Recently,medidores inteligenteshan caído en el acto de aumentar la temperatura del termostato y apagarse por completo.
Es posible que tenga varios medidores inteligentes en su hogar. Uno puede ser unmedidor de electricidad inteligente, otro puede ser un contador de gas inteligente y el tercero puede ser un contador de agua inteligente. Además de en los hogares, los contadores inteligentes también controlan el consumo en instalaciones comerciales e industriales.
Según datos de la Administración de Información Energética de EE.UU., a 2019, Estados Unidos ha instalado más de 94,8 millonesinfraestructura de medición avanzada (AMI). El Informe de la Dirección General de Energía de la Comisión Europea de 2019 predice que toda la UE instalará aproximadamente 125 millones de contadores inteligentes para 2022.
The Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) system measures, collects, and analyzes energy and water usage. The system consists of hardware, software, communications, consumer energy display and controllers, meter data management software, and supplier business systems. AMI is becoming part of a larger “smart grid” plan.
Before the advent of AMI, automatic meter reading (AMR) systems only allowed one-way communication-from the meter to the meter reader. AMI provides two-way communication, allowing utility companies to send information (as well as instructions and commands) to your home. This information can include time-based pricing information, demand response operations, and even remote service disconnections.
Smart meters are wireless through cellular communication, Wi-Fi, wireless ad hoc networks through Wi-Fi, wireless mesh networks, low-power long-range wireless (LoRa), Wize (high radio penetration rate, open, use frequency 169 MHz) Communication, ZigBee (low power consumption, low data rate wireless) and Wi-SUN (intelligent utility network). Smart meters can also communicate through fixed wired connections, such as power line carrier (PLC).
The smart meter was originally developed in 1972 by Theodore Paraskevakos, a Greek-American inventor who was working at the Boeing Company in Huntsville, Alabama. Paraskevakos was also responsible for inventing a system for transmitting electronic data via telephone lines, which formed the basis of the caller ID system.
For power companies, smart meters came at the right time, because the deregulation of the 1970s and 1980s was severely hitting their bottom line. By measuring electricity consumption in near real-time, power companies can adjust prices based on when demand is highest, for example, charging more in summer and charging less in the middle of the night.
Another benefit of utilities is that smart meters eliminate the need for meter readers. The job of meter readers is to walk through the yard to read the customer’s meter every month, thereby reducing the labor cost of the utility. In addition to not having to open the door to meter readers, the customer’s benefit is to end the generally annoying bill estimation.
El programa Smart Grid Investment Grant (SGIG) impulsó una vez más el desarrollo de contadores inteligentes, que formaba parte de la Ley Estadounidense de Recuperación y Reinversión (ARRA) de 2009.
Utility companies continue to boast that smart meters can inform customers of their consumption information, which will help them manage energy use and reduce energy bills. However, the reality is that many people not only can’t access this information, they don’t even know where their smart meters are located in their homes.
In fact, a paper by a university researcher at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro found that customers usually do not take any measures to reverse their electricity consumption during peak hours. A report by a British parliament group indicated that people who own a smart meter can only save an average of £11 a year in energy costs, which is much lower than the cost of installing a smart meter.
In the United States, the adoption of AMI varies from state to state. Washington DC has the highest AMI penetration rate, accounting for 97% of all meters, and Nevada has 96%. Other states with higher AMI penetration rates include: California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, Michigan, Oklahoma, Texas, and Vermont.
A nivel mundial, los principales fabricantes de contadores inteligentes son Elster, GE Energy, Itron, Landis+Gyr y Sensus. La semana pasada, cuando el Daily Dot informó sobre un hacker que expuso un oscuro secreto, Landis+Gry estaba en el centro de la tormenta de Internet.
En febrero de 2021, Texas experimentó una tormenta de nieve única en la vida que mató oficialmente a 151 personas y provocó un apagón controlado en todo el estado. Aunque algunas zonas permanecieron energizadas, otras quedaron sumidas en la oscuridad y el frío durante hasta una semana.
Cuando Hash, un hacker de hardware e investigador de seguridad de sombrero blanco en Dallas, notó que la empresa de servicios públicos Austin Energy se negaba a revelar qué áreas habían sido cerradas y cuáles no, con el argumento de que "protegían información de infraestructura crítica", Hash comenzó a trabajar.
Hash sabe que los medidores inteligentes utilizados por Austin Energy y otras compañías eléctricas en Texas son fabricados por Landis+Gyr. Hash también sabe que estos dispositivos están transmitiendo datos, incluido el tiempo (en segundos) durante el cual no fluye corriente a través de ellos.
Hash started the war-installing an antenna on his car, walking through the neighborhoods around Dallas, and reading the data sent by the smart meter. Driving 30 miles (48 kilometers) along U.S. Route 75 from Dallas to McKinney, Hach accessed data from more than 7,000 smart meters operated by Oncor, the largest energy company in Texas.
In the video uploaded to YouTube, Hash superimposed his data (including the number of days since the last power outage) and the GPS coordinates and unique ID of each smart meter on Google Maps. The data proved to be illuminating. It confirmed a study that showed that areas inhabited by minority groups are more than four times more likely to suffer from power outages than mainly white areas.
Lo que es más preocupante es que “el nivel de ingresos de la región no parece ser un factor importante que afecte la proporción de cortes de energía…” Tampoco lo es la existencia de hospitales, policía y estaciones de bomberos. "
This month, some residents in Texas discovered that their homes have unexpectedly warmed. They chose a program that allowed their power company to increase the temperature of the thermostat remotely. A resident told KHOU Radio, “I don’t want other people to control my things for me… If other people can manipulate it, I don’t approve of it.”
This ability to remotely operate smart meters also worries Hash. Following the recent ransomware attacks on natural gas pipelines and water treatment facilities, Hash told Daily Dot that he was worried that smart meters might become the next target of hackers, and he is currently analyzing the remote shutdown mechanism of smart meters.
Hora de publicación: 2021-07-07 00:00:00
