The business aspect of an electric utility, or any utility for that matter, is the customer paying a bill based upon how much of a service the customer consumed for a specific period. Logically, a metering device is necessary for that measurement.
For years, on the sides of homes, a meter socket hung on a wall with a big electrical conduit going into it. A device in a clear cylinder was mounted to the box. The clear cylinder housed a mechanical device with a metal wheel that would spin driving mechanical dials. They were basic and required a person to walk from meter to meter and read and record the numbers on the dials. That reading formed your bill for the period. Makes sense right?
Once upon a time, there was a keen interest in grid modernization. Phrases such as “Smart Grid” rose to the occasion for federal policy writers and legislators to look like they were doing something. Let’s dial this back to what really happens, rather than intended results. Anything policy oriented has intended results but policy also has unintended consequences. What policy development can also produce is new technologies, or at least technology that is new to the policy, to enter the conversation.
Enter the Smart Meter. Utilities were told they could turn the smart meters on and off remotely, provide how the power was being used in the home, and reduce response time. Utilities quickly found out the limitations of the Smart Meter and have been slow to implement them due to cost and lack of features.
From soup to nuts, electrification of society involves the production or generation of electricity, transmission over distances, and distribution to homes and businesses ending with metering at the home or business. What has changed is the increased desire for data and control of how energy is used as well as billed, because the utility company needs to be paid, and in some states, the power resellers need to be paid.
Smart Meter Hoax
Let’s go back to that device mentioned above, the Smart Meter. Smart meter vendors promised, “real time” data collection and reporting, remote usage reporting for billing, the ability to remotely turn off and turn back on meters for the purpose of load shedding. Hmm, well, the truth is this, they have failed to meet expectations. This was painfully clear during the 2021 Texas winter storm, named Uri.
To address the need for the grid operator to shed load due to a demand incident, the signal strength of a smart meter was too weak to be turned back on if a meter was shut down remotely. As a result, entire grids were shut down and there was property damage ($195B) as well as a loss of life.
Did deployment of Smart Meters directly cause this damage and these deaths? No, but had it worked as intended, it is reasonable to state that many of the deaths and much of the damage, not caused by ice and broken power lines but due to forced load shedding, would have been mitigated. Yet, the Smart Meter is the tool grid operators and utilities had in order to effect load shedding, and that tool did not work.
Smart Meter data collection is not real time. Data collected by a smart meter only reflects load. A utility can reasonably interpret load draw and suggest what an HVAC system or perhaps a refrigerator would do. The real time aspect isn’t that either, with data collection downloads by 15 minutes to an hour. Yet, we are expected to deal with information which does not directly calculate how much power an aging air conditioning compressor is using compared to a newer version.
As a consumer, one of the fees on your bill goes to pay for the metering system being used to tabulate your bill but with that payment, there is also a license fee paid to the vendor who sold the smart meter to the electric utility. The utilities are behind the proverbial 8 Ball on this. Federal and state regulators are requiring utilities to deploy smart meters to satisfy the concept of a “Smart Grid Infrastructure” with a piece of technology which does not perform as promised, cannot collect data “real time,” and costs utilities and consumers more to use.
Privacy Concerns
There is a portion of society, most of it, that believes government should know very little about what we do in our homes. I agree with this principle but at the same time, we invite corporations into our homes, our conversations, our private thoughts, how we invest and spend money, our communication with friends and relatives, our interests and questions, and our entertainment preferences.
Smart meters are already collecting some form of usage data whereby utilities and grid operators are interpreting the data as they see fit. Your broadband company knows your search history on your phone and computer. Your smart phone knows when you sleep, and it listens to your conversations.
Are we REALLY concerned about privacy? No, we are selective with our concerns but indignant when we aren’t given the choice about how to manage our privacy. We can opt out anytime by turning off our phones, tablets, smart watches and cutting the cord to our broadband service.
Let’s apply this concept to metering. What if the data collected by a metering device actually was a benefit to the consumer? Think about it for a moment. Data collected by a metering device could analyze the performance and relative “health” of your air conditioning compressor, your refrigerator or your oven.
Maintenance service companies could be alerted through monitoring subscriptions that your HVAC system needs a repair or service which can be preventative and save you money from more costly repairs. The sky is the limit, but the value add would be very real to the consumer.
