smart meter different enegy supplier

[SimonH2]

I remember the Winter of discontent and how every house took turns in having power.

Yes, I remember those too - I was at school at the time and I remember how much fun we thought it all was. And I can recall going past the Norweb shop on the way to the bus so I could check when it was our turn.

However having to phone up before using a MW is one thing, phoning to ask if you can use a kW is something else. I can see how with storage heating some central power station can control when the heaters get their heat, but not when you can use the lights. So unless you went back to the old idea of separate supply for lights and power it would not work.

Well the theory is that the smart meter will get tariff override information from the network - basically "for timeslots x & y the per-unit price will be 50p/unit", the user's display will turn red and inform them that from (say) 6pm to 7pm the lecky will be expensive and they'll run round the house turning stuff off or will delay putting the dinner on (tough if you're half way through doing it). Yeah, we all know that's a load of complete and utter male bovine manure.
Eventually all our appliances (when we've bought all new ones) will talk to the meter, so the fridge and freezer can "back off" and let the temperature rise slightly, the immersion heater (because we won't be allowed gas boilers) will let the cylinder run a bit cooler, the washing machine(* & **) will hold off starting a cycle that needs heat, the tumble drier will wait(**), and so on. And all this will work just flawlessly, and users will have no problems pairing their appliances with the meter, and there won't be any security issues(***), and big houses with thick stone walls won't block the radio signal (and neither will smaller ones with foil backed insulation), and ...

* Because we will all enjoy the noise and vibration from our own and the neighbours' washing machines on spin cycle while we're trying to sleep.
** And none of these have ever been found to cause a house fire when run unattended.
*** It's not like the meter will be there for a couple of decades when the encryption protocols have become weak through advancing processing power, or have just been outright broken.

And we won't be in the least concerned that these meters collect consumption for every half hour (not consumption by tariff as in a multi-register meter) of the day and send it back to a big database that we can be assured is 100% secure.

And we won't be at all concerned about someone hacking the control channel and randomly turning us off. That could be fun for the grid - send a command to every smart meter to turn off dumping many GW of load off the system, and then a short while later turn it all back on again and dump the load back on the system. I wonder how many times it'll need to be done before something breaks ?

My cynical, why would anyone think that
But when I replace the CU, I'm somewhat tempted to include a changeover switch and power inlet - it'll cost very little to do while I'm doing the rest.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

My cynical, why would anyone think that

And as with more and more things being done to us, people will have too little interest until it is too late to do anything about it except violent insurrection.

But when I replace the CU, I'm somewhat tempted to include a changeover switch and power inlet - it'll cost very little to do while I'm doing the rest.

Already got mine ready to be installed. Just waiting for the summer slow-down in the generator market....

 

[PBC_1966]

I remember the Winter of discontent and how every house took turns in having power.

Yes, I remember those too - I was at school at the time and I remember how much fun we thought it all was. And I can recall going past the Norweb shop on the way to the bus so I could check when it was our turn.

Not sure if you had them in that area, but in the Eastern Electricity Board area they distributed little tables full of white, gray and black squares for various times of each day: White = Cuts unlikely, black = cuts almost certain, gray = cuts likely/probable.

 

[Echo the husky]

Just waiting for the summer slow-down in the generator market....

I have my Lister Start-o-Matic here. It will be ready to go, when I've re-assembled it...

 

[ban-all-sheds]

Part of me says that an old Lister, that would run on almost any vaguely flammable oily stuff, would be the way to go.

But then the other part says that I can't really cater for the need to be opportunistic with fuel because of a total breakdown in society, and that a petrol Honda/Yamaha/etc is what actually makes sense.

It's scary how many fake Hondas there are around though...