I’m confused as to how we are supposed to have faith that smart energy meters are accurate – there’s very little information out there about how they work.
I searched the sub and previous threads about smart meters don’t have any scientific explanations, mostly just the social/practical issues of phasing out old meters and retrofitting new ones.
Filing under Technology but this could be physics or engineering I suppose
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As with pretty much all types of measuring equipment, it starts with a reference load.
When it comes to electricity, it’s a gadget that is deliberately constructed to consume an amount of power that is as near a specific number as possible, so that you can hook up that load for (insert number of seconds/minutes/hours) to a new power meter, and then check the reading afterwards.
If the new meter fall within an acceptable bracket (typically 1-2% on electrical power meters specifically) it’s labeled with its actual measured error and shipped out.
When the power company wants to verify that a meter shows an accurate reading, they buy a verification meter. A portable, plenty more expensive, power meter in a bag-formfactor that is immediately sent to a reference load owner (that acts as an accreditation institute) for verification. Once it’s verified, it’s considered good enough for verifications for a year to come.
When they want to verify the power meter in your home, they basically hook up their own verification power meter they brought with them and do a reading that lasts a reasonable while (the longer the more accurate) and COMPARE the reading from the verification instrument with the reading from the installed power meter.
The allowed inaccuracy is often very well regulated (around there, the law says straight out that a power meter that is 5% inaccurate, no matter who whose advantage must be immediately replaced) and if the installed meter falls outside of the acceptable bracket, it’s replaced.
Most of the time, the power company has no legal obligation to visit their power meters and verify them. Instead, they do it at their own insistence and on customer insistence if something statistically speaking seems to be off.
For sad reasons, the number one thing they find when they verify a meter is not that the meter is broken, but rather that the customer appears to be deliberately stealing energy.
Regulations for central heating, central cooling, gas and so on are quite similar. A regulatory body establishes what kind of deviation is allowed on a meter (again, it’s always a percentage) and as long as everyone involved feels that there ain’t a particular inaccuracy, they keep going.
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