That is how it is here also. They can read the meter and know when it has no power. When I first became licensed, I would call every time when I removed one, now days I don't even call anymore unless it is a bank of them. The still have to come out and put the plastic tabs on the back so it doesn't make contact when getting your power shut off
Is it automatic or manual? When I did it back in the early 2000 before all this we just pull the meter then put a plastic cover over the hole where the meter was.
My PoCo has that program as well. but it isnt tied to the meter. its a separate box that is controlled wirelessly and it connects in series with the thermostat control wires. has no connection to the watt hour meter.they had a program here way back in the day. would connect to your AC unit low voltage circuit. they could load shed that way.
example program:
Power Manager - AC Control Device - Duke Energy
Enroll to allow us to reduce the run-time of your air conditioner unit during peak electric demand periods and receive credit on your bill.www.duke-energy.com
negative. the disconnect is built into the meter. no separate enclosure needed. not even sure why you mentioned switch gear. residential services under 400a here do not have switch gear. the larger residences (very rare) and commercial and industrial have CT metering and switch gear. so the smart meters on those do not have remote shut off capabilities..
Yes my house in tn. is 400a has CT’s that go to the meter. I have not done any residential in a longtime. Maybe 20 years or so.
Smart meters allow the utility company to shutdown the power to your address while continuing to provide power to other address in you area.
That is not how rotating outages are done. An entire circuit out of a substation is turned off for a specified period of time and then turned back on. It is highly regulated. No one is just randomly switching off individual loads.
Sorry, but you are wrong. Again, Smart meters allow the Utility Co. to cut the power to a single dwelling residence. That's just part of what Smart meters are all about. You might have no power while the residence next to you has power. This is especially true if one or more people in the residence next to you have a life threatening dependence on electrical power.
Load Shed plans are highly regulated and on not done on an individual house basis. Smart meters with a disconnect collar are used to disconnect individual houses for non payment and usually only on 200Amp single phase loads. This is why they are not used for rolling outages because only the little insignificant loads would be shed. List of people with medical issues are kept to help expedite repairs in an outage situation but they are not exempt from load shed because it is done on a feeder basis.
You are both right partially. There is a list that each utility keeps of customers with a life saving power need. It is used to prioritize outage restoral during storms (Triage) and to inform customers that cannot be restored to evacuate. It can not be used to keep an individual house on during rolling mandated outages because they are done on a circuit basis to shed MegaWatts of load as required not Watts of load to keep the grid from collapsing.
That is possible and I believe some utilities allow mostly businesses to sign up as curtailable customers and they get a better rate if they allow themselves to be shed when the grid is constrained. But during emergency situations like the Feb storm when the grid is in immediate danger of collapse, large pre-determined blocks of power are shed.
Are you are on a firm fixed price for Natural Gas because it spiked just as high as power during URI
You are all set then. My future plan is batteries and solar so it can remain on during an outage by switching to off grid mode. But I do not have access to natural gas. My power needs are small and I am used to conservation so I can get by with relatively small backup power. The desire to run Air Conditioning really dictates back up generation size in this area while you can use propane, wood etc... for heat.
Yeah, sometimes I wonder if I should have put the money towards batteries. My main problem with batteries is just the amount I'd need to even get near the generator capacity, and I'd need a lot to sustain night time AC use. I'm looking at around $45,000 in batteries to sustain my usual lifestyle (And if I'm spending anywhere over $10K, then my lifestyle needs to not change!)
Thanks, the solar looks even better now I've removed the gap where the furnace stack used to be, I've moved it up to the top
I have another 12 panels on the garage too