher voltages are better for heavy duty equipment like concrete, sawmills etc

For extremely large drives eg huge industrial mills, you have the option of things like star configuration for 400/690V (formerly 380/660V).

All of these are harmonised standards in EU/CENELEC/IEC norms.

If you go outside those you're into stuff that's not built to a known spec and start to clash with ability to get regulatory approvals for industrial equipment or components, lack of support systems : transformers, control gear, approved and tested cables, connectors, protection systems etc etc

220/380 and 240/415 are both legacy standards and in terms of old plant, your talking about an era of old national regulators and loopholes if you go back before the 1990s.

But to get back to smart metering, it will be a lot less dramatic than some of the discussions online and a lot of it may be for things like maximum efficiency car charging, which is going to become a bigger and bigger deal.