by Katherine | 12 May, 2014 | Latest News, Users Feedback
At the link below you can see a mini documentary on electrohypersensitivity (also known as EHS, electrosensitivity or ES.) People with this condition develop a range of unpleasant symptoms (ranging from relatively mild to disabling) from exposure to electromagnetic radiation and electromagnetic fields produced by common devices such as cell phones, cell phone towers, Wi-Fi etc.
Produced by Time magazine, the story of several people with EHS is presented in beautiful cinematography. Highly recommended:
http://time.com/golden-cage/
Site editor’s note: There is concern that the microwave radiation from “smart meters” may trigger EHS in some people. Please see this link for details: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/american-academy-of-environmental-medicine-calls-for-moratorium-on-smart-meters/
if you have a slow Internet connection and cannot watch videos, you may want to read this link:
www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/what-is-it-like-to-live-with-electrohypersensitivity-ehs-one-womans-story/
by Katherine | 6 May, 2014 | Events, Latest News, Take Back Your Power
If you live in or around Tauranga, today (May 7) is your day to see the double award winning “smart” meter documentary Take Back Your Power in a special community screening!
Full details are at this link
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-tauranga/
(Other community screenings are listed at this link: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/2014-screenings-of-take-back-your-power/
Or you can stream or purchase a copy from www.takebackyourpower.net
by Katherine | 6 May, 2014 | Uncategorized
The video below gives a great overview of the “smart meter” issue.
It is an Australian video so mentions Australian agency ARPANSA – which regulates ionising and non-ionising radiation-producing technologies in Australia. However, the the video explains how smart meters work and how the standards regulating “smart meters” are designed to protect against thermal injury such as burns – and are not designed to protect against other possible health effects – and this information is relevant to the NZ situation.
If you like the video, please recommend it to friends and family who are not yet informed about the “smart meter” issue.
by Katherine | 6 May, 2014 | Government and Electricity Industry Positions, Latest News
stop Smart Meters Australia is warning that “smart meters” may be coming to South Australia, and Tasmanians are also facing a “smart meter” roll out.
See this link for information about South Australia. According to the video at the link below the “smart meters” will be “voluntary” in South Australia:
http://stopsmartmeters.com.au/2014/05/06/beware-south-australia-smart-meters-are-coming/
The situation in Tasmania is more serious with the state government getting behidn the “smart meter” roll out. A new website has been set up especially for this state. Please recommend it to people you know in the state: http://www.stopsmartmeterstasmania.com/
it is a good idea for people in Australia who want to keep up with national developments on the “smart meter” front to sign up to the email list at www.stopsmartmeters.com.au for updates.
by Katherine | 5 May, 2014 | Government and Electricity Industry Positions, Latest News, Users Feedback
Electricity companies often include statements to the effect that “smart meters” are advantageous for consumers because they help people gain “control over” or “better manage” their use of electricity. For example, from Network Tasman’s website page on “smart meters”:
“Over time it is expected that your electricity retailer will share your electricity usage information with you, so that you can make better decisions about how you use electricity in your home or business. Having this information will give you greater control over your energy bills an understanding of where further efficiency gains can be made – allowing you to save money. ” http://www.networktasman.co.nz/Main.asp?ID=17 [Emphasis added]
(NB: if you are in the Nelson/Tasman area served by this company you may be under the mistaken impression that “smart meters” are compulsory; they are not: See these links for details: www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/uncategorized/in-the-nelson-or-tasman-area-smart-meters-are-not-a-government-requirement/ and www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/government-and-electricity-industry-positions/network-tasman-there-are-no-privacy-concerns-with-smart-meters-yeah-right/ )
While knowing what your energy consumption is like at any given moment may help people to save money, (such as by turning off lights and appliances when they are not needed, for example) most people who do not want their electricity bill to be higher than necessary do this anyway. It’s a commonsense practice. No one needs a “smart meter” to be able to be able to make sensible decisions to reduce unnecessary electricity use – and thereby minimise their electricity bill.
The real motive for the introduction of “smart” meters may ultimately be what would be colloquially known as “price gouging”.
As WEL (which serves the Hamilton and Waikato area and has been rolling out “smart boxes”*) recently stated in one of its updates (WEL Smart Networks April 2014 Update.pdf):
“Our Smart Network has enable the introduction of optional pricing in the way it is able to measure site-specific information allowing us to introduce different prices for consumption based on offpeak or on-peak hours. We have offered retailers time-of-use pricing plans with the option of passing this flexible pricing plans with the option of passing this flexible pricing model on to customers, empowering our customers with more control options over their energy consumption.” [Emphasis added]
Time-of-use pricing is, in fact, far from “empowering'”. It typically means that a higher rate is charged for electricity at peak times, i.e. when you most need to use electricity, it is more expensive. (By contrast at a time when electricity demand is lower, i.e.in the middle of the night when most people need to sleep, the price of electricity will be lower.) With time-of-use pricing, a typical family’s electricity bill could easily rise even if they do not increase their electricity consumption.
