Demands for details about smart meter emissions, and disagreements between the utilities and members of the public about how often and at what peak powers smart meters actually transmit, came up repeatedly during California Public Utilities Commission hearings on smart meter opt-outs. Public objections to averaging and other techniques for describing smart meters’ operational facts caused CPUC Administrative Law Judge Amy C. Yip-Kikugawa to issue a “Ruling Seeking Clarification” yesterday requiring PG&E, SCE, SDG&E, and Southern California Gas Company to answer these detailed questions about smart meter emissions (excerpt below from the ruling):
1. What is an average duration (in seconds) that a residential
smart meter transmits in a 24 hour period?
a. How is this average computed or measured?
2. How many times in total (average and maximum) is a
smart meter scheduled to transmit during a 24-hour
period?
a. How many of those times (average and maximum) are
to transmit electric usage information?
b. How many of those times (average and maximum) are
for other purposes? What are those other purposes?
Please specify number of times (average and maximum)
by type/category of transmission.
3. Under what scenarios does a meter transmit outside of the
daily schedule, i.e., unscheduled transmission such as
on-demand read, tamper/theft alert, last gasp, firmware
upgrade etc.?
4. Typically, how much of the communication between the
customer’s meter and the utility is unscheduled vs.
scheduled?
5. Are there any other factors that go into determining
duration and/or frequency of meter transmissions (e.g., if a
meter can’t access the network when it’s trying to send
data, type of a meter etc.)? If yes, please identify these
factors.
6. What is the amount of RF emission at the source when a
meter is transmitting data (instantaneous maximum peak
level, averaged over 30 minutes)?
7. Does the amount of RF emission vary depending on
duration of transmission/volume of data being sent? For
example, are RF emissions higher when there is a larger
volume of data to be transmitted?
8. Are there any other factors that impact the amount of RF
emissions? If so, please identify the factor(s) and its impact
on RF emissions.
9. Is there RF emission when the meter is not transmitting? If
yes, what is the amount of RF emission?
10. Is there a difference in the amount of RF emissions for a
wireless smart meter with the radio off and a smart meter
with the radio out? If yes, what is that difference and how
is it calculated?
11. Is there a difference in the amount of RF emissions for a
wireless smart meter with the radio off and an analog
meter? If yes, what is that difference and how is it
calculated?
I agree with this decision. The public deserves to know the answers to the questions raised.
I will attempt to answer the above questions to the best of my knowledge, at least in regards to the Itron OpenWay smart meters installed in Glendale.
#1 – less than 100 seconds
#1a – 6,865 meters sampled, 97.95% of the meters transmitted for less than 100 seconds in the 24 hour period. 51.03% <50 seconds — 46.92% 50-100 seconds — 1.56% 100-200 seconds — 0.36% 200-300 seconds — 0.10% 300-400 seconds — 0.03% 400-500 seconds
#2ab – The sample period selected for the figures quoted above represents a day of higher-than-normal activity for the sample network. During this time, in addition to the two normally scheduled daily meter data reads, there were two crucial updates being transmitted to every endpoint on the network—one for an adjustment for Daylight Savings Time and the other was a crucial firmware update. In a typical day with no updates taking place, the numbers would more than likely be even lower.
#3 – These are all relatively rare events in the course of normal operations. Firmware upgrades are typically months to years apart. Don't know how many on-demand reads GWP needs; I suspect not many. Tamper/theft obviously only happens when the tampering takes place.
#4 – The vast majority is scheduled – don't have a percentage
#5 – Absolutely. I'm just guessing here, but probably the biggest factor would be nodes with marginal connectivity to the mesh network, such as the approximately 2% of meters in the sample which transmitted more than 100 seconds per month. The reason they need to transmit more is usually because communications with adjacent node(s) may be experiencing unacceptably high rates of packet loss, resulting in retransmission requests.
#6 – The FCC has defined the Maximum Permissible Exposure (MPE) as the strength of electromagnetic fields or the equivalent power density associated with this field to which a person may be exposed without harmful effect. The MPE limits for continuous exposure by an Itron OpenWay smart meter is 0.61 mW/cm2. These limits are based on the thermal effect of continuous RF radiation. In the population sample discussed, the worst case meter had a duty cycle of 0.58% (0.0058). With power density of
0.088 mW/cm2 during transmission, the resulting power density with duty cycle is 0.00051 mW/cm2. When compared to the MPE limit set by the FCC (0.61mW/cm2) this meter was at 0.084% of the allowable amount. The
average meter had a duty cycle of 0.06% (0.0006). With power density of 0.088 mW/cm2during transmission, the resulting power density with duty cycle is 0.000053 mW/cm2. When compared to the MPE limit set by the FCC
(0.61mW/cm2) this meter was at 0.009% of the allowable amount.
#7 – Question is ambiguous – what is meant by the "amount" of emissions? If you're talking about power levels, no – more data doesn't mean higher power levels. If you're talking about the duration of transmissions, yes – the more data, the longer the transmission
#8 – Yes, many other factors – many related to siting and shielding, etc.
#9 – Short answer, no. Itron meters do have Zigbee for communication with home networked devices, as well as the RF communcations to the mesh network, and so could conceivably be emitting RF on the Zigbee transmitter, which is at a much lower power level.
#10 – Don't understand the question – what's the difference between a smart meter and a wireless smart meter? I thought that smart meters, by definition, were wireless.
#11 – Is this a trick question? A wireless smart meter with radio off produces zero RF emissions. An analog meter is incapable of producing RF emissions, because it doesn't contain a radio transmitter. So the difference is zero, and it is calculated by subtracting zero from zero.
