pounce Posted October 10, 2012 Posted October 10, 2012 Any idea if Georgia Power will allow me to interface to my power meter with the new 994iZS? I've been trying to find documents etc on both sides to see if this is possible or just how it works, but haven't had any luck finding anything with any meat on it. I see that on Smarthome it has a red note that the device must be provisioned by the utility, but I am not sure just what that entails. I'd like to give it a try if its possible.
Michel Kohanim Posted October 10, 2012 Posted October 10, 2012 Hi pounce, Theoretically, it should be. This said, you will have to contact the HAN department at Georgia Power. With kind regards, Michel
pounce Posted October 10, 2012 Author Posted October 10, 2012 Thanks. Any tips or advice on having this conversation with GP? What do people ask for when they call their power company? How many of these guys do you have connected to meters in the field? This is my meter: http://sensus.com/web/usca/electric/pro ... tial-meter
Michel Kohanim Posted October 11, 2012 Posted October 11, 2012 Hi pounce, We have definitely tested with Sensus meters. I suggest filling out Smart Grid form they have at the bottom of this link: http://www.georgiapower.com/residential ... art-meter/ We do not have very many installed but I know our sales is increasing rapidly. With kind regards, Michel
pounce Posted October 11, 2012 Author Posted October 11, 2012 Thanks. I guess we will find out. If they are willing I can be a trial victim I know GP has an online trial where they are allowing people to get hourly information on their power usage. I'm not able to find the program information now. I think it was for a few thousand consumers. Perhaps when I hear back I can find out more. There might be some advantage to the power company exposing hourly ratings on the internet. If they are using a 3rd party package for doing this instead of a home built solution it might mean the ability to pull the data from the internet so that lower cost devices and systems can consume at least some historical data to correlate with known programming. I'd still prefer the power of getting the data realtime from the meter.
Michel Kohanim Posted October 11, 2012 Posted October 11, 2012 Hi pounce, Most utilities do exactly as you describe for getting hourly data. There is an initiative by DOE called Green Button the sole purpose of which is to enable customers to download historical data from a website. Of course, having real time data is certainly much more accurate especially when it comes to ISY and specifically if they also send price information. In this scenario, you can configure ISY to do different things based on your current tier, price, and basically every other condition that you can already use in ISY programs. Pretty powerful! Perhaps you should move to CA ! With kind regards, Michel
GuitarBuilder Posted October 11, 2012 Posted October 11, 2012 Hey Michel, I'm in CA! However, our utilities have not yet enabled the HAN radios in their Smartmeters. This is because they are just now re-evaluating how and to what to transmit the data. Hint: if you're not in already, NOW is the time to get the ISY evaluated in the PG&E HAN v2 program! My Smartmeter is a Silver Springs unit; I don't have details on the HAN radio, but I can try to get it........ We have a tiered rate structure that is soon converting to TOU with Peak Day Pricing. I'm anxious to get an intelligent program in the ISY that can help me manage overall energy consumption to stay out of the higher rate tiers and manage specific energy use on demand response days. I think the ISY is capable (correct me if I'm wrong), so the main challenge is to make the ISY an integral part of the HAN. BTW, I don't value hourly real-time meter data, and here is why: it's a lagging indicator! For me, being able to monitor energy consumption at various usage points 24/7 is far more valuable; I can predict trends and forecast the need to curb usage far in advance of the meter telling me. The Smartmeter data is merely a confirmation that I made the right decisions. What I do need from the utility (perhaps via the HAN or via the Internet) is the real-time rate information so I can forecast my bill impact. In addition, I would like to see demand response period information (here in CA we get 24 hour notice) automatically streamed to my ISY (not like AutoDR), but as a date/time variable, again in the interest of being pro-active instead of reactive.
Michel Kohanim Posted October 11, 2012 Posted October 11, 2012 Hi GuitarBuiler, However, our utilities have not yet enabled the HAN radios in their Smartmeters. This is because they are just now re-evaluating how and to what to transmit the data. Hint: if you're not in already, NOW is the time to get the ISY evaluated in the PG&E HAN v2 program! My Smartmeter is a Silver Springs unit; I don't have details on the HAN radio, but I can try to get it........ We got an RFI from PG&E for SEP1.1 gateway but had to turn it down simply because it required us to purchase a developer kit from Silver Spring, test against it, before even being able to submit (even though ISY994i ZS is already SEP certified). This said, the base SEP functionality should work with PG&E meters We have a tiered rate structure that is soon converting to TOU with Peak Day Pricing. I'm anxious to get an intelligent program in the ISY that can help me manage overall energy consumption to stay out of the higher rate tiers and manage specific energy use on demand response days. I think the ISY is capable (correct me if I'm wrong), so the main challenge is to make the ISY an integral part of the HAN. Definitely capable and even designed for flexibility so that you can use different price per tier and your programs will only get activated if you are in that tier. BTW, I don't value hourly real-time meter data, and here is why: it's a lagging indicator! For me, being able to monitor energy consumption at various usage points 24/7 is far more valuable; I can predict trends and forecast the need to curb usage far in advance of the meter telling me. The Smartmeter data is merely a confirmation that I made the right decisions. I agree with you. You can configure 994i ZS for as granular polling interval as you want to get. This said, most meters advise against anything less than 10 seconds. What I do need from the utility (perhaps via the HAN or via the Internet) is the real-time rate information so I can forecast my bill impact. In addition, I would like to see demand response period information (here in CA we get 24 hour notice) automatically streamed to my ISY (not like AutoDR), but as a date/time variable, again in the interest of being pro-active instead of reactive. These are all already supported in ISY. The main question is whether or not they will be available from the Utility side. Furthermore, I do not think you have seen OpenADR 2.0a specs; it's much more elaborate than 1.0 and it does include schedules, prices, and modes. ISY994i Z series is also certified for OpenADR 2.0a. I think you should take a look at our website and images for each model: http://sales.universal-devices.com/ With kind regards, Michel
pounce Posted October 11, 2012 Author Posted October 11, 2012 Hi pounce, Perhaps you should move to CA ! I lived in San Francisco for 15 years. I love CA, but in GA my mortgage is half of what I paid for a studio in SF 15 years ago!
Michel Kohanim Posted October 12, 2012 Posted October 12, 2012 Hi pounce, We'll miss you With kind regards, Michel
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