Does a smart meter, per se, necessarily provide such functionality?
Even if it does, one certainly does not need a smart meter to do that. With my OWL monitor, I can look at my house's current instantaneous usage, or any usage during the past 3 months (at ~12 second intervals), separately for each phase, from anywhere in the world.
Kind Regards, John
Which nearly all references to "Smart" it means you can monitor and control it from your phone. So with my "Smart" thermostatic radiator valve heads, I can from anywhere in the world with phone coverage monitor and adjust the heat in each room, in fact they are smarter than that, they can be set so when the enabled phone/s are within a set distance you can have the heating auto turn up, although never used that function.
I would say there are safety issues if you or the supply company can turn the power on/off remotely. Even with battery backed lights, they will likely only last a few hours, so if power turned off while you sleep, you could be unable to see to safely exit the building. And as to on if you have something like a soldering iron switched on it could cause a fire while you are unaware.
To an individual item, at the moment I can turn my battery charger off remotely, and bedroom lights off or on, that's OK but whole house is rather dangerous, and clearly if my router is supplied from a remote control socket, I can turn it off, but not back on.
So monitoring the power for whole house great, but switching it no way, it would break BS7671:2008 which states:-
"314.1 Every installation shall be divided into circuits, as necessary, to:
(i) avoid hazards and minimize inconvenience in the event of a fault
(ii) facilitate safe inspection, testing and maintenance (see also Section 537)
(iii) take account of danger that may arise from the failure of a single circuit such as a lighting circuit
(iv) reduce the possibility of unwanted tripping of RCDs due to excessive protective conductor currents produced
by equipment in normal operation
(v) mitigate the effects of electromagnetic interferences (EMI)
(vi) prevent the indirect energizing of a circuit intended to be isolated."
If you have a device which switches off remotely all circuits together unless to comply with
"132.9 Emergency control
Where in case of danger there is the necessity for immediate interruption of supply, an interrupting device shall be installed in such a way that it can be easily recognised and effectively and rapidly operated."
Then having a switching device would be contriving regulations. When a mistake is made and the electric authority knock on the wrong door to warn your power is going to be turned off, the mistake is easy to rectify. However when done remotely it could easy endanger lives.
