By Louise Gray, Environment Correspondent, Telegraph 13 Feb 2013
“In the old days we would put a wash on when it is windy outside so clothes dry, but in the future we could be washing when it is windy because electricity bills are lower.”
EDF Energy has teamed up with Imperial College London to trial the new idea known as “day ahead electricity alerts”.
The year-long trial aims to find out whether people are prepared to do their washing, tumble drying, and other electricity intensive tasks on windy days or at off peak times when green power is cheap and plentiful.
The 1,000 customers taking part, who already have smart meters, will be told by text message or an alert on their smart meter display when they can expect electricity prices to be cheaper.
The results will be published next year, and if the trials are successful, they could pave the way for utilities to introduce new tariffs that encourage customers to make use of electricity at times when energy is at its cheapest or demand is at lowest.
Read more at Households asked to put a wash on when it’s windy – Telegraph.
We are not brain dead yet
If everyone did this then the companies would begin to charge more at those times to increase their profits, or at the very least remove the cheap rate at those times.Do people really want to be up all hours of the night washing, hoovering etc when it is windy? They would be controllers of the worst kind. Having PV panels I see the point, as I use electricity when I know I am generating some,(finacially advantageous tp me) but I can be at home and have that choice- I control it and not vice versa.
Quite right, Wendy. There is no evidence that behaviour changes are sustained – this is about money and control.
Big Brother wants full control. George Orwell 1984 ringing any bells !!
I have photo-voltaic panels on my roof and use the electricity they generate to my advantage to reduce my overall electricity consumption and hence my eventual bill because I am in control of what I do. Since when did an energy company do anything that wasn’t forced upon them to financially benefit the consumer rather than to benefit themselves by way of reducing costs and hence increasing profits; or just to simply increase profits. This so-called trial is little more than a cynical ploy, based on the promise of lower bills, to con people into thinking smart meters will be for their benefit rather than the benefit of the energy company.
Agreed.
They are now arresting people in America for refusing Smart meters. I hope people are waking up to the dangers. I was told the Government want us all to have them by 2020 !
two fingers up to them. We don’t want these things and we aren’t going to vote for them if they persist in their nonsense talks.
The general point that people seem to be missing is that we will have a very serious power shortage some time in the very near future, and trials such as the one EDF are conducting aim to see if we can survive without the dreaded Nuclear option. I would welcome the ability to use cheaper power if it happened to be a windy day. And yes, smart meters will be a real enabler – how else will power companies be able to see that I, as an individual electricity consumer, have reacted to the ‘windy day alert’? It’s all about balancing generation versus demand, and not needing to build huge power stations…not Big Brother. Get real people – and stop worrying about the ‘irradiate you’ concerns…you’re all sat using a computer, probably via a wifi-router for god’s sake!
How else indeed, Julia.
What you have neglected in your summation is the abject lack of evidence of sustainable consumer behaviour/energy consumption changes through “Smart” Metering (and yet copious evidence of significantly higher bills and debilitating health effects). A far more sustainable and effective means of reducing energy demand would be to educate consumers on meaningful measures they can take to reduce their energy consumption – but that’s one of the big “no go” areas within this programme because it is not about reducing energy consumption – it is about gaining more return on Big Energy’s asset base and controlling more aspects of your life at the expense of your privacy and health. Smart Metering at the micro/individual household level is not about balancing the grid – the measures you speak of could be done at far less intrusive levels and still achieve the same ends.
And believe it or not, despite your careless final remark, we aren’t stupid… Wired modems and ethernet communications are still widely used by people and it is easy to disable WiFi and Bluetooth from computers that have it present. Any discerning computer user who has spent time researching the vast archive of studies into the risks of microwaves would be mindful of this (you can find some of them in our Health Studies archive in the menu). To be clear, computers do generate electromagnetic fields, but there is a difference between static EMFs and RF/pulsed microwave EMFs from wireless network antennas – I would urge you to study this issue for yourself – particularly if you are a medical doctor because you may well have patients who are complaining of ill effects from wireless technologies without realising where the cause lies.
No one mentions Teslar and his experiments with FREE ENERGY. Patents on FREE ENERGY never see the light of day !
yes of course, the Government (who has no controlling, or financial interests in energy companies) is insisting on smart meters to ensure energy companies can make money and control our lives. Really? So the installation of smart meters is not about providing us with the tools to help us undertand how much energy we use, and help us, and Government meet the challenging energy/carbon reduction targets that world leaders have committed to? The whole smart meter roll-out is an obligation forced upon energy suppliers via an EU Energy Efficiency Directive – nothing more.
