Ovo won't Fit a Smart Meter.

[Santa]

My daughter wanted a smart meter but when the fitter came he said he couldn't fit it because "the meter is on the same board as the CU".

I don't have a picture and she lives 120 miles away, but I do know that it is all in her understairs cupboard.

Is this something to be concerned about?

 

[davesparks]

Dunno about that, I used to cut off the married quarters regularly when the need arose, when I was AP LV

Was that in response to a request from the national grid? If not then it doesn't really relate to my point.

 

[Pete999]

Was that in response to a request from the national grid? If not then it doesn't really relate to my point.

No not from the NG from HMG

 

[davesparks]

No not from the NG from HMG

Ok, presumably this was to reduce demand? But demand on what?

Current demand on the national grid is 22.18GW, my point is that switching off domestic supplies at individual smart meters would require millions of supplies to be switched off to make even a fraction of a percentage difference to that.

 

[telectrix]

it's not about savings. it's about control.big brother is watching you

 

[Octopus]

Maybe we ALL need to invest in DIY PV systems....

 

[seltechpc]

As far as I know it has been normal in industrial installations since the national grid was first created.
Large industrial installations will be in communication with the national grid control centres letting them know beforehand when large processes will be starting up and also for instructions to shutdown processes at times of peak demand.

I'm not sure if there are any members left on the forum who have first hand experience of these systems.

I don't think it will happen to domestic installations as the sheer number of houses you'd have to cut off to affect even a fraction of a percent of the load on the national grid would be huge.

As far as I know the systems Dave mentioned are still operational, many are arc furnaces as they have a major effect on local supplies, also aircraft wind tunnels cause a major supply blip and many of these sites have there own generation to help to stabilise the local grid system.
I cannot see the smart meters being used for the purpose of shedding loads as they are operated by the DNO and the information is not available to National Grid. It is much easier to have controlled load shedding via a substation supplying the local undertaking. These emergency load shedding procedures apply to selected substations and agreed with the DNO and operated under command from NG. These are backed up by emergency low frequency tripping schemes installed at various distribution substations that automatically shed the load once the frequency has dropped to a point that would unstabalise the grid system. Industrial users do not like their induction motors running from a 46Hz supply.

 

[mache]

Back in my apprentice days we had a foundry as part of the factory site and there was a particular alarm sound that was based on the power usage. When that alarm sounded we were required to stop all non essential operations and machines so that the foundry furnace could remain with power without excess energy fines being applied to the site.

On the big brother watching concerns, I have a smart metre and not bothered what they might gleen. Unless you want to go digitally off grid completely then you just gotta suck it up as far as I'm concerned. Mobiles, tablets, anpr, credit & debit cards, loyalty cards....everything has data and stats associated with it.

 

[Santa]

Back in my apprentice days we had a foundry as part of the factory site and there was a particular alarm sound that was based on the power usage. When that alarm sounded we were required to stop all non essential operations and machines so that the foundry furnace could remain with power without excess energy fines being applied to the site.

That's because of the way big users are charged. They don't have a ;little wheel whizzing round, but a big ole meter recording the power they are drawing. There will be a point at which the charges go up and they want to avoid that. The factory I used to work in had a 120 tonne power press. They only used it on the evening shift to avoid overloading