NC Media Watch

SmartMeter Update: Our SmartMeters have arrived!

Russ Steele

The contract tech arrived about 10:30 to install our electric and gas SmartMeters.  Well future smart meters.  According to the contract tech, our meters will be read in the usual was for the next six to eight month. When I asked if he activated the meter, the tech told me they were not turned on yet. They have not installed the network transmitters and receivers devices that will connect the meters to a collection network.  I asked it he would have to return to turn on the smart feature “No,” he said, “once [the network is] installed, they will automatically join the network.”

If you have other appliances in your home with the Zigbee chip set, it may also try to join the network once it is turned on.  More on this is a future post. 

Here is a cellphone pre-SmartMeter photo

Here is a cellphone post SmartMeter photo

Here is what a gas version of the smart meter looks like (cellphone).

Sun spot numbers running backward

Russ Steele

Just when it looked like Cycle 24 was going to take off the sunspot numbers turned around and started declining.  As some scientist have finally concluded we really do not know what is happening on the sun. 


In the past, disappearing sun spots has been a precursor to long term periods of colder winters and summers.  The Dalton Minimum was the most recent period from  1790 to 1830, weather stations experienced an average drop of 2.0C for 20 years.  The Maunder Minimum was also a  prolonged period of minimum sunspots from about 1645 to 1715, a period know as the Little Ice Age, during which Europe and North America were subjected to bitterly cold winters. Some years,  rivers remained frozen well into summer.

The exact mechanism for the cooling is not know, but the historical records show that fewer spots leads to a colder climate.  The current sunspots trends could indicate some long term cooling is on the horizon if history is a valid indicator.

There is some irony here, Mother Nature is turning done the earths thermostat and our government is setting in motion programs and legislation that will take control of our thermostats, all to stop the earth from warming from CO2 emissions.  Either way, there are long term economic impacts.  Stay tuned.

SmartMeter Update: I wish it really was for the customers!

Russ Steele

According to PG&E SmartMeter brochures they are here to help customers save money. What they do not say is, to do that customers must modify their lifestyle to meet those savings goals.  Right, here are some excerpts  from a story posted by the Environmental Defense Fund last Thursday, the 26th of June. Detail here.

"Today's PUC decision shows yet again that California is creating a model that other states can follow to save ratepayers money, grow the economy and protect the environment," said Lauren Navarro, Environmental Defense Fund, which was a party in the smart grid proceeding. "Utilities now have clear guidelines for developing smart grid plans that are able help California meets its energy and environmental goals."

See, it all about California meeting those pesky CO2 reduction goals and providing customers with tool so they can social engineer their lifestyle to meet the goals.

Studies have shown that a smart grid can reduce household utility bills 10 percent when customers have access to tools, technologies and real-time information that can help them better manage energy use.

By providing ratepayers with information about how much electricity they use at different times of the day, utilities can help customers save electricity during critical times. This "demand response" process leads to cost savings, reduced energy use and cleaner air. If just five percent of customers shift their use, the most expensive and polluting peak power plants will come online less often and prices for all customers will drop substantially.

See,  if customers do not comply, they will raise your rates until you do comply!

Maximizing these benefits will require a smart grid that can facilitate: expanded deployment of renewable and distributed power sources; greater use and charging of electric vehicles and new energy storage technologies; and greater reliance on demand-side resources, especially those that serve as an alternative to new peaking power plants.

What they just said, it that they can use the smart meters to adjust the load. Who creates that load, right customers. So, rather than produce more CO2 spewing power plants they will turn up your AC thermostat or your furnace thermostat down to adjust the load.  Or, turn off that big screen TV that is eating up their watts.

SmartMeters and Solar Storms

Russ Steele

Right now the sun is rather quiet and some solar scientist are predicting that this is the calm before the storm.  Other scientist are saying that this is the storm, a sun that will be quiet for centuries and create the next version of the Little Ice Age.  I am interested in both possibilities.  But, with our smart-meter due in the 1st of July, let's examine the impact of a solar storm, like the one in 1859 storm that destroyed telegraph lines and stations across the nation.

