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According tweakers.net a minister is willing to deploy a smart energiemeter in our houses, which should be accessable to consumers, based on international, open standards...:
http://tweakers.net/nieuws/69525/minist ... l#reacties

Would this be a great idea?

A very, very bad idea.

- The meter consumes 4W in rest. 4W x 5 milj. household is atleast one extra coal powerplant just to power these meters.
- The data will be collected and on available on a website of the energy provider. (again extra energy consumption). We all know how hackable site can be.
- The meter can be shut down by the energy provider making the provider more a target for terrorist hack attacks. Ounce in and you disable thousands consumers with just one click.
- Trends and energy fingerprints can be build on the collected data. From that you can even extract the type of washingmachine you use. Ideal for marketing
- Privacy. Janssen has all week all the same energy consumption but on fridays it raises with 50% (heating on) and drops again after a hour to the old level. Is he inviting someone?
- And many, many more items.

AshaiRey wrote:A very, very bad idea.

- The meter consumes 4W in rest. 4W x 5 milj. household is atleast one extra coal powerplant just to power these meters.

How much are the regular ones using? (new houses and "old" houses)

Based on my knowledge .... the original proposal was rejected by the politics .. sofar the customer will not be forced to get an online energy meter.
Also the sample frequency will not be that high as every 15 minute but more each day.

The energy network providers will replace old meters with an electronic one ...and most of those meters have a standard P1 gate accessible by the customer.
This P1 gate will provide energy readings both of electicity as gas usage.

This will be a benefit ... so no need for opto sensors to read the classic energy meters ...(draaischijf) hopeful soon devices are available as a P1 /Zwave gateway.

Henk

How much are the regular ones using?

Around 1W.
The new one 5-7W depending on the type of readout every quarter of a hour

- The new meter lasts about 6 years and then it have to be replaced again. Thats 5 times faster then the old ones.

- Replacing the old meter will cost about 2 miljard Euro and have to be paid by the consumer.

- Privacy. The providers are obligated to give the quaterly readouts for free to third parties (if consumer permits)

- Privacy. More spam from third parties

- Who will profit from this?
The minister says the consumer (are they to dumb to read their own meter?)
The meter manufactorers (12 milj. meters each 6 years)
The taxservice (fiscus) collects more tax
The provider with a more simple administration, and will the consumer get discount because of this. The minister says 'No'

@AshaiRey

What is the source of these arguments? Why would the meters last less then the old meters?
I personally think it's a good development to modernize the old traditional systems.
As for the privacy aspect, who really cares if you use 50% more energy?

I see pro's and cons for the new meters.

The privacy is indeed an issue:

As for the privacy aspect, who really cares if you use 50% more energy?

Yes, nobody cares, but based on you energy consumption pattern one could determine that you are on holidays and the house is available for intruders to say so.

A definite pro will be the option to manage the utility network in a better way.
How about the following scenario:
At the moment you wash your laundry during the night time because of the cheaper tariff (assuming dual tariff). Using a timebased controller you set it to run at midnight. Assuming everybody else is doing the same, one will see a huge load on the "network" during a relative short time frame. The rest of the nighttime the "network" is not used and the electricity company has to minimize production in the power plant.
-- OR --
You will tell the electricity company that you want to wash your laundry tonight. You don't care when exactly, as long as it gets done between 22:00 and 07:00. In a smart grid, the electricity company can decide how to balance the load of all these requests and optimize the "network" load. In return they will offer you a lower tariff since they will be able to spread the load and predict the resource utilization (which is a big issue in powerplants).

@yjb:
I would think twice before i would give the electricity company access to my Plugwise network...
I could think about receiving an advise from the company over a time window to switch my washer on.

I would like to see a website, coupled with my BSN eg, where i could see the powerusage, and see if my RFXcom/Plugwise/Enymate/.... gives the same values.

@MDamen
My source is various such as Kema and reports from the ministery.
I would like to mention a good site that monitors things like this in his nieuws & blog part of the site ( http://www.zonnepanelen.wouterlood.com/ )

Electricity company can decide when I can ....

Now this is exactly the world I do not want to live in.