Smart meter diatribe

The French have a quite different approach to generation from us. The vast majority of their power is from nuclear - so isn't very switch-on-and-off-able. It's interesting to compare the French grid: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ with the UK one: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/. Despite having a much higher demand the difference between the peaks and troughs is much smaller than the UK's (so better suited to nuclear). Seemingly this is achieved by managing customer demand - small supplies (e.g. 45A rather than the 80A or 100A we're used to in the UK) force customers to avoid large peaks - e.g. discouraging instantaneous electric showers and encouraging stored-hot-water solutions instead - seemingly sometimes backed up by automatic load shedding (even in domestics). They also seem to have a relatively complicated/sophisticated tariff system with different charges on different days (blue days & white days I think) as well a by time of day, to further balance out demand. In that context I can see that smart meters would be very useful - and as most designs already incorporate a software controlled contactor and naturally they measure (even if the don't record) instantaneous current demand, it would be easy to incorporate the 'overload disconnection' functionality into the meter and so safe the cost of an additional circuit breaker in future installations.


    - Andy.

The French have a quite different approach to generation from us. The vast majority of their power is from nuclear - so isn't very switch-on-and-off-able. It's interesting to compare the French grid: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/france/ with the UK one: http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/. Despite having a much higher demand the difference between the peaks and troughs is much smaller than the UK's (so better suited to nuclear). Seemingly this is achieved by managing customer demand - small supplies (e.g. 45A rather than the 80A or 100A we're used to in the UK) force customers to avoid large peaks - e.g. discouraging instantaneous electric showers and encouraging stored-hot-water solutions instead - seemingly sometimes backed up by automatic load shedding (even in domestics). They also seem to have a relatively complicated/sophisticated tariff system with different charges on different days (blue days & white days I think) as well a by time of day, to further balance out demand. In that context I can see that smart meters would be very useful - and as most designs already incorporate a software controlled contactor and naturally they measure (even if the don't record) instantaneous current demand, it would be easy to incorporate the 'overload disconnection' functionality into the meter and so safe the cost of an additional circuit breaker in future installations.


    - Andy.