This scenario, which most people would find unacceptable and some would describe as “price gouging” is being spun by the electricity industry as helping to give people “control over their energy consumption”.
Some NZ electricity companies currently offer different pricing plans, some of which offer different tariffs at different times of the day. At the moment these are options, rather than being mandatory. Don’t count on time-of-use pricing to remain optional, however , or for the government to come to the rescue of struggling households (or businesses that cannot change the time of day at which they need to use electricity, and theref0re face excessive costs.) No, the government is all for the “smart grid”.
In a report by the Electricity Commission, “Advanced Metering Infrastructure in New Zealand: Roll-out and Requirements” (3 Dec. 2009) the purported benefits of “smart meters” are extolled:
“‘Smart’ electricity meters, and the infrastructure that accompanies them, can provide a richer information base with which consumers can make better decisions about electricity use. The functionality in ‘smart’ electricity meters allows consumers to participate in the electricity market by allowing them to respond to market signals by altering their consumption patterns.”
“Those ‘smarter’ meters can also provide better information to electricity lines companies about network performance and consumers consumption patterns, allowing better management of networks and more informed investment decisions. ‘Smarter’ meters can also allow retailers to offer a range of tariff options to consumers that:
“(a) financially incentivises consumers to respond to market signals in the form of tariff pricing by altering their consumption patterns to reduce delivered electricity cost;
“(b) allows tariff changes to be carried out remotely. Before smart meter technology, changing tariffs required a site visit and a physical change of meter; and
“(c) provides information to consumers that allows them to choose the best pricing plan for them.” [Emphasis added]
The Electricity Commission considers this differential pricing to be beneficial because it will force people to use less electricity at peak times as many people won’t be able to afford it. This allows the electricity industry to reap the profits from time-of-use pricing while delaying investment in any new generation capacity needed if NZ’s population continues to increase. (Too bad if air pollution in cities increases because people can’t afford to run electric heaters on winter afternoons and evenings and therefore burn coal instead or people in low income households can’t afford to eat hot meals.)
“Developments in AMI have the potential to allow additional peak demand to be managed, delaying the need for investment in new generation, transmission, and distribution,” states the Electricity Commission.
The government has now created a special “smart grid” forum to move ahead plans for “smart” meters and the “smart grid”.
http://www.med.govt.nz/sectors-industries/energy/electricity/new-zealand-smart-grid-forum
Yes, “smart” meters have a lot of advantages if you are an electricity company.
If you are a member of an ordinary family or run a small business (which can’t negotiate with the government for enormous discounts on your electricity), you will be bearing the costs of the implementation of the “smart grid”, will be exposed to additional electromagnetic radiation from “smart meters” and associated infrastructure, and may have higher power bills to boot. What a great deal! (Not.)
* More information on WEL “smart boxes” here:
www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/uncategorized/hamiltons-wel-energy-starts-smart-box-installation/
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/uncategorized/wel-smart-box-installation-prevented/
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/government-and-electricity-industry-positions/is-the-wel-smart-box-a-way-to-facilitate-smart-water-metering/
by Katherine | 5 May, 2014 | Events, Latest News, Take Back Your Power
Take Back Your Power, the “smart meter” documentary which has now won two major awards* will be screening in Tauranga tomorrow (May 7) See this link for details:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-tauranga/
(Other community screenings are listed at this link: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/2014-screenings-of-take-back-your-power/)
For information about the latest award, please see this link: www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-wins-another-award/
by Katherine | 5 May, 2014 | Latest News, Take Back Your Power
The “smart meter” documentary Take Back Your Power (which won the 2013 Aware Guide Transformational Film of the Year Award) has now picked up a second major award: the Indie Fest Annual Humanitarian Award.
Take Back Your Power follows filmmaker del Sol as he investigates the use of so-named “smart” meter technology, being deployed by utilities and governments to harvest data from within private homes and introduce new pricing schemes. With compelling insight from whistleblowers, government agents, lawyers, environmentalists and doctors, the documentary “exposes corporate corruption and the erosion of human rights in the name of ‘going green’.”
The Indie Fest is a top-tier international awards competition designed to recognize independent creators of fresh, standout films, television programs, compelling documentaries and new media. One film is selected each year for the Humanitarian Award based on its dedication to social justice, humanitarian causes, or environmental issues.
