Another point for people with whole brains.

Anyone with half a brain is on your side Paul. Richard is just another ignorant troll.

PLC was first invented in Scotland around 1971 for home automation controls.
I have an old X-10 system that I did use for years, but I quit using it because something was causing my lights to come on at around 3:00 am. That was when they started installing SmartMeters in the area, but I don’t really know what was causing the interference.
The original PLC systems ran on the low frequencies also.
What it is ,is low frequency radio waves sent on top of powerlines. They should not ordinarily interfere with anything else but often do.
No matter what, if a utility wants to use PLC to send billing data to the base, they must have signal bridges to communicate across phases, signal repeaters and data concentrators. This requires a big expense to upgrade the electrical power grids. In some parts of the country, they have already started on a $300 BILLION project to upgrade the power grids, but PG&E has not started yet.
They are soliciting bids from vendors now and expect to start soon. The estimated cost to PG&E ratepayers is $300 million (that is over and above the $2.2 BILLION for the SmartMeter project) and estimated to take 10 years to complete.
Since PG&E already switched gears and abandoned the PLC meters, instead using a UHF radio mesh network for the meters and backhaul to the central billing department servers, I don’t think that we will see any PLC SmartMeters out here anytime soon.
After spending $2.2 billion of their ratepayers money on radio meters, PG&E would have a hard time convincing us to abandon the radio meters and have to pay for 6 million new PLC electric meters. The gas meters cannot use PLC, they have not yet figured out how to send data on top of gas, but who knows what these what these revenue collection engineers will cook up in the future ?
It could be very dangerous !

From what I had gathered, G3-PLC was cost efficient due to the ability to cross over the transformers now in place. They tout that their signal would not interfere with other electronic equipment because they are using frequencies below anything used in the home. Elster is now teaming up with Maxim, G3-PLC .

http://www.g3-plc.com/content/g3-plc-alliance-gains-momentum-smart-grid-arena-eleven-new-members

We have Elster meters and I have recently noticed interference on the lines. I would think that all these different frequencies being sent to our 60 Hz appliances would prematurely wear them out. Tuning an AM radio to the 530KHz band will show a massive difference between fields found in nature. I am finding modulation on higher frequencies (500KHz<) in homes where the lines used to bring 60 Hz into the home. There is evidence that electromagnetic radiation is genotoxic.

Don’t blame Obama for the smart meters. You seem to forget, that
you are the power. We only allow it to happen. Governments , corporation seems to be running the planet, but why??
Have you forgotten, they are only the one or two percent and we the others, There lies your answer. We have become too involved in our cell-phones and other gimmicks, we don’t even talk through the phone any more. As a matter do we still know how to answer?
Take back your power and show your energy, rather than the grid.

…the direct link doesn’t work due to the “…” in the URL, but you can paste the URL as listed into a search and obtain the correct file.

So…FWIW…There is some talk out there about “default TOU pricing” for all customers in the future…but not yet.

Found this on the PG&E site (dated 10/1/12): “PG&E continues to administer and offer Time Varying Pricing (TVP) Rates to all PG&E bundled residential and non-residential customer class. Beginning in November 2012, SMB customers with 12 months of SmartMeter™ data will begin a mandatory transition to TOU rates and two years later, in 2014, will be transitioned to opt-out PDP. Small Agricultural customers will transition to mandatory TOU rates annually starting in March, 2013. **There is currently no decision that requires the default of Residential customers to TVP.** However, they may opt-in to SmartRate™.”

For the complete report, search for this: http://www.pge.com/myhome/edusafety/systemworks/…/AnnualReport.pdf

Yet you don’t provide the documentation…

All I can find on PG&Es website is that “Time-Varying Pricing” will be rolled out to (or onto) businesses, small and large very soon, if not already.

As far as I can tell, the TVP/TOU pricing is (and will be?) voluntary for residential customers. If you know otherwise, then I would appreciate a specific reference.

Thanks in advance 🙂

Paul H.
The G3 PLC system is not used in PG&E territory because it needs either electronic transformers (power electronics) or special data concentrators to jump the old transformers and also needs repeaters . Also, it needs signal bridges to link between the phases.
In order to utlilize PLC, the electrical power grid must be updated first, and that has not yet started here, but has been done in other parts of the world like Europe.
It will be many years before our electrical power grids are updated, the estimate is 10 years now, but with this economy, who knows ?
Instead of investing so much money on upgrading the power grids to handle PLC, my feeling is that instead of dumping money into the existing corporate energy delivery and billing model, is to start doing away with the tired old methods.
We need to start focusing on alternate localized methods of generation, and focus on localizing the distribution networks.
Spending endless ratepayer and taxpayer money only to automate meter reading is a path that needs to be changed, and a foolish waste of money only to perpetuate the existing corporate energy model, nothing else.
So for now Paul H., you can rest assured that that G3 PLC is not in use here in PG&E territory, and probably never will be.
You now know what happened with the first generation PLC SmartMeters. PG&E decided to utilize a UHF-FM radio network that they call a SmartGrid instead of upgrading the power grid. It’s all about profits, upgrading the power grid is too expensive at this time for PG&E, (not that the radio network was cheap-just cheaper !) .
And, hopefully the strong movement for decentralized generation and distribution will prevail and force changes to the electrical power grids of the world. Believe me, the movement is worldwide.