Recently, smart meters have fallen into the act of increasing the temperature of the thermostat and completely powering off.
You may have multiple smart meters in your home. One may be a smart electricity meter, another may be a smart gas meter, and the third may be a smart water meter. In addition to households, smart meters also monitor consumption in commercial and industrial facilities.
According to data from the US Energy Information Administration, as of 2019, the United States has installed more than 94.8 million advanced metering infrastructure (AMI). The 2019 European Commission DG Energy Report predicts that the entire EU will install approximately 125 million smart meters by 2022.
The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system measures, collects, and analyzes energy and water usage. The system consists of hardware, software, communications, consumer energy display and controllers, meter data management software, and supplier business systems. AMI is becoming part of a larger “smart grid” plan.
Before the advent of AMI, automatic meter reading (AMR) systems only allowed one-way communication-from the meter to the meter reader. AMI provides two-way communication, allowing utility companies to send information (as well as instructions and commands) to your home. This information can include time-based pricing information, demand response operations, and even remote service disconnections.
Smart meters are wireless through cellular communication, Wi-Fi, wireless ad hoc networks through Wi-Fi, wireless mesh networks, low-power long-range wireless (LoRa), Wize (high radio penetration rate, open, use frequency 169 MHz) Communication, ZigBee (low power consumption, low data rate wireless) and Wi-SUN (intelligent utility network). Smart meters can also communicate through fixed wired connections, such as power line carrier (PLC).
The smart meter was originally developed in 1972 by Theodore Paraskevakos, a Greek-American inventor who was working at the Boeing Company in Huntsville, Alabama. Paraskevakos was also responsible for inventing a system for transmitting electronic data via telephone lines, which formed the basis of the caller ID system.
For power companies, smart meters came at the right time, because the deregulation of the 1970s and 1980s was severely hitting their bottom line. By measuring electricity consumption in near real-time, power companies can adjust prices based on when demand is highest, for example, charging more in summer and charging less in the middle of the night.
Another benefit of utilities is that smart meters eliminate the need for meter readers. The job of meter readers is to walk through the yard to read the customer’s meter every month, thereby reducing the labor cost of the utility. In addition to not having to open the door to meter readers, the customer’s benefit is to end the generally annoying bill estimation.
The Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) program once again promoted the development of smart meters, which was part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.
Utility companies continue to boast that smart meters can inform customers of their consumption information, which will help them manage energy use and reduce energy bills. However, the reality is that many people not only can’t access this information, they don’t even know where their smart meters are located in their homes.
In fact, a paper by a university researcher at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro found that customers usually do not take any measures to reverse their electricity consumption during peak hours. A report by a British parliament group indicated that people who own a smart meter can only save an average of £11 a year in energy costs, which is much lower than the cost of installing a smart meter.
In the United States, the adoption of AMI varies from state to state. Washington DC has the highest AMI penetration rate, accounting for 97% of all meters, and Nevada has 96%. Other states with higher AMI penetration rates include: California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont.
Globally, the top smart meter manufacturers are Elster, GE Energy, Itron, Landis+Gyr and Sensus. Last week, when Daily Dot reported on a hacker who exposed a dark secret, Landis+Gry was at the center of the Internet storm.
In February 2021, Texas experienced a once-in-a-lifetime blizzard that officially killed 151 people and caused a controlled blackout across the state. Although some areas remained energized, others fell into darkness and cold for up to a week.
When Hash, a white-hat hardware hacker and security researcher in Dallas, noticed that public utility company Austin Energy refused to disclose which areas had been closed and which areas were not, on the grounds that “protected critical infrastructure information,” Hash started working.
Hash knows that the smart meters used by Austin Energy and other power companies in Texas are manufactured by Landis+Gyr. Hash also knows that these devices are transmitting data, including the duration (in seconds) for which no current flows through them.
Hash started the war-installing an antenna on his car, walking through the neighborhoods around Dallas, and reading the data sent by the smart meter. Driving 30 miles (48 kilometers) along U.S. Route 75 from Dallas to McKinney, Hach accessed data from more than 7,000 smart meters operated by Oncor, the largest energy company in Texas.
In the video uploaded to YouTube, Hash superimposed his data (including the number of days since the last power outage) and the GPS coordinates and unique ID of each smart meter on Google Maps. The data proved to be illuminating. It confirmed a study that showed that areas inhabited by minority groups are more than four times more likely to suffer from power outages than mainly white areas.
What is more worrying is that “the income status of the region does not seem to be an important factor affecting the proportion of power outages…” Nor does the existence of hospitals, police and fire stations. ”
This month, some residents in Texas discovered that their homes have unexpectedly warmed. They chose a program that allowed their power company to increase the temperature of the thermostat remotely. A resident told KHOU Radio, “I don’t want other people to control my things for me… If other people can manipulate it, I don’t approve of it.”
This ability to remotely operate smart meters also worries Hash. Following the recent ransomware attacks on natural gas pipelines and water treatment facilities, Hash told Daily Dot that he was worried that smart meters might become the next target of hackers, and he is currently analyzing the remote shutdown mechanism of smart meters.
Post time: Jul-07-2021