A report by the National Academy of Sciences found that if a storm as severe as one in 1859 occurred today, it could cause $1 trillion to $2 trillion in damage the first year and take four to 10 years to recover.

The 1859 storm shorted out telegraph wires, causing fires in North America and Europe, sent readings of Earth's magnetic field soaring, and produced northern lights so bright that people read newspapers by their light. Today there's a lot more than telegraph lines at stake.

Vulnerable electrical grids circle the globe, satellites now vital for all forms of communications can be severely disrupted along with the global positioning system. Indeed, the panel warned that a strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions.

NASA has warned that the Earth could endure a once-in-a-generation "space storm," bringing widespread power blackouts and leaving people without critical communications signals for a long time.

National power grids could overheat and air travel could be disrupted while electronic systems, navigation devices and major satellites could stop working after the Sun reaches its maximum power in a few years.

Senior space agency scientists say the Earth will be hit with unprecedented levels of magnetic energy from solar flares when the Sun awakes "from a deep slumber" around 2013.

I am not sure about the unprecedented levels, however the possibility that a solar storm strong enough impact our electrical grid is relatively high, it has happened before and will happen again.  The issue is when.

Scientist say an extreme events like the 1859 event are a 1-in-100-year probabilities, about the same probability as a storm of the level of Katrina hitting New Orleans.  Well we know the results of that probability. 100 years isn’t that long

The SmartMeter with their integrated circuit chips are more vulnerable to high energy electrical disturbances than the mechanical meters that they replace.  The computer chips in these SmartMeters have a demonstrated vulnerability to stray high energy electrical fields. It will be a huge effort to restore the grid after such a huge solar storm, but it will take even longer to manufacture new SmartMeters and reinstall them in millions of homes across California.

I hope that PG&E is not destroying those mechanical meters. They may need them any day now!  Some where around 2013, unless we are entering another Grand Minimum, then we can relax, there will not be any solar storms to worry about for 20-30 years.

SmartMeters and the smart grid will steal your freedom to choose

Russ Steele

By now many residence of Nevada County have their SmartMeter installed and connected to PG&E’s mesh network. This network is collecting data on citizens electrical, and if they have natural gas, their total energy usage. 

I learned to night on the Glenn Beck program that a smart grid was mandated in California by SB 17 which was signed by our Governor in October 2009. 

What will the smart grid do for you, or maybe too you would be a more appropriate term.  According to AB17 the purpose is to modernize the states transmission and distribution system, to maintain safe,
reliable, efficient, and secure electrical service, with
infrastructure that can meet future growth in demand and achieve all of the following [My comments in brackets]:

1.  Increased use of cost-effective digital information and control technology to improve reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric grid.[Operative word is control technology, your smart meter can turn off your power in an instant with flick of the switch in the Control Center]
2. Dynamic optimization of grid operations and resources,including appropriate consideration for asset management and utilization of related grid operations and resources, with cost-effective full cyber security. [At the present time there are no published smart grid security standards, power companies can make them up as they install the system.]
3.  Deployment and integration of cost-effective distributed resources and generation, including renewable resources. [Read that to mean renewable resource of wind and solar which the power companies have no control over the output, the wind blows and the sun shines when Mother Nature decides, not the power company.]
4.  Development and incorporation of cost-effective demand response, demand-side resources, and energy-efficient resources.[ The power company has only two demand responses, increase output or reduce demand. They will have the power to reduce demand over the smart-grid by turning up or down your thermostat, turning off the dish washer, the big screen TV, etc. Since AB32 mandates CO2 reductions, which do you thinking they will do? ]
5. Deployment of cost-effective smart technologies, including real time, automated, interactive technologies that optimize the physical operation of appliances and consumer devices for metering, communications concerning grid operations and status, and distribution automation.      [The power companies will have total control of all the appliance in you home with embedded smart chips.]
6. Integration of cost-effective smart appliances and consumer devices. [The law mandates integration of smart chips into all appliances and the manufactures are complying, with over a 100 signed up to include smart chips in AC, TV, Washers, Dryers, Dishwasher, etc,.]
7. Deployment and integration of cost-effective advanced electricity storage and peak-shaving technologies, including plug-in electric and hybrid electric vehicles, and thermal-storage air-conditioning. [If your have an electric vehicle plugged in the network, it will be considered a storage device. The network will decide if you have a full charge in your electric in the morning, or not.]
8.  Provide consumers with timely information and control options. [ This is the social engineering part, you will be provided the tools and incentive to modify your lifestyle to same energy for the power company and to preserve the planet from CO2 pollution.]
9.  Develop standards for communication and interoperability of appliances and equipment connected to the electric grid, including the infrastructure serving the grid. [These are the standards that manufacturers will use to insure that your new appliances can be monitored and controlled by a central authority over the smart grid. No rogue appliance allowed, all must meet the standard.]
10.  Identification and lowering of unreasonable or unnecessary barriers to adoption of smart grid technologies, practices, and services.[ If you get in the way you will be crushed.] 

