What is a Smart Meter?

Is a Smart Meter a wireless electric meter or something a bit more interesting?

Take a look at these two meters installed by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. They’re both wireless but only the one on the left is a smart meter.

LADWP Electric Meters (smart meter on left)

Popular opinion defines anything that is connected to the internet as being smart. A door lock that communicates over Bluetooth to a mobile app? That’s a SmartLock. A lightbulb that’s on your WiFi network? That’s a SmartBulb. Even a Pokemon plush that’s connected is a SmartToy. It’s the same with electric meters.

The term, “Smart Meter” seems to be synonymous with an electric meter that communicates wirelessly. But, in fact, if you’re like the majority of Americans your electric meter has been transmitting data for 20 years, well before they were called smart. That’s surprising to most so let’s cover a bit of background before we get to what makes a wireless meter smart.

In the 1980s we had the digital revolution. With the availability of low cost processors came the redesign of almost everything as a digital product. We ripped out all the fussy mechanical parts from everyday objects and added glowing digital displays to everything from alarm clocks to microwave ovens.

In the 2000s we had the wireless revolution. Moore’s Law drove down the cost of digital radios and we started designing them into everyday objects like doorbells, phones and computers.

In the 2010s we had the cloud revolution. As wireless connectivity became ubiquitous in everyday objects, their connections were pointed more at servers in the cloud than at each other.

Smart Meters, like their older counterparts, are digital and wireless but also have some of the following additional features:

1. A home area wireless network like ZigBee. Standalone in-home-displays are sometimes available to connect to these networks and display energy information and pricing to the occupants of the residence. Informed consumers make better energy usage decisions.
2. A wide area wireless network for the utility like OpenWay. This allows your utility to remotely retrieve detailed data from your meter at their home office.
3. The ability to measure your energy consumption 24/7/365, which allows the utilities to charge you variable rates. For example, they might charge you 10 cents a kilowatt hour in the middle of the night when they have surplus energy production. Then, when everyone comes home from work jack the rate up 4x higher to meet the peak load. This is commonly known as “time of use pricing” (ToU). If you’ve recently moved to a ToU pricing program you must make smart decisions about when you’re using energy. Unfortunately, if you’re like most, you probably went a whole year before noticing your annual bill is double or triple what it was.
4. The ability to measure your peak demand. This allows the utility to charge you for the infrastructure upstream on the grid to supply your home in your highest demand situation. Think of it as a water pipe. You’ll need a big fat pipe to supply the kilowatt demand of charging a Tesla. A garden hose won’t do it even if you’ve got some sort of net-zero solar installation.
5. A remotely controlled whole home power switch inside the meter. This allows the utility to remotely turn off power to an unrented apartment, in emergency situations, or even if you’re behind on your bills (weather permitting of course).

If you’re interested in learning more about identifying your electric meter please see my article on Residential Electric Meters. We’d also love to hear from you at Copper Labs if you’re interested in wirelessly reading your own electric meter.