Director and producer del Sol spoke of the award helping to expand the reach of the controversial issue. “The subject matter affects everyone, and the conversation deserves to be squarely in the mainstream,” said del Sol. “Should individual rights take a back seat to the collective? Should energy be an unaffordable privilege, instead of a basic affordable right? And how can corrupt corporatized government systems be held accountable? These are some of the most profound questions of our time.”
For more information see this link: http://www.takebackyourpower.net/news/2014/05/05/smart-meter-whistleblowing-documentary-take-back-your-power-wins-indiefest-annual-humanitarian-award/
You can view or buy the film at this link: www.takebackyourpower.net
If you live in Tauranga you can see the film tomorrow (May 7)! See this link: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-tauranga/
Or check out other community screenings in NZ at this link:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/2014-screenings-of-take-back-your-power/
by Katherine | 3 May, 2014 | Government and Electricity Industry Positions, Latest News, Smart water meters, Uncategorized
On Thursday or Friday (April 24 or 25, 2014) I put in a request under the Official Information Act to the Thames-Coromandel District Council for information about the trail of “smart” water meters planned for the town of Tairua on the Coromandel Peninsula during May 2014. I addressed the request to Mr Bruce Hinson, who is the Thames Coromandel Council Infrastructure Manager.
On Wednesday (April 30), I received an email from a member of the engineering team stating that the Council could answer my questions, but it would cost me $114 – and payment was required before they would action the request. (Under the Official Information Act (OIA) councils and other government agencies are allowed to charge for time to prepare answers to OIA requests, but they do not usually do so.) The tone of the email was friendly, so I decided to phone the respondent to discuss the matter, so that is what I did on May 2, 2014.
I spoke at length to a very personable young man who recently graduated from university with a degree in civil and environmental engineering who is working on the “smart” water meter trial. He explained that the Council’s objective in trialing the “smart” water meters was to better manage water for Tairua.
Rationale for the trial of “smart” water meters in Tairua
Water for the town of Tairua is drawn from a river, which naturally carries lower water volumes during summer when demand for water peaks due to an influx of people arriving for summer holidays in their baches. (People “go crazy” washing things, he said, during the two weeks of the year that they live in their holiday homes.) The Thames-Coromandel Council had an obligation under its resource consent for drawing water from the river not to create an excessive impact on the river system, he said, the implication being that “smart” water meters could help achieve this. Currently there are no water meters in Tairua, he said. “Smart” water meters were considered by the team to be a better option than conventional meters because there was no need to physically access the meter box (such as by prying up the meter box cover) to get a reading, and the potential for human error in reading meters was eliminated by the wireless transmission of data.
We did not discuss what other measures, if any, the Council has trialled to reduce or better manage water demand at the peak time of year, such, as for example, public education campaigns to promote water conservation and/or promotion of installation of rain water tanks to supplement the town water supply for some applications. (This was an oversight on my part.)
Technical aspects of the “smart” water meters being trialled in Tairua
The young engineer was excited by the results of the trial so far, in which an initial test had shown that the signal from one of the “smart” water meters could be detected 600 metres from the “smart” meter, despite buildings and trees being in the way between the water meter and receiver.
The “smart” meter chosen by the Council for Tairua is the Sappel Altair Concentric V3 meter supplied in NZ by Hynds. The Council has chosen to use the 434MHz option for the transmission frequency (which presumably means that the Council engineering team has chosen to team up the meters with the Diehl IZAR RC radio transmitter.) 434 MHz is a public frequency also utilised by some common gadgets such as automatic garage door openers. However, the manufacturer of the IZAR RC radio transmitter designed to be compatible with Sappel modular meter states that its transmission range is “500 metres, depending on the environment”, so it is obviously much more powerful than a garage door opening gizmo. (In practice, as above, the transmission range may be longer than the manufacturer’s specifications.)
According to the engineer, the “‘smart” meters chosen will be transmitting every eight seconds. (The battery life of the for the transmitter is claimed by the manufacturer to be 15 years, without any sort of guarantee that this will actually be the case.) The Council is exploring different ideas for reading the meters, I was told. The trial is using a handheld or drive-by system in which a portable device is used to collect the data from the “smart” water meters as they transmit. The transmitters on the meters are unidirectional. One option the Council team is considering for the ongoing collection of data is to have a receiver mounted in the rubbish trucks which make weekly rounds of the towns to collect garbage, thereby eliminating the need for a separate vehicle (or person on foot) to patrol the streets to collect the data. This is considered an attractive option because it would reduce the cost associated with gathering data from the “smart” meters.
