Good to read from you again - and I am pleased that the improvements after changing the meter seem to have continued. I fear that poorly suppressed switch-mode supplies and the attendant rubbish they radiate either directly or via the leads as an antenna are set to continue to proliferate. 
The issue is problematic, as victims seem to be affected in disparate ways, and to varying degrees by different stimuli, and being a minority, I fear most end up on the doctors 'too hard' pile.
Interesting data - but be aware when quoting  ICNIRP is far from a simple organisation, and it  is more complex that a single limit. Frequencies where the body resonates - around 2m wavelength,  are known to be more problematic for whole body resonance, and attract a lower limit, while the lower frequencies (those that  if they were mechanical would be ultrasonic) are generally considered fairly benign, and have a far higher occupational limit. If this is really true or not is another matter entirely of course.
Mike

why can’t they use the home’s broadband router (with VOIP telephony being rapidly rolled-out, almost every home in the UK will have one soon) to return data to the energy companies rather than putting in another wi-fi router and what is essentially a mobile phone that makes a call at least once every 30 mins 24/7?

At least two reasons come to mind:

1. Security - exposing the meter to the general home network would make it very accessible to any hacker via a compromised device in the home - and as many smart meters have the ability to switch off the supply, that would give malcontents the ability not just to disrupt a single consumer but even to destabilize the grid at a national level (e.g. by switching off or reconnecting thousands of consumers at the same time). There's also a dependency on networking equipment that's not under the supplier's control (who sorts things out if things no longer work after a router upgrade, or someone hasn't paid their broadband bill, or switches to a mobile only service). A physically separate network is generally more secure, even over say VPN style solutions.

2. Functionality under loss of power situations - part of the intended functionality of smart meters is to call in to automatically report power loss to the DNO - which isn't going to work if the consumer's ADSL/fibre modem or whatever stops working the moment the power goes off. And that's a feature that's likely to become more important as we switch from copper wire exchanged powered analogue phones to VoIP powered from a local socket - as you won't be able to reliably use the landline to report a power cut. (And mobiles aren't much better as the distributed base stations don't have the backup generators that traditional exchanges have).

BTW is only the southern part of the UK that uses the mobile phone network for smart meter communication - the rest of us are linked using long range radio.

The bit of the puzzle that's missing for me is what's the connection with smart meters specifically - technology wise they're nothing special - all the components, switch mode power supplies, radio transmitters (of some form or another, WiFi, Zigbee or otherwise), etc are very widely used in all sort of everyday appliances - from computers to washing machines to lighting to TVs to mobile phones, with effects that normally spread far beyond the home they're located in. Why is it that smart meters seem to be the specific cause of so many problems?

   - Andy.

Thank you for your reply Andy.

It's the simple lack of noise suppression within meters that makes them different to the other devices you mention. They don't have to pass regulations that are in place for household devices, not that this is to protect against health problems of course, it is to protect against interference between devices and radio broadcasting, both of which were problems highlighted in my previous discussion. I was very disappointed with the older plain digital meters being even worse than the new smart electricity meters in this respect, so my personal concern is digital electricity meters in general not just smart meters.

With regard to the smart communications of smart meters, some people are affected by wi-fi and mobile phones signals. (I thought except in special cases, UK smart meters were all using second generation mobile technology. I need to know more about the long range radio being used that you mention before I can comment.) However, there's evidence that the growth of "electrosmog" is an accumulative problem and the more wi-fi hubs and mobile phone signals there are around us, the greater the growth of sensitivity reactions. At least at the moment people affected can have their smart meters turned dumb, but this is not necessarily going to be the case in the future, and nor does it stop such signals coming through the walls from the neighbours. That leaves very sensitive sufferers turning their homes into Faraday Cages, which is harder to achieve than it sounds not to mention disruptive and expensive.

I knew security would be raised over having a separate network and there's arguments for and against. If billions of pounds per day can be transferred over the Internet via 'secure online banking', then why can't meter readings be transmitted using the same 'secure process'? (Please don't anyone reply about the security of online banking, I know there are those who say we shouldn't, but the comparison is meter readings versus sums of money much larger than the cost of 30mins of home energy use.)

