The promise was to help you control your electricity bill by becoming more aware of your energy use. The downside is that with the data gathered, other people and businesses can also become more aware of your habits, like when you go to work, go on vacation, etc. Is the potential energy savings worth the invasion of privacy trade-off? I sure don’t think so. I really don’t want PG&E or anyone else for that matter knowing how I live my life inside my own home.
To add insult to injury, the Public Utility Commission just granted PG&E a rate hike to pay for lost profits due to these devices that no consumers asked for. In my own conversion experience, PG&E basically said “our way or the highway” – I didn’t have a choice. Now I have a ZigBee WiFi capable datalogger on the side of my house, tracking my family’s habits. Now the EFF is getting involved for privacy protection. Fortunately, the PUC has now ordered PG&E to provide an opt-out plan. With privacy issues rising, there may be more takers now.
From the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
California Proposes Strong Privacy Protections for “Smart Meters”
The California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has released a proposal for strong privacy protections for “smart meter” data, closely following the recommendations from EFF and the Center for Democracy and Technology. If adopted and finalized, the plan could become a model for how to protect sensitive consumer information while providing new ways to save energy.
California’s PG&E is currently in the process of installing “smart meters” that will collect detailed data of energy use —750 to 3000 data points per month per household—for every energy customer in the state. These meters are aimed at helping consumers monitor and control their energy usage, but the information that is collected can reveal much more about a household’s daily activities: when people wake up, when they come home, when they go on vacation, and maybe even when they take a hot bath.
Many third parties will want access to this sensitive information, and the California PUC has recommended strong protections for the transfer of the data to others. This should help prevent the data’s misuse, hopefully blocking new intrusions into our home and private life. We hope the California PUC goes on to adopt its proposal, creating a blueprint for energy data and privacy protection that can be used across the country.
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Smokey
You forgot to include the ‘climate change consultant.’
tonyb
“GE brings bad things to life.” appears to be the new slogan looking at that meter face.
@Mr. Green Genes – As I recall your government (UK) have already informed you that you will be short of power. Probably political as well as electrical.
Sorry, it’s much worse than you describe here. I’ve already posted on your blog about it. At least people are starting to get the idea. Good for you.
You need to watch for the other shoe to drop on this one.
Here in Ontario the ‘smart’ meters were followed by ‘free’ (i.e. paid by the taxpayer) home thermostats, that allow the mothership to monitor and control the temperature of your house.
I suspect these will soon be made compulsory for everyone, at which point the electricity suppliers will in effect have a remote thermostat to turn your house up a few degrees in the Summer as they hit peak load on hot days.
I was surprised to see some of my neighbours voluntarily taking them up on this, but like I say I expect we will all be forced to have them soon enough anyway.
Meanwhile our provincial government has signed a $9 billion contract with a South Korean firm for windmills and increased tax on electricity, home heating fuel etc by 5%.
I cannot remember what I ate for breakfast yesterday. So, in a month from now, when I get this smart bill, is it going to tell me how I fixed by breakfast this morning and for how long I had my coffee pot running so I can stop eating foods that take too long to cook?
Instant read outs would be much more helpful, maybe an alarm to sound when more than xxx watts are being drawn at one time, shut stuff off until the alarm stops.
I seem to recall at least one online article about how these things dump large, constant EMF “pollution” into their immediate environments. There are people who are sensitive to EMF, and develop physical symptoms of overexposure; nausea, headaches, fatigue, and aches to name a few.
I can’t wait to see the class-action lawsuits start up once enough of these people are affected, and start to take action. Unfortunately, it will take enough of these people being affected before this will happen, and in the meantime, they will live lives of misery.
I’ve still got my old “dumb” meter. When ERCOT finally gets around to swapping mine out, I will be very tempted to put together a
Farday cagewire trellis for my trumpet vine which just so happened to be planted immediately below the meter.There is nothing smart about this technology; nor does it actually do any good for energy savings. The only likely purpose for installing these units is that they are the infrastructure that is needed to implement billing for power at different rates at different times.