And I suppose you’re going to tell me next that the smart meter I get will be constantly transmitting messages 24/7, 365 days of the year?
Everyone is entitled to their opinion, but please present a balanced view/argument based on factual understanding of why smart meters will become part of our everyday lives.
No I’m not a Dr of medicine, but yes, I have read many of the research articles/studies that suggest radio/microwaves may cause health problems, and I have read studies and research (including those from the WHO)that suggests there is no evidence to support such claims. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t – pretty much similar to most things in life. I will accept the risk that maybe once a week, or even less frequently than that, a message (maybe even a text message depending on what communications network Government procures) will be sent from my smart meter to my energy supplier telling them what my meter readings were for the last 7/14/21/28 days. And maybe once a month/quarter/year, they might need to send or receive one or two messages more. Everything else is in my control, as Government is very clear it is not mandating Time of Use tariffs/demand side control or anything else.
Julia,
Correct. See here first: https://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/big-energy-staff-working-at-department-for-energy-climate-change
Do you have any insight into the kinds of companies that MP and civil servant pension funds are invested in? Do you think any members of parliament, here or in Brussels, possibly have direct shareholdings in big corporations or promises of lucrative careers in them when they leave? Which ones? Are you aware of the practice of ‘lobbying’ and do you realise that these kinds of “laws” are pushed for and written by massive corporate interests? How do you suppose these EU Directives come about – through some ‘Smart’ thinking bureaucrats who never leave their desks dreaming up the most technologically complex solutions for industries they have no allegiances to? Smart Meters have been in the making for years – but some would have you believe that they are a natural, and incredibly timely response to the self-perpetuated state we are in. What a stunning coincidence? If this was about giving us tools to change our behaviour, we would each be given a £20 energy monitor that has been available for years – did nobody mention this to you in the Smart Meter sales pitch? Personal home energy monitors don’t emit microwave radiation, they don’t compromise your privacy and they don’t result in higher bills. This project isn’t about empowering you – it’s about disempowering you.
Also, you do realise that Smart Meters will become enablers for matters far beyond the energy industry, don’t you?
Right again. Up to 190,000 network management messages PER DAY – we know this via court-order obtained documents. Our own measurements have already identified 43,000 of these powerful pulses – or one every 2 seconds. They sent our equipment reeling.
Your obliviousness to the true agenda behind Smart Metering does not make our view point ‘unbalanced’. We stick to the facts – I suggest you try your energy supplier for an alternative.
You clearly have NOT read the WHO “research” otherwise you would know that non-ionising electromagnetic radiation is now classed as a Class 2B ‘possible’ carcinogen because of the very fact that there IS evidence to support such claims. The WHO is worried about this, and there have been recent calls for non-ionising wireless radiation to be upgraded to a 2A carcinogen.
Is this the methodology you use for identifying objective reality? This may be why you seem to think what we report is ‘unbalanced’.
Currently. But once the Smart Meter is in, everything changes. Time of use billing will become a reality, as this article primes us for. At some point, it will simply become unaffordable to not let your energy provider control your usage of energy at home.
If you let a Smart Meter into your home, you will never see the back of it.
“Right again. Up to 190,000 network management messages PER DAY – we know this via court-order obtained documents. Our own measurements have already identified 43,000 of these powerful pulses – or one every 2 seconds.”
Why on earth would an energy supplier want messages from my smart meter at this level of frequency? Ask them…they will request consumption information from the central Data Communications Company probably once a week at most – that’s one message in to the meter, and one message out per week. Even if my supplier has permission to collect half-hourly consumption information (and that’s as detailed as the meters record) – they will only be able to collect the information in packets – so once a week for example, they will get the message that contains 7 days’ worth of 48 HH meter readings..
Factual information is out there…but read it carefully to understand what is actually being delivered here in GB – don’t assume that just because they’re doing this or that in the US, the same is being delivered here.
Only last week, Ofgem painted a very bleak picture of the future of the GB energy market – if we don’t change our consumption behaviour, we will be faced with the very challenging prospect of good old rota-disconnections – parts of the electricity network will be shut down – no power, as they try to balance demand vs generation with far fewer power stations. Smart meters are coming – neither your campaign, nor the Lord Almighty himself will stop them I’m afraid – they are one of the key enablers for behavioural change like it or not.
I do agree with you on one point – there is little evidence to support the concept that smart meters/energy monitors will make the difference we need…and that is where this journey starts, and the biggest challenge for us all is sustaining the level of behavioural change we must achieve to keep the lights on.