As bespoke private networks can be infiltrated and hacked, meters can still be turned off by some malevolent operator(s). The question then is; is building in a huge relay that will only be used legitimately in a relatively small number of cases not a security threat in itself? If someone gets into so much trouble that they reach the point of being cut off, is it too much to require a visit to their premises to perform the act or to install one that acts as a prepayment meter? Or is it just all too easy to flick a button and cut them off remotely? The latter may be easier and save money, but how does this compare to the cost of putting in these relays, the vast majority of which will never be used? Apart from money, there's environmental costs in components too, they are so big they even make the meters considerably larger  - the newer of the those plain digital meters installed in my house was tiny in comparison, though there probably wasn't room for that all important missing noise suppression circuitry.

Do smart electricity meters have battery backup to call in when the power goes down? Or is it just loss of communications that alerts outages to the DNO? Shouldn't the VOIP kit have battery backup? (That's one probably for another discussion.) As you say, if the mobile base stations go down, then the loss of communications spreads to mobile handsets too, but don't the mobile phone signals from smart meters rely on the base stations too?

I think I've asked more questions than I answered. I had better leave it there.

Andrew

The key is the frequency involved. The interference in the previous thread seemed to be related to the tens of KHz. or at least the sub MHz, not the sort of frequency used in the RF modem part of the meter. (although the RF is fast, the signal may be keyed on and off (modulated) at a supersonic, or audio or sub-audio rate creating bursts of a few million RF cycles at a time, so we are not out of the woods. )

The problems of course are that a meter is connected to a free antenna in the from of the house wiring, and that for high currents the sort of value of RF chokes that one would think little of sprinkling a few over a low power design, to make a cheap interference filter suddenly become seriously chunky and not just little flecks of ferrite as they have to carry several tens of amps. At that point the "value engineers"  try and omit them to save on Bill of materials, and space..
The chokes and their windings can also vibrate mechanically due to magnetostriction, adding an acoustic element to an electrical effect, and while the itself SMPS may be supersonic it can be  modulated with audible rates under conditions of changing load (almost always true and hard to predict with microprocessor based things, as the instantaneous current depends on the no of 1s changing to 0s on the latest clock edge - which depends on the sums being done. )
In another more shadowy world there is a whole art of decoding what a processor is doing from its changes in the PSU load but in this case it is just a nuisance. (page 56 of this PDF for example)
M.

Thanks for your replies Mike.

The power needed for electricity meters is indeed quite small. As far as I am aware, 5W is the maximum and the usual consumption is between 1 and 2W. So, just for the sake of argument, if we imagine the meter was plugged into a 13A socket to supply power to the electronics measuring and reporting the usage, why would the noise suppression have be any different to that used by any other household appliance that uses a switched-mode power supply?

With meters obviously having to take power directly from the incoming supply, once the noise is pushed onto the incoming supply and spread around household wiring then acting as a big antenna for the frequencies that can cause the health reactions, it is then when you need to add in the big and very expensive filters. Only one such filter I know exists, it is made in the USA and retails in the UK at around £1.5k. One is under development in Norway but this comes with a similar price tag. Even then, a rewire using shielded cable might be required and that will cost thousands depending on the size of the home.

So, is Mr W. Bathgate, a professional engineer in the US, correct in stating that the components needed to perform the missing noise suppression cost less than a couple of US dollars (at 2018 prices) in his Evaluation of the Landis & Gyr AMI Meter? (His comments about meter reading accuracy and hopefully running costs do not apply to UK meters.) The only additional installation cost for his suggested noise suppression circuitry is an earth connection, which ought not to be a big deal when fitting a meter.

If the noise suppression circuitry would in fact cost a great deal more, then is an SMPS the right choice of power supply for meters? Please remember there might be a lot more costs to the health service than treating the relatively few who have identified that their tinnitus, migraines, fatigue, joint pains etc are as a consequence of having a digital electricity meter fitted. As a cost saving exercise, whatever has been saved is lost in health care. Around 10 million people in the UK are migraine sufferers, how many are medically unexplained? The GP I saw recently (on a different matter, or at least I hope so), told me there were lots. A vestibular audiologist told me last year there were lots of people suffering migraines from LED lamps, which are also in the frame as producers of dirty electricity. I do fear that the problem is already far more widespread than we already know about, it is just the mantra that there is no problem is so strong, it is preventing people from even starting to assess it.