If they were to have installed these devices with their true purpose known, there would probably be a lot more resistance. This way the infrastructure is in place and some nameless bureaucrat will just throw the switch. Fait accompli.
Remember the words of our great Leader, Obama, “We can’t all expect to be able to keep our thermostats at 72 degrees.”
Smart meters are just the start. Next there will be stronger determination to gain access to control thermostats within the home. Your energy consumption will be heavily regulated by those sitting in a nice, comfortable office who are part of the system…but do not have to abide by the system. There is a drive for stronger controls and erosion of personal freedom and liberty, that only grows every day. The backbone of this erosion feeds off of energy consumption and its climate change derivative. But, one should not be surprised that even in a 100% green energy economy, or in a world where climate change is found to be 100% natural, the push for heavy regulation over the lives of “free” people would not abate, where control over your daily routine from cradle to grave would be nominal.
Sorry for the double-post. Mods are more than welcome to concatenate them if they so desire.
Anything that stands any sort of chance of being hacked, will be hacked. Technology doesn’t matter, there are simply people out there who feel the need to steal. People steal now with the “dumb” meters, by splicing into wires on the “wrong” side of the meter. No matter how encrypted or super-duper-secret keyed you make these “smart” meters, they will be hacked. It’s just a matter of time.
To borrow from Ace O’ Spades, the analogy he once gave to something similar was that of the hamster you kept as a childhood pet. Sooner or later, it would always escape. Always. After the first time it got out, you put a couple books on the screen lid. A month later, it figured out a way around the books. So you’d do something else. A couple months later, you’d come home from school and it was out again.
Why? Because the hamster had all day to devote most of his thoughts to escape. He’d mull it over while eating. He’d dream of it while sleeping. You didn’t stand a chance. You had hordes of other stuff to think about other than thwarting escape…school, chores, friends. You had other stuff to worry about than the “escape / not-escape” battle. But not the hamster. He was dedicated. Sure, his through processes weren’t as efficient as yours, and he was smaller and weaker. But he had the distinct advantage of time. All day, while you were at school, he had nothing but time to try and fail. He only needed to get it right once, and he was out.
It’ll be the same with smart meters.
I was approached by ConEd 3 years ago to put “smart thermostats” in my stores to allow me monitor my usage and environment remotely, and get slightly lower rates. Sounded good until I read the fine print that allows ConEd to remotely turn off your AC during high usage.
Crazy..
For the few that actually care about this issue and motivated enough, one anonymizing strategy would be to setup a bitcoin miner or other cloud-based information-monetizing* load balancer behind the smart meter. The current would maintain a steady draw from the grid with no time-based activity patterns detectable from outside the load balancer.
Or trade/donate to the WCG.
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
http://www.easynews.com/wcg/info.phtml
Google was (still is?) pushing to provide, free of charge, the in-home software interface between meter and customer. That way, Google archives all of your energy use data. What could go wrong?
Others have already pointed out that smart meters are often followed by time-of-use pricing and across-the-board price increases.
Some smart meters have remote control disconnect capability. This is an opportunity to let renewable energy supporters pay the actual cost and experience the capacity factor of renewable energy. When the wind drops off, or the solar farm output drops, the customer is simply disconnected until the renewable source comes back on. There is no need for backup generation or storage, which saves money. The load shedding is nearly instantaneous, so day-ahead weather forecasts are not really needed. And, the customer receives a more realistic renewable energy ‘experience.’ Its a win-win.
This is why we opted to go off-grid, 100% solar. No raising fees, carbon taxes, or tyrannical electricity companies. Not only that, but we have no electricity bills and our system will pay for itself in about ten years (based on 2009 electricity prices). Is our choice helping save the planet? Not likely. Is it freedom? Absolutely!
Why do Americans continue living in California?
SANS The Internet Storm Center had an article on the security implications of HVAC monitoring equipment back in 2008:
http://isc.sans.edu/diary.html?storyid=4681
Risks considered include:
Confidentiality – the data gathered on your household habits
Integrity – Unauthorized access/settings issues
Availability – What if there’s a network outage of some sort
Authentication – Weak passwords anyone?
