This stuff is great.  I have never tried to find out about it.  
Thanks for the info.  I think we have smart meeters here, would 
you know if the information on the PG and E.  website would be 
accessible? I guess this is really a question I should ask the 
electric company, or just look up myself to see what happens, but 
ok, how about your area where ever that is, have you tried to 
read your power usage online if you have a smart meter? Thanks, 
Jim WA6EKS

 ----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin G.  McCormick" <[log in to unmask]
To: [log in to unmask]
Date sent: Mon, 20 Aug 2012 22:21:54 -0400
Subject: Re: Information about the power grid

	I am sorry about not changing the name.  I was going to
do that and forgot because I was in a hurry and that is one of
my pet peaks.
Jim Gammon writes:
 interesting information about the power grid.  I wonder what it
 will take to really make a "smart grid?"

	They will have to connect it to schools, first for all
that education out there.  Just kidding.  It really is getting
smarter all the time and some of the intelligence will be a bit
annoying to you.

	There are meters now that can send a running indication
of how much power you are using at any given time of day.

	Power grids have to be built for the heaviest load
possible even though they do not normally even come close to
peak load.

	A kilowatt-hour used at 3 in the morning might only cost
5 Cents while that same KWA burned between 15:00 and 23:00 or 3
until 10 in the evening might cost you 20 Cents.

	The idea is that they don't have to build a bigger
power plant if everybody cuts back on usage.

	You provide some of the intelligence of the grid,
yourself and make sure as many of the big users of power such as
your airconditioner and other big electric appliances don't run
at all or at least run less than normal during that expensive
time of day.

	In some places, the power utilities are even installing
voluntary devices on people's electric meters that let the power
company shut off an air conditioner, for example for a few
minutes per hour.

	Electric meters have looked and worked the same for an
amazing number of years.  I got to examine an electric meter from
the year 1910 and it looks exactly like a baby version of the
meters on most of our houses and apartments.

	There is a shunt inside that passes both 120-volt phases
and an aluminum disk that looks kind of like an old phonograph
record or maybe a CD.  When current flows through the meter, the
shunts produce a magnetic field that pushes the aluminum disk
round and round like an electric motor.  The more current, the
faster the disk spins.

	There is a black mark on the edge of the disk so someone
can look through the glass and see it spinning.  There is a gear
train that drives a clock-drive-like mechanism which moves a set
of hands around the faces of dials and that's your meter
reading.

	The 1910 meter I saw could have been used today except
it only had one shunt so could only handle 120-volt AC.

	Probably 110 volts is more correct as the voltage used
to be 110 instead of 120 volts many decades back.

	The disk is viewed edge-wise and you only see a little
bit peaking out between the magnets that drive it and regulate
its speed so that it reads accurately.

	Modern smart meters can be remotely read as I described
above and I do not know if they still use the mechanical
spinning disk to run encoders or if they are totally electronic.

	Face it.  There is a lot of this stuff I still don't
know.

	Back around 1910, the United States was a mixture of 60
and 50-cycle electric systems.  The Hoover Dam was originally
designed for 50 HZ service but the whole country adopted 60-HZ
around 1930 and engineers decided that the generators could do
just fine running at 3600 RPM instead of 2500 and they were
right.

 And then there's all the
 renewable stuff even people's solar panels, wind generators etc.
 What happens to the grid when you feed power into it from all
 these separate units? Jim WA6EKS

	Nothing much.  Those systems produce either DC or
high-frequency AC which is electronically converted in to 3-phase
60-HZ AC in sync with the grid.  If your house produces enough
wind or Solar electricity, it can run your meter backwards.  When
it is dark or calm, your meter runs forward like normal.