Andrew

He is quite right - if the signal could be suppressed inside the meter - between SMPS part and the tap from the L-N, then the problem is vastly easier as that section,  as you say, is only carrying some tens of mA.
The parts cost is then  pence, the re-layout of the PCB a few man hours, but I can imagine authorising the design change and re-approval being 'daunting'.

But adding filters outside the meter is indeed very hard as they carry the full metered current. But may be very worthwhile considering anyway in keeping your interference off the network , and other folks noises off your wiring.

Note that currently the tests for CE marking of equipment  in terms of switching noise injected into supply lines lines does not require measurement below 150KHz .

This tends to drive a proliferation of noisy (weakly filtered) designs at 50-120KHz even when a properly filtered one running a bit faster (a few hundred kHz) would actually be technically superior.

M.

Thanks for confirming that Mike.

The grey area of noise below 150kHz, in the 'bio-active' range according to the scientists, is a problem in dire need of addressing.

The noise suppression fitted to domestic appliances is designed to stop interference with radio broadcasting and other appliances. I demonstrated radio interference from the second meter in my discussion last year (see videos in post  RE: Severe Tinnitus Following the Installation of New Electricity Meters) I also found the awful ear pressure sensation I suffered could be eradicated by unplugging my television's surround sound system. That system has not caused any problems since I having an electromechanical meter refitted. So, how come it is okay for digital electricity meters to cause such interference? Would making them comply with the current regulations for domestic appliances prevent the problems I and others suffer? It should certainly help, but more may be needed, particularly to cover the sub 150kHz range.

Can you imagine what members of the public would think when told they were going to have a new electricity meter fitted that if they start hearing horrible noises that 'aren't there' and/or suffer migraines, fatigue, insomnia, heart arrhythmia, tingles, twitches etc then what they need to do is get an electrician to fit a filter costing around £1.5k and maybe have their house rewired with expensive shielded cables? Then when they enquire "why?", the answer is: The meter manufacturer didn't fit some electronics costing less than the cost of a cup of tea, coffee or even can of diet cola, as it wasn't required by the regulations!

As for design and re-approval being "daunting": Going back to how I was suffering last year trumps doing that on the 'daunting scale' by a very very long way.

Andrew

Going back to how I was suffering last year trumps doing that on the 'daunting scale' by a very very long way.

Please do not misunderstand me, but a large part of my background is electronics design, and I have been in meetings opposite managers and accountant s  trying to justify a change request on something where the design has been frozen, already gone to manufacture and through type approval, and unless change is forced by legislation or similar strength of external factors, such as the key part  is no longer available, it is very much an uphill fight. The engineering effort by comparison is often almost free.

This is cold comfort to folk in your position, but it may give an insight into companies behaviour.

More personally (as a radio ham to declare an interest) I'd be very keen to see the EMC emissions specs tightened up and extended down at the low end as well - at the moment the CE mark test levels more or less ensures an acceptable level of interference (i.e quite rare) between equipment in neighbouring detached  properties. This is a long way from providing a radio quiet level of background, nor is it much good for co-located kit at your own address,  or even within dense housing like blocks of flats.

It is not even as if conducted MF/LF currents of thei kind we are considering are especially hard to measure or to suppress...

Mike

Hi Mike,

I understand the reluctance of businesses to make such changes, but we cannot continue to have a situation where utility companies are installing equipment in or outside homes that cause one or more of the occupants to become ill, very ill in some cases, then deny their equipment is to blame and refuse to replace it. The home owner is then left with the prospect of a bill for thousands of pounds for fitting equipment that the average person will not know they need to counter the effects. They won't get any help from their GP on the need for such equipment either. Don't forget some will not even understand what has caused their ailments in the first place, the manifestation and variance of symptoms were quick in my case and easy to pin on the change of meter, but this is not always the case.

The government penalises utilities for removing such meters, making the transition from old meters to smart meters a one way journey - we have the choice to choose to have a smart meter in the UK but we do not have the choice to revert back. This makes the utilities very reluctant to act when a customer complains wanting their meter to be changed back even in the event of health complaints of a severe nature with circumstantial causation that is difficult to argue against. The authorities assist the utilities by maintaining their stance that smart meters can't hurt anyone as the radiation emitted by the radio frequencies for communications is well below the ICNIRP guidelines, even when they are told the frequencies causing the harm could not be the wi-fi and mobile comms with the comms hub having been removed. (I've lost count of how many such responses I've received.)