And trust me on the EU issue – they’re a complete bunch of loons with very little idea of real life….and there isn’t any company out there that thinks the policies and Directives coming out of Brussels make any sense whatsoever…all they do is add more costs onto energy companies, which in turn, gets paid for by us. And finally, yes, unfortunately energy will become unaffordable…just like petrol/diesel is for many. We just don’t have the natural resources like we used to have – we’ve bled our resources dry, and as a result – we will pay a lot more for things that we taken for granted for so long.
I’ve also just checked my smart meters – I can’t see any spy equipment in there though…no cameras. no micro-phones. Is there anything else I should be looking for?
Julia,
Before you ask why, should we not be trying to validate, for ourselves, whether they ARE doing so? The why can maybe then be a little easier to understand once you’ve established the facts for yourself – try HealthHouse.co.uk – they rent meters out that you can use to check wireless radiation for yourself.
Would you please let us know what you find out about the radiation coming from your own Smart Meter(s)?
That is presumably why someone who already has one or more Smart Meters is commenting on our campaign website? What will be will be – I won’t put your name down for any leaflets.
Ah, did you look for a Maxwell Smart-style shoe with a phone in it though? Or did you miss the news about the head of the CIA saying they will spy on you through your appliances?
http://www.networkworld.com/community/blog/cia-wants-spy-you-through-your-appliances
Or the Verizon Smart Detection Zone for TVs?
https://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/smart-tv-detection-zone-will-know-what-you-are-doing-and-what-you-are-discussing-while-watching-television/
Julia. Thank you for your comments. Whilst I am indifferent to smart metering, if in the long run it helps keep my lights on, then it doesn’t worry me and bring it on. I too find the 190,000 network messages per day laughable. That’s nearly 69 million pieces of data per year for one house for one meter. For the near 30 million homes in the uk, that’s over two million trillion network messages. Really? And that’s aside from all the taped conversations that will be transmitted from people’s homes, or the spy cameras. Given my meters are inside a cupboard, or in a pit outside my home, I’d like to see exactly what will be recorded. It’s farcical and your comments about a balanced argument are spot on. If nothing else, it will give hundreds of thousands of people jobs as they will have to sift through all the data, presumably sorting the terrorists from people discussing Corrie. Honestly….!!!
Conspiracy theories are everywhere, and this seems to me to be just one more. I am on this site because I had a leaflet pushed through my door about a year ago, and I found the comments rather amusing. It is interesting to note that a massive 0.000015% of the population have signed up to the campaign thus far.
Each to their own, and in fairness, this site is well put together and managed, but in my opinion, horribly misguided. For every link posted against smart meters, there are a hundred for. Time will tell, methinks.
See here:
http://takebackyourpower.net/thurs-april-26-smart-meters-public-conference-call-health-and-privacy/
http://takebackyourpower.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Smart-Meter-Health-14000-to-190000.pdf
http://stopsmartmeters.org/2013/02/21/pepco-caught-in-lie-about-smart-meter-rf-frequency/
http://blog.sfgate.com/energy/2011/11/03/smartmeters-send-almost-10000-signals-a-day/
Still laughing?
Are you aware that there are true Smart Grid options available which don’t throw your health, privacy, security, safety and bank account under a bus? http://www.GettingSmarterAboutTheSmartGrid.org hosts a report published by the National Institute for Science, Law and Public Policy and written by an industry insider. It shows that modern, empowering grid infrastructure solutions are available, but are not being pursued by the vested financial interests. Why do you suppose this is?
Is that why you are here? Are you not getting the information you need from your energy provider or Government about this? Makes sense. If you have been aware of our website for a year as you have suggested, then you may already know that we have already published lots of information about what kind of personal data will be made available to parties that are unknown to you, but here is another useful paper by Dr Ian Brown of Oxford University (Associate Director of the Cyber Security Centre and Senior OII Research Fellow) which shows examples of some highly sensitive questions that could be answered about an individual using only their Smart Meter data:
Source: http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/people/brown/ and http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2215646
When are you usually away from home? Is your household protected with an electronic alarm system? If so, how often do you arm it?
How often do you arrive home around the time the bars close?
On what days and during what times do you watch TV?
How often do you eat in?
What’s the relative frequency of microwave dinners to three-pot feasts?
Are you a Laundromat person, or do you have your own washer and drier?
Alabama recently passed a tax provision requiring obese state employees to pay for their health insurance unless they actively work to reduce their body mass index. So: why haven’t you used your treadmill at home any time in the last week? You clearly have not been out of the house and away from a computer or TV long enough for aerobic exercise.
How often do you get a full night’s sleep v. drive sleep deprived?
How much home time do you spend in front of your computer?
Do you tend to eat hot or cold breakfasts?
How often do you entertain?
Are you a restless sleeper, getting up frequently throughout the night?
