[SGVLUG] hmm... smart electric meters

[Stan Slonkosky]

Dr. Bill Wattenburg, who does a weekend talk show on KGO, San Francisco (810
kHz, which you can usually hear pretty well up and down the West Coast after
dark; you can also listen to it via their web site, kgoradio.com ; hourly
archives stay up for until overwritten the following week; Wattenburg's
program is also available at a podcast through iTunes) on Saturdays and
Sundays from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. It'll be interesting to hear what he has to
say about this article tonight.

A shortcut to his web pages at the KGO site is drbill.us

Note that he has been criticizing the "smart" meters since 2006. He believes
that no more of these meters should be installed until they are properly
tested. He describes what tests need to be done on one of the links.

One of the links to one of his papers doesn't work right, but I found that
the correct URL is:

http://www.energy.ca.gov/2006publications/CEC-500-2006-058/CEC-500-2006-058.PDF

That paper is a report of testing done at Lawrence Livermore Labs on how a
reduction in voltage would affect various pieces of equipment. Testing shows
that current air conditions operate most efficiently at 210 VAC. He
recommends they be redesigned to be most efficient at 230 VAC. He also
recommends that utilities reduce the voltages supplied to 115 VAC and 230
VAC from 120 and 240 VAC. This would result in a power savings of about
2.7%.

In recent months, some people have reported that sub-contractors of PG&E
have come to people's homes, cut their power (without warning) and installed
"smart" meters. Dr. Bill has recommended that people who are concerned about
the accuracy of these new meters have an electrician install one of the old
style meters on the customer side of the new meters so they have something
to compare the new meters against. He also believes that the "smart" meters
can be easily hacked.

On Sun, May 23, 2010 at 13:30, matti <mathew_2000 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> interesting.. they are using a mesh grid
> and plan to start billing people more at
> peak time..
>
> hmmm.. I wonder about RF interference to
> that grid
>
> http://www.mercurynews.com/bay-area-news/ci_15112878
>
> best
> matti
>
>
>
>
>


-- 
Stan Slonkosky
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