Bill, I truly believe that these are communicating beyond 1.7 minutes a day, but I have to admit that I have not seen scientific data from an independent third party, so I cannot say for certain what the communication levels are. Then again, you have not see this also: thus your approximation.
At the CPUC meeting, we heard the utility companies themselves admit that the meters are “chatting” back and forth all the time and only communicate to them around 5 to 6 times a day. They are constantly trying to repair and update each other making transmission on the other side of a person’s wall (sometimes a bedroom) like a strobe light of RF emissions. I am posting a review of one YouTube submitter that shows the Smart Meter transmissions of three meters and one smart phone. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aOabFJlenz4
Further, you will find that the FCC has not updated their old and outdated MPE. There have been data from countless studies that have shown their MPE to not protect the people from RF, but from overheating, allowing a 175 lb man to have exposure for 30 minutes a day. What about children? There is still not FCC regulations against pulse technology which is way more harmful to people. WHO (World Health Organization) suggested RF labeled as a class 2B carcinogen.
I personally would rather not have one of these meters on my bedroom wall as I get migraines from RF. I have eliminated need for a cell phone, microwave, etc. I feel like I am in a losing battle. I was migraine free for 1 year before they installed the smart meters in my area and now I am getting them once or twice a week. You can call me crazy, or whatever you like, but the results are very real to me.
I hope the CPUC and the utility companies take this very seriously and do not doctor the results to make it more acceptable for the public so they do not take a loss for the investment on our behalf (we are the ones that are paying for it while they are raking in exponential profits). I am truly beside myself.
Hi Tiffany,
Thanks for your reply. I don’t think you are crazy, and I believe you when you say you get migraines. I just don’t think they are being caused by smart meters.
I’d like to respond to many of the things you bring up, but don’t have time to respond in detail to everything. Maybe in a subsequent post. For now:
>>WHO (World Health Organization) suggested RF labeled as a class 2B carcinogen.<>I am posting a review of one YouTube submitter that shows the Smart Meter transmissions of three meters and one smart phone.<<
I don't find this at all persuasive. There isn't sufficient information to even know what it is we are seeing. First, do the smart meters pictured have one transmitter or two? The Itron OpenWay smart meters installed by GWP have two transmitters, RFLAN @ ~900MHz, and ZigBee @ ~2.4GHz. Which transmitter is being measured? They behave completely differently, as they are being used for two completely different purposes. Second, the HF35C analyzer shown comes in different models that measure different frequency ranges. What is the frequency range of the analyzer in the video? We don't know. Third, what were the settings of the analyzer? We can't even tell what units are being shown on the display. Fourth, what about the distance to the meters measured? Looks to be about 6 to 12 inches from the video. While people normally hold cell phones next to their heads when operating, they don't hold smart meters next to their heads when operating. The intensity of RF energy falls off rapidly the further you move away from the transmitter (inverse-square law).
Last thing I want to say is that there are some things in this world that can be tested. We don't have to guess if a phenomenon is real or not, if we can devise a test that proves it decisively. Take dowsing, for example. For centuries, certain humans have claimed to have the ability to find objects or water underground by using a pair of forked sticks. Many of those people are still around today, and most sincerely believe in their dowsing abilities. Yet when we test dowsing under controlled circumstances, it never works. Dowsers are unable to find buried objects or water at any greater rate than would be predicted by random chance. By the same token, many people who claim to be sensitive in some way to RF or EM fields have been tested using a "provocation" test, which, as the name implies, is meant to provoke a reaction when the RF or EM field is powered on. The most rigorous such tests are double-blind; neither the subject nor the experimenter knows whether the cell phone or wifi or bluetooth or smart meter behind the curtain is powered on, or not. I have no objection to doing more or possibly better studies, but the blind studies to date indicate that people who claim to be sensitive to RF/EM, cannot tell whether the device behind the curtain is on or off at rates greater than would be predicted by random chance. So until there is credible evidence to the contrary, I continue to agree with the Centers for Disease Control assessment, which is that electromagnetic hypersensitivity is not recognized as a medical condition by the medical or scientific communities.
http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/content/67/2/224
Pingback: Smart Meters Emit 9,000+ Signals Per Day, Says PG&E Under Judge's Order | Sunroom Desk
Hi Bill,
Although people suffer from electrohypersensitivity it has not been recognized (and perhaps won’t ever be now that they’ve spent billions on the Smart Grid) under the Americans with Disability Act.
However, “it is accepted as a functional impairment in Sweden and the Canadian Human Rights Commission recognizes it as an environmental sensitivity and classifies it as a disability.” (from weepinitiative.org)
There are effects from RF. The Russians pointed RF at the US embassy in Leningrad. The ambassadors (two of them I think) came down with lympohoma. I read one of them–his eyes were bleeding. I’ve also read that auditory issues can result from RF–and when I read that I thought about the tinnitis (ringing in the ears) some people get.
PG&E, I heard submitted their answers and one of the meters pulsed 190,000 times in a 24 hour period.
I just saw this in the Sage Report, a letter by Kato.
EHS and MCS are publicly recognized as disabilities in U.S.A. under
the ADA. Federal Register (Sept. 3, 2002) mentioned “ The
(Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance) board
recognizes that multiple chemical sensitivities and electromagnetic
sensitivities may be considered disabilities under the ADA if they are
so severely impair the neurological, respiratory or other functions of
an individual that it substantially limits one or more the individual’s
major life activities.”