Posted on 04/09/2012 3:17:58 PM PDT by dila813
A series of hacks perpetrated against so-called “smart meter” installations over the past several years may have cost a single U.S. electric utility hundreds of millions of dollars annually, the FBI said in a cyber intelligence bulletin obtained by KrebsOnSecurity. The law enforcement agency said this is the first known report of criminals compromising the hi-tech meters, and that it expects this type of fraud to spread across the country as more utilities deploy smart grid technology.
(Excerpt) Read more at krebsonsecurity.com ...
I still dont’ want on simply on the basis of principles.
There is where we differ. I don't think the negative consequences ARE unintended. They have a plan, and they are following it.
Oh, but I DO know economics, or we wouldn't still be in business. Those "perfectly good" analog meters aren't (they're out of cal), but they're OK after we refurbish them. We make a nice sum doing that. Then, we sell them back to the utilities for when a crank like you insists on one, or to third-world countries who only have a few hours of usable electricity a day, and don't give a crap about peak shaving.
There is a perfectly good reason to remove one type of electronic meter and replace it with another: incompatible wireless networks. Show me an example where a digital meter was "ripped out" to be replaced with a smart meter, and I will show you an incompatibility between wireless networks. Again, those get sold back, refurbished, and sold to somebody else.
There's those economics again, that I'm not supposed to know.
Yep. And the utility, who operate on tiny margins anyway thanks to the ever-present squeeze of the political utilities commissions (oh, excuse me, PUBLIC utility commissions), was LOSING MONEY.
Another reason to replace those "perfectly good" analog meters everyone loves.
Dilwad,
Do you really think the utilities should leave a meter there that has been there since the 80s, and is now INCOMPATIBLE with their present wireless network and therefore has to be manually read, just because your cantankerous self demands it? For free?
You ought to be charged double. Glad you're not running the utilities. Those people are stupid enough as it is.
(smacks forehead)
WOW! Why didn't the entire electric utility and meter industry think of that, after 130 years? YOU'RE a freaking GENIUS! We should just "release the power" at the right time of day! Dayum! And the "technical challenges shouldn't be too great." (smacks forehead)
Your ignorance is what is great.
You can't store and "release" power like that. Utilities use AC. Batteries store DC. Conversion is inefficient, and COSTS MONEY. Nobody is going to make money like this. Extra generating capacity has to be brought online during peak time. That's why the whole infrastructure of the "smart grid" is being pushed.
Now, if you want to convert all the lights in your home to DC, and run them off batteries (I have in my ham radio room), now you can store some power. But you STILL have convert AC to DC (rectification), in which process you lose energy. And you gotta replace your batteries after 5 years. Or, keep them climate-controlled (Edison storage batteries).
This thread is the gift of ignorance that just keeps on giving.
An infantile response, but one I can't resist. Oh, and what was YOUR major in college? You don't make it in electrical engineering if you're dumb.
Ignorant people like you make me question why I became an engineer. You don't deserve to have a better world. You despise the very people who give it to you on a platter. Maybe we should let civilization destroy itself.
sweetie, you are the one who attached “dumb” to engineers, not I. Read your own posts. It’s obvious belittling others makes you feel more potent and superior. No one asked you a question, or asked why you became an engineer. You came in and started the attacks and insults on posters who have concerns.
They could have replaced them with a wireless electronic meter.
I can see you still don’t know the difference between a smart meter and a electronic one.
Nice try, I had a perfectly good non-smart electronic meter that was read remotely replaced by a smart meter only 4 years after the house was built.
Still don’t know what a smart meter is, do you? Pretty weak for a guy that says he designed them.
You're just a jerk, aren't you?
And to provide daily meter readings as opposed to monthly so that the utility can better predict and match the load so that power is cheaper along with knowing when your power is off so a crew can be dispatched. Another use hopefully rarely used, is to place storm restoration base camps based on meter loss of readings after storms.
the utility already knew what the real time load is by any second of the day. They just didn’t know how much you were using at that second.
There isn’t any reason for this unless the price is so high that it would justify you having controls to switch on and off your electrical devices based on the price or them having the ability to remotely do it to balance load.
Don’t you know, this is what the smart grid is all about.
Looking at your posts, I have a feeling we would agree if we knew what the other one was talking about.
I’ve been trying to find out if the model I have is a smart meter. I haven’t been able to find anything definite only that the company makes smart meters.
It’s an Centron Itron Watthour meter USA 12/11
(CL200 240V 3W TYPE C1S 30TA 1.0kh)
CA 0.5 FM2S 60Hz
Other thing is, searches come up with C1SR, mine is only C1S. I haven’t been able to find out what the difference is.
Can anyone help?
Help!
If they give me a smart meter I’m hacking it just on general principle.
You’re doing pretty well against the Luddite brigade. Hang in there.
My local power co-op went to smart meters a few years ago, and I really like it. The main advantage is their real-time awareness of the status of their lines. When there’s an outage (and out here in the sticks it happens all the time) they know immediately who’s out and who’s not and where the line is down.
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