Smart Meter using electricity

nick74

52 kWh per year is already on the low end of the scale for burglar alarm power consumption. 1 kWh per year would be Guinness Book of Records territory for the World's most economical burglar alarm! With respect is it worth worrying about less than £10 electricity per annum when even that would make it quite an economical alarm?

scoittishmovies

Found an online copy of the manual.  www.gbeshop.com/infobase/downloads/Kris_products/YL-007M2B.pdf  Page 26 has the power requirements.

scoittishmovies

nick74 said:

52 kWh per year is already on the low end of the scale for burglar alarm power consumption. 1 kWh per year would be Guinness Book of Records territory for the World's most economical burglar alarm! With respect is it worth worrying about less than £10 electricity per annum when even that would make it quite an economical alarm?

Thanks, but the principle was trying to find out if the smart meter is using electricity, perhaps more than the actual devices I'm using!  And if it is, why should I pay anything for it? Apparently the SM is not supposed to cost anything to run but it would be nice to figure out how much the alarm actually costs to run.

nick74

scoittishmovies said:

nick74 said:

52 kWh per year is already on the low end of the scale for burglar alarm power consumption. 1 kWh per year would be Guinness Book of Records territory for the World's most economical burglar alarm! With respect is it worth worrying about less than £10 electricity per annum when even that would make it quite an economical alarm?

Thanks, but the principle was trying to find out if the smart meter is using electricity, perhaps more than the actual devices I'm using!  And if it is, why should I pay anything for it? Apparently the SM is not supposed to cost anything to run but it would be nice to figure out how much the alarm actually costs to run.

As has been mentioned above, the electricity consumed by a smart meter is not itself metered or charged directly to the customer. If your IHD says its used 00006.348 kWh and nothing else is plugged in then that's realistically the most accurate measure of power consumption for the burglar alarm you're ever likely to get. Mechanical meters tended not to be able to measure tiny currents accurately, hence why you escaped lightly with only 1 kWh pa recorded in the past

[Deleted User]

What instant watts (usage now) is your IHD showing?

Vendee

Interesting thread. I'm currently in dispute with EON regarding my late MIL's flat which has been empty and unfurnished for over two years yet constantly uses around 4 or 5 kws on both the day meter and night meter readings per quarter. They sent their engineer out and he confirmed that there was nothing in the flat that was using electricity but still EON refuse to accept that their meter is wrong and say all the bills still stand. Next step... Ombudsman I think.

Ectophile

scoittishmovies said:

nick74 said:

52 kWh per year is already on the low end of the scale for burglar alarm power consumption. 1 kWh per year would be Guinness Book of Records territory for the World's most economical burglar alarm! With respect is it worth worrying about less than £10 electricity per annum when even that would make it quite an economical alarm?

Thanks, but the principle was trying to find out if the smart meter is using electricity, perhaps more than the actual devices I'm using!  And if it is, why should I pay anything for it? Apparently the SM is not supposed to cost anything to run but it would be nice to figure out how much the alarm actually costs to run.

The meter is using a small amount of energy, and you aren't paying for it.  The power supply to the meter is connected to the supply side of the meter, not the load side.  So it doesn't record its own usage.

[Deleted User]

scoittishmovies said:

nick74 said:

52 kWh per year is already on the low end of the scale for burglar alarm power consumption. 1 kWh per year would be Guinness Book of Records territory for the World's most economical burglar alarm! With respect is it worth worrying about less than £10 electricity per annum when even that would make it quite an economical alarm?

Thanks, but the principle was trying to find out if the smart meter is using electricity, perhaps more than the actual devices I'm using!  And if it is, why should I pay anything for it? Apparently the SM is not supposed to cost anything to run but it would be nice to figure out how much the alarm actually costs to run.

I've seen a teardown of a smart meter on Youtube, bigclive if you are interested - the smart meter does not take its power from the load side so you are not being billed for powering the smart meter at all.

Proof of that fact is that a smart meter can remotely disconnect you, if they did disconnect your power supply which requires power to actuate the disconnect relay and the smart meter was powered by the load side, then that would also be disconnected and therefore would be unable to maintain that disconnection.

As per above comments, the 55mA you quote would be 13 watts versus the 9 watts you have been billed for so looks perfectly accurate.

scoittishmovies

Thanks Tallmansix. That could be right but I've been to the unit last night and checked the readings on the IHD. With unplugged the device plugged in it was reading a usage of 6w. I removed the device, waited about 30 minutes or so and the reading was 4 watts with NOTHING plugged in. The only thing connected to the mains is the fusebox and the smart meter. So, if you're right, something is wrong somewhere?  I also checked the usage using a digital energy meter. with the 12 volt adapter plugged into that and the alarm connected it registered as 0.8 watts. Using the online calculator that would work out at 0.0008 KWh /  0.0192 per day / 7.008 per year - or are these calculations wrong? Am I missing something?

QrizB

scoittishmovies said:

Thanks Tallmansix. That could be right but I've been to the unit last night and checked the readings on the IHD. With unplugged the device plugged in it was reading a usage of 6w. I removed the device, waited about 30 minutes or so and the reading was 4 watts with NOTHING plugged in. The only thing connected to the mains is the fusebox and the smart meter. So, if you're right, something is wrong somewhere?

What do you get on the IHD and smart meter if you turn off the main switch in your fusebox? With mine, the IHD reads zero and I get a constant red LED on my smart meter.