Smart meters - yay or nay ?

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#2387222 8-Jan-2020 09:58

davidcole:
gregmcc:

davidcole:
Geektastic:

I am amazed we do not have them for water as well to be honest.

And gas. They still have to send someone every 2nd month

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power - is there power anywhere near where the current water and gas meters are? Who would pay for power to get there? and there is the reason - no one wants to pay the $2-$3K just to get power to your water meter location, let alone the cost of the smart water meter.

Or, they could run a remote probe to the gas meter....no-one said that the meter has to sit right on top of it. They'll do it at some point because it's self serving to the companies that have to read it.

I’m not sure why people say smart gas meters aren’t possible here is a link to one, which a short description of how it works https://www.sagemcom.com/smart-city/smart-meter/gas/g4/ef4-evo-gas-sm/

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#2387371 8-Jan-2020 13:59

gregmcc:

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power - is there power anywhere near where the current water and gas meters are? Who would pay for power to get there? and there is the reason - no one wants to pay the $2-$3K just to get power to your water meter location, let alone the cost of the smart water meter.

They run on battery.

Richard rich.ms

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#2387460 8-Jan-2020 15:10

gregmcc:

davidcole:
Geektastic:

I am amazed we do not have them for water as well to be honest.

And gas. They still have to send someone every 2nd month

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power -

The main reason is that no one is contemplating selling gas or water by the hour..... Smart meters make sense when you want to eventually incentivise electrical load shifting to off peak times,

Neither the Gas nor water networks are anywhere near this,

+ I think there would be riots in the street if water authorities started to tell customers its cheaper to go to the crapper and have your showers at 2 in the morning, !!

gregmcc

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#2387462 8-Jan-2020 15:23

kingjj:

gregmcc:

davidcole:
Geektastic:

I am amazed we do not have them for water as well to be honest.

And gas. They still have to send someone every 2nd month

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power - is there power anywhere near where the current water and gas meters are? Who would pay for power to get there? and there is the reason - no one wants to pay the $2-$3K just to get power to your water meter location, let alone the cost of the smart water meter.

Hypothetically and asked with no engineering knowledge at all, in regards to water metres, could a metre use the pressure of the water passing thru to turn a small generator that could provide enough power to run an efficient 'smart' water metre? Assuming the standard water pressure was 200 kPa, surely that would be enough to power a small generator in the metre?

As for Smart Metres in general, I personally have no issue with them and welcome anything that provides even a small boost to customer choice and application. We have used Flick and Electric Kiwi to great effect in the past in thanks to the 30 minute reporting window, I wouldn't go back to one of the bigger Genetailers now that I've experienced the more nimble small providers that a smart metre allows.

The problem would be a minimum flow before there is enough power to power up the smart meter, in theory you could setup a valve just below the threshold before the generator makes enough power to run the smart meter and get free water.

Geektastic

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#2387463 8-Jan-2020 15:23

wellygary:

gregmcc:

davidcole:
Geektastic:

I am amazed we do not have them for water as well to be honest.

And gas. They still have to send someone every 2nd month

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power -

The main reason is that no one is contemplating selling gas or water by the hour..... Smart meters make sense when you want to eventually incentivise electrical load shifting to off peak times,

Neither the Gas nor water networks are anywhere near this,

+ I think there would be riots in the street if water authorities started to tell customers its cheaper to go to the crapper and have your showers at 2 in the morning, !!

It's nothing to do with WHEN you use water, it is to do with how much and (to a lesser extent) whether you are using too much in times of water restriction.

It also reduces cost of meter reading and so on. I used to work for a large water company and they had smart water meters in the late 90's.

davidcole

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#2387482 8-Jan-2020 16:17

Actually the best use of a smart water/gas meter would be if it could detect use.....when you’re not using any. Ie a leak.

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#2387653 8-Jan-2020 21:42

davidcole: Actually the best use of a smart water/gas meter would be if it could detect use.....when you’re not using any. Ie a leak.

It could do that but it would depend on where the meter was in the system I suspect. Obviously anything that happens before the meter cannot be read by the meter.

It could alert you if your normal use was say 500l/day and all of a sudden it was 600 litres a day I would think, and if you had changed nothing else then you'd surmise you might have a leak.

ilovemusic

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#2387693 8-Jan-2020 23:19

wellygary:

gregmcc:

davidcole:
Geektastic:

I am amazed we do not have them for water as well to be honest.

And gas. They still have to send someone every 2nd month

There is a really good reason for this, the 1 thing all these smart meters would require to work - power -

The main reason is that no one is contemplating selling gas or water by the hour..... Smart meters make sense when you want to eventually incentivise electrical load shifting to off peak times,

Neither the Gas nor water networks are anywhere near this,

+ I think there would be riots in the street if water authorities started to tell customers its cheaper to go to the crapper and have your showers at 2 in the morning, !!

watched an old english film the other night, funeral in berlin (2nd in the michael caine harry palmer series) and there was a scene where a character asked harry for some change for his meter.

did we have them in nz ?

kotuku4

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#2387730 9-Jan-2020 08:09

davidcole: Actually the best use of a smart water/gas meter would be if it could detect use.....when you’re not using any. Ie a leak.