Had enough of AB 17 yet. Quite frankly, there is not much you can do except avoid buying new appliance with the embedded smart chips. However, if you own a company or building, the California Smart Grid Center is already testing retrofit smart thermostats for your existing AC system. We have been had by the Legislature and the Governor and the Public Utilities Commission, bend over and pretend you like it.

Our SmartMeter has been scheduled

Russ Steele

We were in the toll gate for the Oakland Bay Bridge when PG&E called to schedule our Smart Meter installation. We will be honored with a SmartMeter some time on July 1st.

My July Column for CABPRO will be on the long term impacts of these smart meters on your personal freedom, when your new appliances come fully equipped with embedded control chips ready to join the smart grid.  Stay Tuned!

SmartMeter Update: Coming to Nevada County June through September

Russ Steele

We received a notice from PG&E that our house will be getting a SmartMeter real soon now.  Calling the phone number on the PG&E flier seeking more details I discovered there is not much reliable information at the other end of the phone.  I had done some research on the Internet and has some detailed questions about schedule, network architecture, radio frequencies used, chips sets used in the smart meters, etc.  I ended up talking to PG&E Smart Meter Support Desk, the installation contractor Wellington Energy's help desk, and Silverspring Networks the network services provider’s tech support team. There seems to be some confusion especially on PG&E’s part about the schedule and what is really being installed in Nevada County homes. 

Schedule: June to September, however Wellington the installation contractor has not received any installation orders. We will receive more letters from Wellington, with neighborhood schedules, once those orders are issued to the contractor.

Network Architecture: A self-configuring, redundant mesh network with information passed from house to house, then on to a collection point where the information is relayed to a server farm. The power and gas meter readings should be available on the Internet the next day for customer access. Electric power, hour by hour, and gas twice a day, in 12 hour blocks.

Network Frequency: 900 Mhz according to Silverspring, but PG&E thinks transmission is in the 460 Mhz frequency band. I am voting for the 900 MHz band, however the PG&E documents provided to the CPUC indicate a licensed dedicated frequency will be used.  The 900 Mhz band is for unlicensed use, shared with hundreds of other users from radio controlled toys to wireless phones.  More research is needed.

Meter Manufacture: Both GE and Landis +Gyr, smart meters and it appears that both use the Zigbee chips sets, but no one I talked to could confirm this information.  The Zigbee chip security is based on a 128-bit AES algorithm and the IEEE 802.15.4 communication standard.  Humm Developer Joshua Wright just released KillerBee, an open source collection of Linux tools intended for testing the security of ZigBee networks. In other words tools for cracking the security.  A Zigbee Network hacking book will be published in September by O'Reilly. More on this in a future post. 

It is going to be an interesting summer. I will be exploring some of the potential SmartMeter Privacy issues in my Off the Top of My Head Column for the CABPRO Magazine in July.   Stay Tuned, I will be posting regular updates on the process and implications for home owners.