<story><title>Is the smart grid all hot air?</title><url>https://austinvernon.site/blog/smartgrid.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>iancarroll</author><text>&amp;gt; Most utilities are switching customers to smart meters that allow remote disconnection of electricity.&lt;p&gt;I learned about this 3-6 months ago when PG&amp;amp;E erroneously remotely disconnected a large number of people in the Bay Area, including my apartment. I walked outside my unit and the entire building had power except for me -- the maintenance team was mystified and said the meter specific to my apartment reported it had been remotely killed.&lt;p&gt;It was impossible to figure out what had happened, and after many hours of vague outage status messages, I was finally able to reach the billing department who said they had been fixing this issue all day, and they remotely reactivated my meter as I was still on the phone with them (they had a whole disclaimer about turning it on remotely too).&lt;p&gt;I got a vague letter and $100 statement credit a month later that admitted an issue accidentally cut off a lot of meters, but no further details on how or why. Very strange experience and made me question the whole smart meter thing.</text></comment>
<story><title>Is the smart grid all hot air?</title><url>https://austinvernon.site/blog/smartgrid.html</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>danans</author><text>&amp;gt; Small Wind Turbines&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Car companies have been relentlessly making electric motors (which generate electricity if spun backward) smaller and cheaper. A small wind turbine only has to be cheaper than retail electricity rates.&lt;p&gt;It likely won&amp;#x27;t be cheaper.  Small wind turbines have very high levelized cost of energy because:&lt;p&gt;- The wind at the lower heights they are built at is multiple times  weaker and also less consistent than the wind that large turbines can access.&lt;p&gt;- The power output of a wind turbine is a function of swept area, which is the square of blade length and therefore very limited with small turbines.&lt;p&gt;No matter the efficiency of the generator it can&amp;#x27;t make power that the blades can&amp;#x27;t capture.&lt;p&gt;Small wind turbines only make sense in off-grid setups in areas with poor solar resources.</text></comment>