Curious whether anyone has specific details on whether or how a smart meter could possibly start a fire, as suggested by some other posts here.
From what I’ve researched, they contain multiple transceivers, which enable creating a mesh network with other meters in the same area, and can convey IoT (internet of things) traffic, allowing them to inter communicate with gas and water meter, and potentially any IoT appliance in a house or nearby.
Also appears they have some capability to talk ethernet over power lines.
In terms of causing a fire though, I can only speculate, and the few possibilities I can think of might be:
- Messing with mains voltage (doesn’t seem too likely)l, without having telltale components, like a heavy duty transformer).
- Messing with mains phasing or frequency. Again, would seem to require some oddball circuitry, could be hard to provide a reason for, seems unlikely to me.
- Interacting with smart batteries via wifi or other signals.
If I had to rank these in order of likelihood, I’d probably go 3,2,1. But again, only speculating. And encouraging further thoughts, research, and input.
I doubt it myself.
I work for Pg&E, have since 2006.... i was a lineman now i am a troubleman. I install approx a dozen smartmeters a week or so as a part of my duties. I have also been to many structure fires (homes) .... i can tell you with 100% certainty that 120/240 volts ( common house voltage) meters do not ignite. Now, as a troubleman, i can also say with 100% certainty that 277/480v smartmeters DO! Do homes have 277/480v meter panels? The answer is NO! Agrucultural pumps use that voltage. I am currently doing an active investigation because i have had 5 277/480 meters go catastrophic last week in my service territory alone last week. The problem on why they go catastrophic is mainly due to a LOAD issue and not a SOURCE issue.... meaning the LOAD is what the farmers meter panel puts on the meter is making it go BOOM rather than what PG&E is supplying. It all comes down to mantenance really. Alot of Agricultural meter pumps are very old and weathered. They've been up for decades. Lots of corrosion on internal parts and such. My area of responsiibility is Colusa and Glenn counties and parts of Sutter county. Its all Agricultural farm lands here with a few towns mixed in. Now.... you wanna know what causes the common house fires when it comes to electric utility companies????? Coincidentaly its something that PG&E has nothing to do with but is on ALOT of houses ...... SOLAR ! Not the panels itself.... but the control panels they mount next to the meter panels... i dont know if solar techs wire them inncorrectly or what, but i do know that the structure fires i respond to that are deemed to have started electrically outside the home are in the solar control panel... this does not include homes with a Zinsco 100 amp or 200 amp panel... those panels fail due breakers going bad and having a hotleg come into contact with a neutral.... PLEASE! if youve read this far, please go look at your electrical panel outside your home. Open it up and see if its a Zinsco made panel. If it is, call an electrician and make arraingments to get it replaced ASAP. Those ZINSCO panels DO cause house fires......
Thank you very much fren!
I worked at an electronics recycling facility for a short period and we would get pallet sized totes of the meters. The first step in recycling was to remove the lithium batteries in them. The wires are soldiered directly into the batteries so we had to cut them out. Now for fun we would sometimes pull the wires out instead of cutting, exposing the lithium core, we would then throw them across the warehouse and wait for them to basically catch fire and explode.
So my point being they have little burning thermal bombs in them already. One could assume they would just need to send a signal for the meter to rapidly overcharge the battery. Who knows really.
Interesting, looks like they use a 3.5v for clock and backup of data.
Did the thrown batteries get red or white hot, or just explode?
They would start will a foul smoke then spray out an electric fire. Google piercing lithium 18650. They were hard wired 18650 batteries.
Based on some research I think it is almost certain that smart meters include Metal Oxide Varistors or MOVs. These devices are also found in household surge suppressors. The wikipedia article talks an awful lot about these devices catching fire. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varistor
The overvoltage would need to come from the transformer (or possibly solar inverters). It's not likely that homes would have equipment to monitor for an overvoltage condition and record the data somewhere that would protect it from a fire. And it's even less likely that the voltage monitoring would happen at the input to the smart meter. Smart meters have a switch to shut off power to the house. The smart meters could be remotely commanded to switch off the power, making it much easier to raise the voltage on the lines. Then the MOVs in the meter burn.
OR the voltage could rise first and the smart meter detects that and very helpfully shuts off power to protect the house from overvoltage conditions.
WHERE are the smart meters made? China? https://greatawakening.win/p/19A1LfA94x/fbis-chris-wray-reveals-right-be/c/ Smart meters would be part of the electric grid. Would you trust them to not substitute a thermal fuse equipped MOV for a cheaper MOV without a thermal fuse?
I just thought smart meters were there to regulate energy use against the homeowner’s will and spy on us.
Some are proposing they may do more than that. I’m interested in hearing any evidence. It does seem some power companies have already been fined for having some responsibility for previous CA fires, but via power lines, uncleared brush, and other means.
Or they have tiny capacitor coils designed to fail and burn at a specific power fluctuation
Conceivable, however the smart meters I’ve seen are enclosed in mostly metal enclosure, so it would seem a strong and lasting source of heat to be generated in the meter or somehow to circuitry inside the house.
My brother is a fire inspector in Indiana and we were talking about this last night on the phone because I'd seen some chatter on TG about this. He said he's never personally seen any smart meters ignite, but when he goes to a home, it's one of the first things he checks because they can be a spot arsonists utilize.
He said a few years ago someone packed their ex-wife's smart meter box full of homemade thermite and ran like hell. Unfortunately the whole house burnt down a, fortunately no one was home and the entire arson was caught clear as day in the reflection of the front windows across the street. You could clearly see the guy walk up and mess with the box, then the fire starts and he runs.
Would require very large numbers of people to keep secrets and too many things that could be proven would need to be hidden. Nothing is impossible, but I highly doubt this would be the avenue of attack when there are far, far simpler methods.
All that is short for I don't think so, but I clearly don't know.