What powers Smart Meter transmitters ?

[Deleted User]

Are Smart meter transmitters powered by the mains supply - if so how does the gas meter transmitter work - in our house, the gas meter is nowhere near any power supply.and in any case - gas and electricity together in one box worry me.

If mains powered - how much electricity do the transmitters use ? I am comparing my phone battery life

I have read that the meters "communicate" with base potentially many thousands of times a day - so, surely - if battery powered, the battery could not last that long ??

matelodave

The gas meter has a battery and should send a message to the leccy meter once every 30 minutes, the battery is supposed to last for 10 years but not all of them do. One would hope that the energy companies have a plan in place to replace them but I suspect that most of them haven't.

The leccy meter collects the gas data and should send both the gas and leccy data once every 30 minutes to the data collection service - the leccy meter is powered from the mains supply before it goes through the metering circuitry so you aren't paying for it.

The info on your IHD should be just about in real time from the leccy meter but could be up to half an hour behind with your gas consumption.

dogshome

The Gas meter is battery powered, but because it only produces a weak signal it's readings are transmitted to the Electricity meter, which then with it's mains powered stronger transmits both Gas & Electric readings to the supplier.

Well that is the theory - However there are many dwellings were the two meters are so far apart, the gas meter signal cannot reach the Elec meter, which means the householder must take manual readings from the Gas meter and pass them on to the supplier, which rather depletes the reasons for having Smart meters in the first place

[Deleted User]

So the battery is only used for gas to electricity meter transmission ?

Why is it that I have read that there is communication between meters and base, many thousands of times a day ?

[Deleted User]

To answer the OP’s other question. The electricity meter and by association the communications hub are powered from Grid electricity; that is, you are not paying anything towards the small cost of powering your electricity meter. If you have an IHD, this is powered from your metered supply. Ovo has calculated that a Chameleon IHD costs less than 75p a year to run.

My GWi G4 SMETS2 gas meter has a certified battery life of at least 15 years. 

The comms hub is a secure device that your supplier polls once a day via a sophisticated piece of software known as an Adaptor. To do this, your supplier has first to send both your meters security certificates which prevent other suppliers, or third parties, from accessing your data.

MWT

Deleted_User said:

So the battery is only used for gas to electricity meter transmission ?

Why is it that I have read that there is communication between meters and base, many thousands of times a day ?

You have been reading incorrect information...

Just to be clear, the gas meter never communicates with the electricity meter, it sends information to the gas proxy which is in the comms hub that sits on top of the electricity meter.

There is a lot of communication between the In-home device (IHD) and the comms hub via the Home Area Network (HAN) which is how the information you see on the IHD gets there from the meters.

With SMETS2, the information is only retrieved from the comms hub and passed on to the supplier via the DCC when a request is sent to the comms hub from the DCC, so that is often just once a day.

Chino

Dolor said:

The electricity meter and by association the communications hub are powered from Grid electricity; that is, you are not paying anything towards the small cost of powering your electricity meter.

So you are suggesting that the electricity used to power smart meters is somehow generated for free and so the cost of that electricity is never included in suppliers' costs and so isn't used when determining the cost of energy paid by energy users.
Call me sceptical but I don't believe that for a second. Like the ridiculous and misleading smart meter advertisements running at present, it's costing us all in increased energy bills.

Gerry1

Chino said:

Dolor said:

The electricity meter and by association the communications hub are powered from Grid electricity; that is, you are not paying anything towards the small cost of powering your electricity meter.

So you are suggesting that the electricity used to power smart meters is somehow generated for free and so the cost of that electricity is never included in suppliers' costs and so isn't used when determining the cost of energy paid by energy users.
Call me sceptical but I don't believe that for a second. Like the ridiculous and misleading smart meter advertisements running at present, it's costing us all in increased energy bills.

Yes, it costs money to generate the energy used by the smart meter and the associated comms, but it's not metered.  It's treated as part of the losses in the supply system; you don't pay for the losses in the wiring from the substation or the HV network etc.  However, you do have to pay for the energy used by your IHD if you plug it in to the mains.

There are many drawbacks to smart meters, but the very small cost of the electricity needed to power them isn't one of them.

Tallerdave

Deleted_User said:

Why is it that I have read that there is communication between meters and base, many thousands of times a day ?

Because people who have no idea what they're on about often write stuff.

The last 14 months has shown us that there's a lot of them about - many on Facebook and, allegedly, a lot of them called Karen.

daveyjp

"you don't pay for the losses in the wiring from the substation or the HV network etc."

So if you follow the money who does pay?

Mickey666

daveyjp said:

"you don't pay for the losses in the wiring from the substation or the HV network etc."

So if you follow the money who does pay?

Don't be deliberately obtuse.

The point is that transmission losses are not metered, which I suspect you already understand.

Yes of course the consumer pays, they pay for everything, but that's not the point being made.