Do clinically depressed or bipolar individuals have distinctive energy profiles? What about people with behavioural disorders? Could you tell if someone hadn’t been taking his or her medication?
How often are you late to work, or rushing Does the time it takes you to get from your to get there on time? home to your workplace require that you break the speed limit to get there?
Are any of your appliances failing or Do you own lots of gadgets? operating below optimal efficiency?
In a custody battle: Have you ever left your child home alone? How often, and for how long?
In a worker’s compensation hearing: How is it, with your disabled back, you were able to turn on the TV in the upstairs of your home less than a minute after turning off the lights downstairs?
From Table 1. Information revealed by smart meters. Based on Quinn (2009) pp. 30-1
The reality of a situation may well seem slanted when a carefully woven veil of Smart Meter propaganda has been pulled over your head for a while. Whilst there may be two sides to every story, there is only one version of the truth.
You might be surprised to learn that data mining algorithms and databases will do most of the heavy-lifting on Smart Meter data, but if it was a case of employing hundreds of thousands of people, who do you think would have to pay them? The energy companies? How would they recoup this money? Through higher bills, presumably? Remember that you’ll be paying higher bills anyway to pay for the extensive Smart Meter software, middleware and hardware infrastructure currently being designed and built to model data about your behaviour at home and sell it to those who seek it (marketers, law enforcement, government, etc.)
A stock phrase from any popular tabloid – what theory are you talking about here exactly? That the Smart Grid (as is) is an ill-conceived boondoggle for Big Energy that disregards the impacts on your health, privacy and the security of our grid? Did you hear the one about a £10.5m fine for SSE this week? Conspiring to rip-off customers? (Can they interest you in a Smart Meter?)
A year ago? And you are indifferent to Smart Meters? Sounds like our leaflet made quite an impression. You must have nice neighbours.
🙂 Thanks for crunching the numbers. Are you practicing for one of those Smart Meter data sifting jobs you’re suggesting? We may be small, but if we were making little difference, you wouldn’t be here reminding us of that, would you? Whilst our DontSmartMeter.me facility has served over 60,000 legal notices, our campaign also has other aims – addressing fallacious arguments for Smart Meters is one, countering occasional ignorance and naivety about them is another.
Thank for the veiled compliment, but can you please elaborate on exactly where we are misguided? Feel free to share your hundreds of arguments for Smart Meters – we’d love to hear them.
PS – sorry it took us a while to post your comment – we don’t have a 24×7 operation here.
I’m not in the habit of commenting on sites like this, but I think you are missing the point. Whether ‘mesh network message management’ is actually 190’000 messages per day from my meter (or is this for each meter) or something else, I don’t know. Assuming it is the former, the point I am making is that is a huge amount of data, for each house. Why would any utility want or need this, moving from one reading every 6 months to 190’000 reads per day. I don’t understand why you think companies want this. I don’t particularly care which smart grid method is used, if it can better inform me or others and prevent large scale blackouts like we have recently seen in the States, so much the better. With regard to your list of highly sensitive questions, I’m more concerned that someone could access my account details. I don’t care if people know when I watch telly, are they bothered? So what? They can already detect If I have a tv licence. People can stand outside my home and see what time I get in. Who exactly do you think would want this info, and for what? Some of he points are ludicrous, and if you read your list again, you’d realise this. Breaking the speed limit? Why would British Gas be remotely interested, assuming they went to the trouble of finding out where I work, what time I start, when I have booked leave, how long it is before I turn off the gas and open the door to get in my car, then contact my work to see what time I arrive and whether I clocked in. It’s absolute rubbish. The comment about employing thousands of people was a poor attempt, clearly, at sarcasm. Some earlier posts in this and other threads imply that smart meter can not only spot you speeding…..!?…..but can also record our conversations and what we are watching. Who would sift through this, and for what reason. No one would employ the people needed to analyse this data, because there is simply no value or purpose in doing so. Insurance companies already spy on benefit cheats and fraudulent claimants. Do you condone fraudulent claims.
Don’t be misled or assume that because someone is on this site, it’s having the desired effect. As I stated, it is more amusement value, and my reply to Julia was simply because she seems to be the first person on here that put a sensible counter argument and challenged your version of ‘the truth’.
The SSE fine was nothing to do with Smart Meters, I was about mis selling. What is your point? The conspiracy theory comment was about your views that smart meters somehow will be able to tell “them” whoever “they” may be, all about our lives. Why, for what purpose? It smacks of an Orwellian conspiracy theory to me.