This is why Marlborough District Council is running trial with water meters is some small towns (currently most residential is not metered). Know that there is excessive water use overall and water restrictions due to low flow in summer. Meters on selected properties.

Issues with infrastructure, old mains are being dealt with. Using leak detection and repair and upgrade/replacement.

However the trail shows some properties have significant water use up to ten times the norm, likely water leaks within the property.

PolicyGuy

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#2387827 9-Jan-2020 09:52

kotuku4:

davidcole: Actually the best use of a smart water/gas meter would be if it could detect use.....when you’re not using any. Ie a leak.

This is why Marlborough District Council is running trial with water meters is some small towns (currently most residential is not metered). Know that there is excessive water use overall and water restrictions due to low flow in summer. Meters on selected properties.

Issues with infrastructure, old mains are being dealt with. Using leak detection and repair and upgrade/replacement.

However the trail shows some properties have significant water use up to ten times the norm, likely water leaks within the property.

IIRC the rollout of water meters in Kapiti revealed a lot of properties where there were long-standing leaks on the consumer side of the supply point, often underneath houses where they were not directly observable.
We had a similar phenomenon at an electricity distributor where consumers had a sudden increase in their energy bill: we got to the point where one of the first questions we asked was "have you had your hot water checked for a leak?"

Both these situations would have a much lower potential impact on the consumer if more frequent readings were available from smarter meters

wonderstuff

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#2388972 9-Jan-2020 12:18

evilengineer:

PolicyGuy:

This means that

The retailer who owns the meter probably still has access to the half-hour data for a premises for which they are no longer the retailer;
The customer does not have access to their own consumption data; and
The customer cannot change to a retail offering that depends on the availability of half-hour data
Maybe I ought to discuss this with the Commerce Commission

If that first point is even remotely true then it's an absolute shocker!

What possible justification is there for a retailer to have access to live data for a customer that they no longer have a commercial relationship with?

I mean, the privacy implications are huge. They basically know if the house is empty during the day, what time people tend to get home, whether they're on holiday or not and even when the household goes to bed and gets up in the morning.

If that's happening and it doesn't break all sorts of existing data protection and privacy legislation then the Government should be getting involved.

And that last point, if true, is a serious hindrance to competition.

It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for the consumer to expect the following:

That any data collected is for a clearly defined purpose, proportionate and protected.
An easy means is available (i.e. wireless reader device) for a customer to get real time consumption data that's collected locally and is independent of the meter's 1/2hr phone-home. Even if it's optional with an additional charge for the reader.
Smart meters are inter operable between suppliers and switching between power companies is as easy as changing ISP

To help clarify, meters are owned by MEPs (Meter Equipment Providers) which is most cases are not retailers. A good site to see who the MEPs and retailers are is https://www.emi.ea.govt.nz

When a customer chooses to change retailer, the new retailer can choose to keep the existing meter and MEP, or choose a new MEP and pay for a new meter to be installed. In most cases, if a house already has a smart meter, the retailer will keep that smart meter in place (unless the smart meter or cloud head end does not support new services that the retailer wishes to offer). Pretty much all retailers have agreements with MEPs. The retailer owns the relationship with the end customer and its up to them how much data they provide to the end customer. MEPs deliver all data necessary for billing purposes and often can deliver more data, but the retailer may not have a way to share this.

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#2388998 9-Jan-2020 12:51

PolicyGuy:

IIRC the rollout of water meters in Kapiti revealed a lot of properties where there were long-standing leaks on the consumer side of the supply point, often underneath houses where they were not directly observable.
We had a similar phenomenon at an electricity distributor where consumers had a sudden increase in their energy bill: we got to the point where one of the first questions we asked was "have you had your hot water checked for a leak?"

Wellington City Council checks for this. We had a leak somewhere between our toby and the house, where the pipe ran about 10m under concrete. We had to cut our concrete driveway open for access to the toby, to put a whole new water main in.

davidcole

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#2389017 9-Jan-2020 13:15

timmmay:

PolicyGuy:

IIRC the rollout of water meters in Kapiti revealed a lot of properties where there were long-standing leaks on the consumer side of the supply point, often underneath houses where they were not directly observable.
We had a similar phenomenon at an electricity distributor where consumers had a sudden increase in their energy bill: we got to the point where one of the first questions we asked was "have you had your hot water checked for a leak?"

Wellington City Council checks for this. We had a leak somewhere between our toby and the house, where the pipe ran about 10m under concrete. We had to cut our concrete driveway open for access to the toby, to put a whole new water main in.

Yeah but don't they just say, you have a leak.....and give you no help whatsoever in identifying where within your boundaries it falls.

timmmay

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#2389037 9-Jan-2020 13:25

davidcole:

Yeah but don't they just say, you have a leak.....and give you no help whatsoever in identifying where within your boundaries it falls.

Exactly that - "there's a leak, you need to fix it or your water will be cut off". They can't help find it, but I found them fairly reasonable generally.

davidcole

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#2389039 9-Jan-2020 13:26

timmmay:

davidcole:

Yeah but don't they just say, you have a leak.....and give you no help whatsoever in identifying where within your boundaries it falls.

Exactly that - "there's a leak, you need to fix it or your water will be cut off". They can't help find it, but I found them fairly reasonable generally.

"Why don't you give me a smart water meter, so after I fix something I'll know it's fixed"

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