In the news today is the fining of energy companies for not achieving their targets for installing smart meters. (Is it any wonder we also keep hearing in the news about strong arm tactics being employed to try to cajole people into having them fitted?) How much of the £10.8m fine would be needed to create a batch of meters that have noise suppression fitted for sensitive people like myself and the many others? Cost savings to the NHS could even negate that expenditure.

Andrew

In June this year we commissioned a report from Sustainable Acoustics to try and get to the bottom of the tinnitus that myself and my wife have been suffering since we had our house rebuilt around 2 years ago.

See my comments on AR Brearley's previous post for background:
engx.theiet.org/.../128602

I had found the post as Andrew had had exactly the same smart meter and similar symptoms.

August last year, British Gas came and changed our Smart Landis+Gyr E470 to a ‘dumb’ Landis+Gyr E110. I explained the situation to the fitting engineer who said he had never done this kind of swap before and had no knowledge of smart meters causing tinnitus. He said that the E110 was the technically simplest meter they had – just a readout with a small battery, very old minimal technology.

Initially things seemed a lot better and the tinnitus lessened to a large degree after the smart meter was taken out. It did not disappear,though.

And since, the tinnitus has sporadically increased, so it is now at an uncomfortable level again (although never as bad as it was with the old meter).

Which means we still have to turn off as many electric rings as possible to make it tolerable enough for me to sleep inside the house.

It is much worse in the front of the house in comparison to the back. My wife has set up her home office in the front room and even she has noticed how uncomfortable it feels. We have tried sleeping in that room before and found it too 'loud'.

While decorating I had to spend a few days in it and even with no lighting installed, my tinnitus was much much worse in comparison to the rooms at the back.

That room is only one wall away from the electric meter cupboard.

I have been outside the house for large periods of time, working just out the back and front and the tinnitus is very quiet. Ambient noise like wind may be helping, but this makes an external source for the problem (such as 5G radiowaves or acoustic humming) seem very unlikely.

My wife and I slept in a family member's new build flat (in a large block) for one night and both had terrible tinnitus again. To the point where we had to leave in the morning as soon as possible. I checked and her meter is a Landis & Gyr E470 exactly the same as the first meter we had replaced and the one Mr Brearley had when his severe tinnitus started.

After that experience we had a bad couple of days, with my tinnitus insufferable. To the point where I had to sleep in the shed again for two nights running to calm things down.

Since then it has returned to being tolerable, but only if we keep the lighting and sockets minimised, so all the lighting at night is standing lamps running off the kitchen ring sockets or battery/rechargeable.

So maybe the new ‘dumb’ Landis+Gyr E110 meter is still a problem and it's producing 'Dirty Electricity'??

As earplugs and ear defenders seem to help I assumed it was an actual super high frequency noise, not electromagnetic. Neither myself nor wife have ever been bothered by electromagnetism before.

But then we had the whole house comprehensively tested (which cost thousands of pounds) by this environmental noise company Sustainable Acoustics. They found some high frequency acoustic noise from the underfloor heating manifold but that was stopped by closing the door to that room.

There was nothing obvious that was kicking out a really loud high frequency noise.
And the intensity of my tinnitus is not dependant on my proximity to the manifold.

During the testing we turned on all the lights and sockets around the house and although this did not produce any measurable increase in acoustic noise, it was excruciating for our tinnitus levels.

Recently, we had friends with a dog stay in our house over a long weekend and the dog was fine.

We had lived in the house prior to renovation for around a year with an old analogue meter and no tinnitus issues. We moved back in before final electric and heating systems were finished and initially experienced no problems. But as all the new systems were finished and came online, my wife and I both developed severe tinnitus, in the space of a couple of weeks.

Neither of us have suffered loss of hearing or have experienced any ear trauma. We both have average to better hearing for our age.

So what can it be if it's not acoustic noise?

My current thinking is that the original Smart Landis+Gyr E470 had a shocking and lasting effect that made my wife and I respond badly to 'dirty electricity' frequencies manifesting in tinnitus. Now our systems are compromised, things can trigger the tinnitus (e.g. - banks of fluorescent lights or the TV) that are not a smart meter.

But as to how we can move forward and keep our house, I am at a loss.