Surprise visit from the power company

[flintstone mop]

We've got a normal mechanical meter, but I'm noticing the electronic ones on new builds. I don't think they're retrofitting yet.

Local utility was trying to interest us in a remote shutoff for the air conditioner, offering a discount from the bill if they were allowed to shut down the air when demand was high.  

I declined after they refused to describe how the thing worked, beyond hooking it up.   All I need is some kind of pulse coming through and blowing another ballast tube in the R390A. (a har har from the other thread)

I had something similar in Maryland, near Wash DC. Very annoying!! They cut the condenser unit via 150mhz VHF radio signal when you really need the A/C the most......figures!!! The discount is not worth the discomfort on very hot/humid day.

Fred

[W1AEX]

After reading the comments in the thread I was reminded of a strange comment the power company installer made as he we walked back to his truck. In a kind of sheepish tone he said:

"Got a word of advice for yah. If you're at all behind in your bill with the company, you might want to avoid a big hassle and make sure you get it paid up quickly. They'll shut you off without a word until you pay up and then charge you to turn the power back on. It just ain't worth it."

At the time, I laughed and said that I never got behind with any of my bills, so I wasn't particularly worried. Then I mentioned that he had shown me how to throw the physical meter bypass switch and he said, "Well yah, that'll work, but then they'd have to actually send someone out to investigate tampering. You don't want to go there..."

According to the meter datasheet, which is available at the link below, there are many options that can be installed, and sure enough, one of them appears to be a remote on/off switch (KYZ Pulse Initiator Output). I suspect that they will gleefully use this option to ensure that customers pay their bills in a timely fashion. No need to send anyone out to turn their power off if they fail to respond. Some geek sitting at a computer terminal can press a few keys on their keyboard and the customer is SOL. As Frank said, they have had the capability to open and close circuits to whole areas, but the ability to do this to an individual subscriber is something new here. Hope the geek behind the keyboard doesn't spill his latte on the keyboard as he is reviewing my account...

Option:  KYZ Pulse Initiator Output
• 6 versions available
• Three-wire, form C, solid-state output contacts (up to 2)
• Two-wire, form A, solid-state output contacts
• Mercury wetted relays
• SiteScan diagnostic output
• Demand threshold output
• End-of interval output

www.hocutt.com/Adobe%20Files/EleVECTRONSVX.pdf

[W1RKW]

Need a digital guru to hack the meters and find out how to communicate with them.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

just attach one of these and run for a few minutes a month.  Nothing DIGITAL will live nearby.

[ke7trp]

In our town, 24 hours after the due date, The power is cut. Its a 1 day penalty and $75 to turn it back on.

C

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Seriously though, the smart thing to do is install solar and wind (yes both) if you can and only utilize the grid as backup power.  Neither one is sufficient to power the average home with any kind of reliability, but both together with the grid used as backup should work. 
This also requires a some adaptation on how electricity is used in the home (the electric range is right OUT).  But most of the stuff that would have to go is really bad RFI radiators anyway like wall warts and crappy switching supplied consumer stuff. It is done and is not really hard, it just takes a serious commitment.
As for a who designs and installs the systems,  The pro's are expensive and it takes FOREVER to get any return on your investment for the power. Besides if you can afford the cost of a professional install, I'd wager you aren't worried about the cost of the electric in the first place.
That said, we are mostly fairly tech savy home brewers here and I would bet dollars to donuts that most of the folks in this group could turn out decent safe alternate power sources for a lot less than the pro's would want. 

There are options, the only thing lacking is commitment to utilize them.  Do it NOW before the utilities outlaw self generation.

[N0WVA]

Seriously though, the smart thing to do is install solar and wind (yes both) if you can and only utilize the grid as backup power.  Neither one is sufficient to power the average home with any kind of reliability, but both together with the grid used as backup should work. 
This also requires a some adaptation on how electricity is used in the home (the electric range is right OUT).  But most of the stuff that would have to go is really bad RFI radiators anyway like wall warts and crappy switching supplied consumer stuff. It is done and is not really hard, it just takes a serious commitment.
As for a who designs and installs the systems,  The pro's are expensive and it takes FOREVER to get any return on your investment for the power. Besides if you can afford the cost of a professional install, I'd wager you aren't worried about the cost of the electric in the first place.
That said, we are mostly fairly tech savy home brewers here and I would bet dollars to donuts that most of the folks in this group could turn out decent safe alternate power sources for a lot less than the pro's would want. 

There are options, the only thing lacking is commitment to utilize them.  Do it NOW before the utilities outlaw self generation.

Been there, done that. Solar is a must an any electric generation. For wind power to bring any kind of return, you must have lots of wind, usually more than you think you really got. The idea combo would be solar/hydro. If you have any kind of stream with even very little flow and drop, your going to see usable electricity. Even if the stream only flows 50% of the year, during that time your seeing around the clock charging into your battery bank. I was going to install such a system for my dad, we were going to tap off of a spring and the drop was around 14 ft and like 40 gallons a minute, seems like it came out to over 100 watts of continuous power after figuring the loss in the long run of pipe and generator efficiency.  We bought the irrigation pipe to do it, but its still sitting there in the woods stacked up. Kind of a waste. Im sure the enviro-nazis would have a problem saying it upset a tadpole of crawdad. But what the heck, we are going to leave a footprint on this world no matter what we do.

Inverter technology has come a long ways since I installed the old Trace unit. It was a modified sine wave, I think they are more pure now and less wasteful under less than full load.

[Ed/KB1HYS]

Hydro is excellent.  But you've got to have access to the water.  As you say, even a slow or seasonal stream will provide some usable power. Building damns can be problematic, but there are other ways like floating power houses that use underflow water wheels. 

I've always worried about the inverters, for one- a lot of them generate large amounts of RFI. Ok, not an issue for the average home owner, but I'm not average   .   I hear that the latest tech in that area has gotten significantly better in performance and RFI.  Not sure though.  Either way, I suppose it could be dealt with.

Solar doesn't have to be electric either - hot water or air is handy too. Atleast up here in New England anyway.

I think the goal should be to just reduced dependance on the grid, not total independance.  Just having the grid as "standby" power on low output periods would be idea.  You'd pay a lot less to the power comapany, and still have the benifit of reliable on demand energy.

[KA2QFX]

Interesting thread.
Just recently, N1HCI, who's pretty frugal with his electrical consumption, just had his meter replaced with an old analog, mechanical  meter!  He thinks it spins faster than it should so were going to put a calibrated load on it to find out.  Most of the meters used here are Fujitsu or Sangamo electronic meters that report usage in the 900KHz range back to the CO. 
Strange they should change his meter to an analog. I don't know of any disconnects here though.

On the rotary converter. I used one of those for a few years. It's kinda like a transformer that generate an output  phase between inputs A and B. But, since A and B are always 180 apart one of them gets a capacitor to shift it. But that cap has to be carefully chosen to match the load impedance otherwise the phase shift will be way off, and starting torque always sucks no matter what you do.  I found out it's much more practical to replace the machine's motor with a reversible single phase.