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Comment by happosai | Hacker News Reader

In Finland people have started since 2022 adapting their electricity use to shift their peak demand. But we started installing smart meters almost 20 years ago. I think the key reason to install them was less about consumer demand response, and more about saving physical visits to read the meters.

It takes some time to adapt (and also some quite extreme price fluctuation to motivate). Also good tools to automate demand response based on market prices were needed. Heat-pumps and EV chargers can now be configured to run on the cheapest hours etc.

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One quite unique thing in Finland is our spot electricty price. I think Sweden and Norway also has this?

Basically consumers in these countries have access to the raw eletricity market, and can buy power in one hour increments at the market rate.

This can be very beneficial for the consumer if you can adjust your consumption profile

Yup, and in Norway where 90% of new cars are electric and about 50 % of personal vehicles on the road now are electric, we're charging them a lot. Which most people now schedule to happen at nighttime to save money.

Yep, I have this with Tibber[1] in Sweden. We haven’t hugely changed how we consume electricity for small stuff, but for bigger things like car charging or even things like pyrolytic cleaning of the oven it’s easy to pick times when the prices are low, especially at the moment when electricity often goes down to near-zero or even negative.

[1] https://tibber.com/en

Also available in Australia, https://www.amber.com.au

>> saving physical visits to read the meters

Why can't users read the meters themselves and send to the electric company once a month?

That was often a thing. You’d get estimated bills based on your history, but could phone in/mail in your reading if you wanted a bill correction.

What do you mean "was"? Every electricity provider in my country has a web interface where you can send your reading in monthly.

They send someone to physically read the meter every 3-6 months so you can't cheat, but other than that they will bill you what you declared if you send it in.

Readings are send remotely and automatically to connection provider. They pass data to seller of electricity. This data can be viewed nearly live or at most in few days online. It is all automated now. No need for anyone to go and read the meter anymore. Or even estimate consumption.

There are some special case like building where I live. Where I pay to the building, with very reasonable rate as there is no extra standing charges...

They haven't reached full automation here.

What I wonder is, who can read this consumption data besides the "connection provider"? How easy is it to drive around with a laptop and see who hasn't been home the past few days?

https://www.fingrid.fi/en/electricity-market/datahub/questio...

So basically it is uploaded to cloud and some people will obviously have access to data. Like customer support.

I think technically it is possible to listen to air interface, but either it is some mobile or some power line communication so cracking that is complex enough.

Why hand wash dishes when we have dishwasters?

I was asking about the arrangement of sending a worker monthly vs reading the meter yourself, not automated vs non automated.

Smart meter means you do not have to do either. Meter itself can send the readings nearly live over power network or mobile connection. Thus no human needs to read the meter anymore. Saves time and trouble on all sides.

They no longer send workers monthly. Quarterly at best. Add the complications with the access into each type of building to read the meters. Also pay the worker, pay for their heathcare, when the meters can send live updates over NB IoT.

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