Possible implications for privacy if the trial is considered successful
The IZAR transmitters that are compatible with the Sappel meters used in the Tairua trial have the capacity to be used with a fixed “IZAR RECEIVER GPRS/LAN” system which is capable of collecting all the data from “smart” water meters, storing it and then transferring it to a central computer system. If the Thames-Coromandel District Council were happy with the results of the Tairua trial and chose this option for collection of data from “smart” water meters, this potentially raises privacy concerns, since if the meters transmit data every eight seconds, it should be theoretically possible to use the data to work out patterns of activity in a household, based on patterns of water consumption, in a similar way in which patterns of activity in a household can be inferred from electricity use. (See the graphic at this link http://www.smartmeterpowerstruggle.wordpress.com/ for an example of how electricity “smart meters” can compromise privacy, and for a discussion of privacy and home security issues please see these links: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/government-and-electricity-industry-positions/network-tasman-there-are-no-privacy-concerns-with-smart-meters-yeah-right/ and www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/how-smart-meters-can-help-burglars/.)
Health implications
About 25% of households and businesses in Tairua have been selected by the Council to participate the in trial. (The properties chosen have been selected on the basis of ensuring that they represent different types of properties (i.e. permanent residential, holiday homes and business) and different areas of the town.) By contrast, the trial of “smart” water meters in Tauranga was limited to one suburb. (See this link for a discussion of the trial of “smart” water meters in Tauranga: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/smart-water-meters-in-nz-the-situation-so-far/.)
Considering that each “smart” water meter used in the Tairua trial will transmit every eight seconds around the clock for a distance of up to half a kilometre (or possibly more) at the 434MHZ frequency, the “smart” water meter trial in Tairua may represent an experiment in exposure of an entire town to this particular frequency at levels that are unique in the history of NZ.
People who have electrohypersensitivity (EHS)** may be adversely affected by this trial. Overseas, concern has been raised that exposure to the non-ionising radiation produced by “smart” meters used to measure electricity consumption appears to act as a trigger for the development of EHS in some people. (See: http://skyvisionsolutions.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/aaem-wireless-smart-meter-case-studies.pdf ) In NZ, many of the “smart” meters being introduced for electricity are designed to transmit for longer distances (“a few kilometres”), according to the PDF “Smart-Meter-FAQ-Aug11.pdf” on the website of the Electricity Authority, so electricity “smart” meters are obviously more powerful than are “smart” water meters. Moreover, as the strength of the signal from any “smart” meter declines with distance, “smart” electricity meters which are typically mounted on the wall of a home probably pose more of a risk than “smart” water meters on council property. (Presumably these will be installed in the footpath, as are the conventional “water” meters in Auckland.) However, the possibility that “smart” water meters may trigger EHS cannot be ruled out and the longer term effects of living in an area where “smart” waters meters transmit every eight seconds twenty four hours a day must be considered an unknown.
Possible outcome of the trial
If the trial is successful, conceivably the Thames-Tairua District Council may choose to introduce “smart” water meters in other towns in its region.
Pe0ple in Tairua (or elsewhere in the area administered by the Thames-Tairua District Council) who are not happy with the idea of being exposed to additional electromagnetic radiation from “smart” water meters may wish to notify the Council that they do not consent to the installation of a “smart” water meter to measure water consumption at their home or business. A template that can be personalised may be downloaded from the link below:
FORMAL NOTICE OF NON CONSENT FOR SMART WATER METER
Please share this post with family and friends in this area.
More information on smart water meters in NZ may be found at this post: www.stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/smart-water-meters-in-nz-the-situation-so-far/
**Information on electrohypersensitivity may be found at this link: http://www.es-uk.info/
For a personal story which illustrates how difficult a condition EHS is for sufferers to live with, please see this link: https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/what-is-it-like-to-live-with-electrohypersensitivity-ehs-one-womans-story/
Health professionals may want to read this link: http://www.scribd.com/doc/87308119/Guideline-of-the-Austrian-Medical-Association-for-the-diagnosis-and-treatment-of-EMF-related-health-problems-and-illnesses-EMF-syndrome
by Katherine | 2 May, 2014 | Uncategorized
Due to popular demand, a third screening of the award-winning “smart meter” documentary Take Back Your Power will take place at Takaka’s Village Theatre at 7.30 pm on Monday, May 19th. Please bring a $5 Koha. Thank you.
by Katherine | 1 May, 2014 | Events, Latest News, Take Back Your Power
Just a reminder that if you are in Tauranga (or have friends and family there) the community screening of the award-winning “smart meter” documentary Take Back Your Power will take pace on May 7.
Please forward this post to everyone you know who may be interested to attend…Thank you!
Details are at this link:
https://stopsmartmeters.org.nz/latest-news/take-back-your-power-tauranga/
Recent Comments