Anyway, as I said originally, time will tell. We just have different views. Bye
We’re not in the habit of repeating information we’ve provided elsewhere (including the leaflet you were given by your neighbour), but the specific point about 190,000 pulses per day was NOT because of our fears that this would generate inordinate amounts of personal data. To be clear, whilst data sets are a big concern, network management data is of little concern to us, in principle, because it doesn’t call for personal information and would only serve the network owner for a very short period of time after the data is generated.
Our point was, put another way, this: have you measured how much microwave radiation is being generated by any one of those 190,000 pulses? Given:
– there are over 5,000 studies showing harmful effects of low-level microwave radiation
– the WHO upgraded its classification of RF EMF to a Class 2b carcinogen in 2011 (there are wide-spread calls for it to be upgraded further)
– the European Council overwhelmingly voted the UK’s (current) bio-unfriendly standards as “obsolete” and “out of date” in 2009 after the publication of the BioInitiative Report
– some reports funded by the telecoms industry industry itself have shown cancer links with wireless radiation (search for the Ecolog Institute Report funded by T-Mobile)
– there is clear evidence of microwave pulses and RF EMF causing calcium ion damage, DNA damage, blood brain barrier leakage, glucose metabolism changes in the brain, nitric oxide depletion, oxidative stress, endothelial cell dysfunction, melatonin disruption, sperm damage, links to autism spectrum disorders, etc.
Do you not think it would be prudent to review the current pulsed-microwave Smart Meter approach? Is it not wise to call for restraint and pause for non-vested interest thought in light of the public health disasters that were tobacco, thalidomide, asbestos, leaded petrol, etc.? Do you believe we have learned from these mistakes? What exactly has changed? Your repeated “conspiracy theory” labeling smacks of intellectual bankruptcy and a failure to research this phenomenon in any depth. Our points about the health risks were made in the leaflet that was dropped through your door – were you laughing that much that you lost your sense of critical thought? Does your disregard for your private information extend to your health and well-being?
To address your point about privacy; one of the points listed in the Quinn/Brown table links employee lifestyle outside of work to benefits and entitlements inside of work. Can you appreciate where this leads us, and that employer policies are incessantly seeking to support the overall bottom line? Does it not concern you at all that you are looking at allowing a piece of surveillance equipment into your home which you won’t be able to get rid of once it’s in? Do you live-stream your life onto the internet? Some people would probably pay to watch what you’re doing at home, in the lounge, kitchen, bathroom, etc – so why not make a buck out of your openness? After all, someone could stand outside of your house and look through your window – which wouldn’t bother you? Do you have curtains or locks on your doors? How come?
Rest assured that there is serious interest in your home life. And we’re only just getting started. The information sector earns nearly $34,000 per second. There is immense value in your data. Your bank account is probably the least of your worries – that’s protected/guaranteed by the FSA and the bank to a degree. That’s not the case for the data about your private life at home. But whether there is value in it or not, do you not value the fact that you have some pretty hard-won rights to privacy, particularly your right to privacy in your home? Do you believe that you will always have these rights, or is there a chance that failing to exercise them will result in the kind of atrophy and degradation an unused muscle experiences over time? At the time you might want your right to privacy the most, it could be gone – for good.
The point about SSE’s fine was in response to your conspiracy theory-theory. SSE was fined £10.5m because they deliberately mislead customers. They ‘conspired’ to rip-off their customers. You said there are “conspiracy theories everywhere” – we responded with proof of one in SSE’s behaviour. They are currently selling innumerable customers on the idea of having one of their smart meters. Do you think they are trying to save them money?
Regarding the prevention of blackouts – the kind of decentralised smart grid put forward in the Institute’s document we linked above to would significantly improve grid efficiency, reduce inefficiencies, eliminate many of the risks of power outages entirely, and so on. But that’s not what we’re being sold with this bill of goods. So what do you think this programme is really all about?
As you say, time will indeed tell – we really hope that works out as a strategy for you.
Successive governments have had extremely poor energy policies ranging from wasteful use of gas (and inefficient gas transmission) for electricity generation, to the absence of adequate long term pricing incentives to ensure we have secure and sustainable energy resources and infrastructure.
Smart meters are just another wasteful use of investment and will only serve as yet another increase in costs for the consumer. The smart meter will allow the electricity companies to set up billing systems capable of charging at a different price per half-hour exactly in line with the wholesale electricity market (once called NETA now called BETTA – names that are as ironical as it is possible to invent). Those same companies will want to maintain growth in their profits and hence there can be no savings for consumers as a whole.
As with PV panels the clever and well off will be able to take advantage and will invest in devices aimed at seeking out the best time of day to fire up heavy use equipment.
If meters are going to be smart then the consumer should be allowed to buy electricity from any company for any half-hour.