Wireless – interference of yet another wireless device. Data encryption anyone?
This article is worth the read, even if you’re not technically inclined.
Paul
Elizabeth (not the Queen)- you say “This is why we opted to go off-grid, 100% solar. ”
I’d be interested in reading details about your system.
Do you use battery backup?
Did you install the system yourself, or use a contractor?
Does the 10 year payback time cover all costs, including backup storage?
Did you cut electricity use at the same time?
In what part of the country are you located?
I am in Florida, and have been tracking solar PV costs for years now, as I also want to install a solar PV to cover 100% of my electricity use.
Thanks.
Personally I love the smart homes, it is so comfortable to be able to save energy from ones couch with the easy use of cloned neighbors remote control units. :p
http://www.pikeresearch.com/blog/we-hacked-the-smart-meter-tell-the-world
http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2009/09/01/four-ways-hack-smart-grid
http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/hack-your-meter-while-you-can/
http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/ariel-schwartz/sustainability/security-expert-proves-its-snap-hack-smart-grid
This is just the first step. The next step would be sanctions agains wasteful households.
Gary D. says:
“Why do Americans continue living in California?”
Inertia.
But one by one, they’re starting to drift away. California has wonderful scenery and great weather. But the corrupt governments, both state and local, have destroyed this once-great state.
Cops in my city are paid $202,000 a year [including benefits, which equal 82% of their base pay]. They can retire at 50 with all of their benefits and 90% of their pay. Firefighters aren’t far behind.
Their pitch is that they have dangerous jobs. But American soldiers in Afghanistan have much more dangerous jobs, and their pay is moderate. In this economy if public employee pay was cut in half, there would still be a line of applicants from San Francisco to Miami. You have to know someone to get a good gov’t job here, and that makes the system corrupt.
When California inevitably begs the other 49 states to bail it out, the answer should be a loud “No!” And that goes for New Jersey and every other state where the politicians have made irresponsible, self-serving promises to public employee unions and other special interests. The President of the U.S. is paid $400,000; no local government employee is worth over $200,000 a year, especially for blue collar jobs like police officers and firemen.
The people leaving California aren’t the government employees, they’re the hard-bitten taxpayers who are forced to pay for this public extravagance. California killed the goose that laid the golden eggs.
The word “smart” has now become a double entendre much like the word “progressive” really means extreme left-wing. What exactly makes the meter smart? It has no intelligence, therefore it is not smart. But saying “smart meter” is much less offensive than saying “constant monitoring meter”. It is not what you say but how you say it.
I already have a way of monitoring my energy use. When I turn on a light I use more energy, when I turn it off I use less. How hard is that? Do I know exactly how much I save by turning things off? No. But if I did I would ask for a smart meter. If I don’t ask, then don’t give me one.
The entire model of energy delivery has been turned on its head. Power companies are now in the business of selling the least amount of energy they can. And the current tax and regulatory climate encourages power companies to utilize the least efficient means of production. Thus we see energy prices spiral up ward while the amount sold per unit goes ever downward. Any economist would tell you that this business model is deeply flawed and will ultimately collapse. It rewards its own inefficiency with the goal of selling no power at the maximum price. This is insanity. Power companies should be encouraged to sell the most power at the least price.
This type of thinking will destroy industry after industry, consumerism itself, until America resembles the rust heaps and drudgery of the USSR circa 1990.
Smart meters aren’t just for electricity any more:
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/smart-takes/ottawa-taps-itron-for-210000-smart-water-meters/15952?tag=nl.e660
“The City of Ottawa has chosen smart grid firm Itron to deploy smart water meters and related infrastructure in town.
The fourth largest city in Canada, Ottawa is using the deployment as part of a greater Advanced Metering Infrastructure, or AMI, scheme that hopes to help its local utility eliminate estimated billing for customers and improve efficiency in water service operations.”
Smart water meters?! So here comes usage-based billing for the water you use in your home. And it gets worse… There is buzz that these meters be imposed on rural residents who have their own wells. They will be billed even though they do not use municipal water or sewage, and the vast majority manage their well and septic system properly. Another tax/money grab.