Load Shedding
Smart meters do not provide value to consumers (although these meters are new, their technology is old, or legacy). In fact, these meters now calculate reactive power you cannot use, which the utilities were not included before and now your bill increases.
As demand for electricity continues to grow, grid managers will be forced to institute load shedding activities to preserve the integrity of the grid in cold and heat. These smart meters cannot be reliably turned on or off remotely. Furthermore, they cannot support soft startups which protect grid equipment and systems as well as consumer equipment and systems.
The forced load shedding practice disrupts power to entire grids until demand and supply stabilizes. All this means your home and business no longer have grid supplied power. If you have a generator, batteries, or solar, perhaps the impact is minimal. For most people, the impact is dire. Many families have someone who needs constant life sustaining support from durable medical equipment. When the lights go dark, so do these devices.
Load shedding can be accomplished, with little or no difference in cost, at the circuit level. Individual circuits can be prioritized so that circuits powering an in-home respirator will always have power and circuits powering life sustaining heating systems will as well. Perhaps, in the extreme case, when power has to be disrupted, we are only talking about in-home lighting.
The Future in Practice
The practice that electrical utilities stop at the meter outside the home has persisted because they never had the need to go beyond the meter. A utility lobbyist suggested this was a policy concern. It isn’t a policy and never was, it is the practice of “we’ve never done this before.”
This business model is 70 years old, or more. In fact, the grid design is at least that old. Now, we are dealing with higher demand from smart home systems, growth in domestic manufacturing, EV charging systems, data centers, and a society centered around broadband. Until capacity satisfies demand without load shedding events being necessary, there will be more load shedding events and unplanned blackouts.
As a society, we need to change how we consider the consumption of electricity, the measurement and metering of that consumption and how consumption is controlled and regulated. Right now, we are expecting 21st Century results from a barely 20th Century infrastructure. This is a point of failure.
Yes, we should expect a degree of privacy, but absolute privacy has never been possible. If a grid were to offer circuit level grid management services and there were consumers who did not want the grid operators or utilities to have access beyond the meter, these consumers could opt-out and perhaps they pay a different rate and they are responsible for themselves when forced load shedding events occur, because they will.
The Wolf is at the Door
Smart meters have not performed as promised. We can theorize that policymakers decided that something had to be done about consumer controls with grid infrastructure in order to have a “Smart Grid”. This is how policymakers work when something must be done, they do things that are not always thought through clearly, completely, or with consideration of other possible solutions. The proverbial knee is jerked. The technology they knew existed was the smart meter and that is what they used. It remains the Achillies heel of the electrical grid.
Smart meters were not a terrible idea at the outset. They were available but other technologies exist now which exceed the abilities, capacity, and value to society of the smart meter. Yet utilities, regulators, grid operators, and policymakers are doubling down on a middle to late 20th Century technology and expecting it to be able to meet the demands of the 21st Century.
There is a better technology which can eclipse the ability of smart meters but US domestic utilities are afraid to embrace real innovation that would be immensely helpful to them. Proper innovations can easily solve considerable current problems for utilities and the customer and also make more income for utilities, so they can take care of all needs for grids and large bottom-line income.
Please think, what important system is only on or off? Eeverything should be able to be throttled yet our grids are not sadly!!
You will also create the ability to supply everyone with power when there are shortages of power instead of them being turned off and able to restore power when there is heavy load instead of turning off power to customers. This can be achieved all for the same or nearly the same cost we are spending today. I can count more than a hundred benefits to smart sound innovation.
Recently, Texas’ grid manager, the Electric Reliability Corporation of Texas or ERCOT stated they believe they will have enough power capacity to deal with a colder winter for Texas. Texas, as a southern state, is not really configured or funded to deal with winter storms. ERCOT has said Texans will be fine this winter. I hope so but as a realist and an engineer, I also know the vulnerabilities of the electric grid.
We are one moment away from people wishing they had invested in real product and sound secure innovation, and I am afraid this moment will follow a significant loss of life and property damage. If the grid fails as with Uri, people will come out of the woodwork and cast blame on anything, everything, and everybody instead of lack of real innovation, which is where blame needs to be placed. The damage from Uri was avoidable, I can assure everyone that is true but, without a more intelligent approach to innovation and recognition that good money has followed bad with weak links such as the Smart Meter, a future Uri will come again.
Stephen E. Williams is the Founder and President/CEO of CoolWaters Energy Technology.