Smart meters in New Zealand

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wellygary

8328 posts

Uber Geek

#391880 14-Oct-2010 17:09

freitasm: Smart meters for what?

I have a smart meter, and as a tool it's useless. Its reading is sent out to the meter company every couple of days, and then sent out to Powershop every Thursday. Looking at my usage charts they numbers are all averages over seven days.

I wouldn't be able to find out why I have spikes or if anything is wrong here.

Now, the Google Powermeter tool is another story. These CurrentCost devices update in front of me every five seconds, and I have data available on the web up to ten minutes windows.

By just looking at this device I can see when a heater is turned on, and when the home office is going full steam ahead.

You don't get this information from the smart meter.

The Smart meter on the front of our place will tell us the instant current load in KW, but you have to go outside and push the button, - the units are smart enough, it is just they don't tell the customers anything useful .

dolsen

1476 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Lifetime subscriber

#391891 14-Oct-2010 17:31

wellygary:

The Smart meter on the front of our place will tell us the instant current load in KW, but you have to go outside and push the button, - the units are smart enough, it is just they don't tell the customers anything useful .

Yeah, we have a smart meter from Genesis, no real data on their site though. I'd like to know how often they send the data through and what data is sent.
Are there hourly breakdowns that get stored and sent, total for periods (day / night) that get stored and sent, or, sent without delay. Avg load / peak load etc.
Quite useless really.

On a side note, the reps from the power companys were stating that they couldn't read all of the meters on the 31st Sept for hte GST raise. I thought that was one of the benefits of the smart meters that they installed?

jaymz

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#391958 14-Oct-2010 20:46

sorry if this is way off as I have only skimmed the topic, but have you all heard about Cent-A-Meter? (http://www.centameter.co.nz/)

I have one at home and it works wonders, nice and easy to see the current consumption and with some simple programming know exactly how many cents (or dollars depending on what is on) is being used each hour.

jaymz

1133 posts

Uber Geek

#391959 14-Oct-2010 20:49

hmm just read over the site. glad i got mine when i did. $250 for the Owl! Ouch.

Mine only cost around $100 from memory with some discount.

AnitaS

1 post

Wannabe Geek

#396825 28-Oct-2010 13:45

Smart Meter forum has been quite informative and v helpful.

My power company offered me change of meter to a new remotely read meter, for free, (as a result of Ombudsman's mdeaitions) as the company kept mucking up readings for long etc etc and actual readings were not taken for over 2 years. However, when the installer arrived, he found the space for the 'smart meter' is not enough as the new meter, he is going to install was found to be lot bigger than the existing old meter he was to replace. Thus it didn't get installed. I do wonder whether any ideas/suggesions/alternatives you could offer or anything the installer or the company could have done differently. perhaps. I would like this smart meter/ie a new remotely read meter installed soon. Or any skillful , experienced installers in Auckland? > Many thanks.

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