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diy solar

diy solar

So I just got a call from my power company - Smart meter!

We went from the old spinning wheel meter to the smart meter, so we still had meter readers once a month.
Worked in R&D at Itron, left in '88 but we were already developing RF/Wireless readers exactly to eliminate the 'on the ground' personnel. Yes there was a manpower cost incentive BUT in some of the places we were going to were war zones. Staff getting assaulted by humans and dogs so going wireless made it quicker and lowered injury claims, etc. I live 1000' away from the paved road, haven't seen a meter reader here in decades although on the south coast of NSW we had them until 2017, don't know about now.
 
$5 is pretty high for a demand multiplier, but with a rate < $0.10/kwh you should trivially be able to manage that one and take it extremely low. Since they are basing it on your worst hour (They don't mention if it's a clock hour, or hour interval with a granularity). I'd put a monitor on some of my high demand items. The power companies often have boxes that will turn off things like water heaters and such during high demand intervals. If you have an EV you will only want to charge it, when your demand is lowest. Even just a single monitor recording on your primary feed. you should be able to get it pretty darn low. If you use 100KWH/day that puts you at 3000KWH/mo (That's a lot) an AVERAGE hour is around 4.16 KWH. You should easily be able to keep an hours demand below 8kwh, that would cost you $40. With a lilttle effort probably 6.

YMMV.
They always seem to matched up as a clock hour, so the bill will actually show the timeframe of 7-8pm or whatever it happens to be, now i can get in the portal and dig further down into it. and im sure i could find a higher usage if i use quarter hour start times but the bill always reflect the start and finish of actual hours on the clock. Either way these smart meters are never put in for the customers benefit, we have other ways of figuring our power usage. IMO they are only sold to power companies as ways to bring in more revenue. thats what it always comes down to. If you ever have a choice deny the SM and take the dumb meter surcharge. Unfortunately in my very unique scenario i have zero cost effective solutions to implement. my only option is to pass on cost.
 
I don't envy the people who live in high rate areas (well, I might envy where you live, but not for your rates, e.g. Hawaii). Here in WNC we have a constant $0.12 per kWh. I could justify the cost of the inverter and battery bank I installed as a battery backup system rather than sinking that money into a whole house backup generator. But it's really hard to justify the cost of adding PV to this system to offset $0.12...
 
AMR guys drives around in his van

And

AMI, mesh network no boots on the ground, very expensive for node network install on pole tops.

Two different types of “smart” meters, typically only AMI should be condsidered Smart meters as live data can be used for real time usage and outage needs.

Some AMR meters can be “upgraded” to AMI to save on some of the cost if AMR would ever be upgraded to AMI, changing out each meter is t cheap.
 
Two different types of “smart” meters, typically only AMI should be condsidered Smart meters as live data can be used for real time usage and outage needs.

Nailed it exactly 💯

NEW METERING SYSTEM UPDATE - Sedgwick County Electric Cooperative is in the process of upgrading the advance metering infrastructure (AMI) system. The current TWACS metering system has exceeded its life expectancy. The new metering system has advanced features that include instant outage detection and data collection. Contractors will be assisting Sedgwick County Electric Cooperative with installing new meters and will have signs identifying them as Sedgwick County Electric Cooperative.
 
At one point I read a RFC on ethernet over powerline... they were going to use the lines themselves to collect the data from the meters real-time and also provide broadband to the houses.

I wonder what ever happened to that. It was 25 years ago
 
At one point I read a RFC on ethernet over powerline... they were going to use the lines themselves to collect the data from the meters real-time and also provide broadband to the houses.

I wonder what ever happened to that. It was 25 years ago
Probably a combination of distance and capacity.
 
I don't envy the people who live in high rate areas (well, I might envy where you live, but not for your rates, e.g. Hawaii). Here in WNC we have a constant $0.12 per kWh. I could justify the cost of the inverter and battery bank I installed as a battery backup system rather than sinking that money into a whole house backup generator. But it's really hard to justify the cost of adding PV to this system to offset $0.12...
I have done solar for the preparedness aspect, never really looked at ROI, though I have saved some $4500 over the pass 5 years
I just love the solar tech and having power when the grid is down.
I signed up for TOU, off peak in the winter is 7.5 cents, on peak is 15.4 cents
 
I have done solar for the preparedness aspect, never really looked at ROI, though I have saved some $4500 over the pass 5 years
I just love the solar tech and having power when the grid is down.
I signed up for TOU, off peak in the winter is 7.5 cents, on peak is 15.4 cents
nobody ever asks you 'what is your return on investment for that new back up diesel generator...I figure the solar power plant the same way!
 
I think modern meters capture flow of current in at least one minute intervals.
That makes it so difficult to balance solar export with consumption.
They have to track the flow of current in shorter intervals to do this. I believe it's per minute.
Like I said. They roll it up hourly. If you think the meter is uploading data to the POCO second by second or minute by minute….
Modern smart meters sample at sub-second level and increment either the import or export energy register accordingly.

Note the rapid change of direction arrows marked P- and P+ in the video of our meter below. This is how quickly the meter is detecting the change of current flow. I had a very rapidly changing load operating at the time.


For us the charge to smart meter result in lower overall bills because we could shift loads to off-peak period.

Nowadays it also enables us to get power for free for 2 hours a day.

But implementation and tariff schedules vary so much around the world, the impacts will as well.
 
Modern smart meters sample at sub-second level and increment either the import or export energy register accordingly.

Note the rapid change of direction arrows marked P- and P+ in the video of our meter below. This is how quickly the meter is detecting the change of current flow. I had a very rapidly changing load operating at the time.


For us the charge to smart meter result in lower overall bills because we could shift loads to off-peak period.

Nowadays it also enables us to get power for free for 2 hours a day.

But implementation and tariff schedules vary so much around the world, the impacts will as well.
Plus it enables power company to charge commercial/industrial users for reactive power too.
1738657965760.png
I see that is an EDMI meter...if I don't recall wrongly, SET A by default will measure exported power as consumption, meaning if you export power, your bill will get higher instead.
 
I see that is an EDMI meter...if I don't recall wrongly, SET A by default will measure exported power as consumption, meaning if you export power, your bill will get higher instead.
It is EMDI however here they have independent registers for import and export.

We are not billed for exports, we receive credit at the feed-in tariff provided by the retailer. FITs vary depending on what retail plan you sign up for (there are hundreds of options).
 
Plus it enables power company to charge commercial/industrial users for reactive power too.
View attachment 275543
I see that is an EDMI meter...if I don't recall wrongly, SET A by default will measure exported power as consumption, meaning if you export power, your bill will get higher instead.
They’ve been charging C&I customer for peak Kw demand and VAR for decades before “smart meters” have been around.

Most of the time C&I customers had direct copper telco lines so older systems could dial in and do monthly reads, old school electronics.
 
Plus it enables power company to charge commercial/industrial users for reactive power too.

I see that is an EDMI meter...if I don't recall wrongly, SET A by default will measure exported power as consumption, meaning if you export power, your bill will get higher instead.
I’m a fan of beer. (educational link)

 

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