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Hacker reveals smart meters are spilling secrets about the Texas snowstorm

289 points by certifiedloud 5y ago

certifiedloud 5y ago
Link to the repo mentioned in the video: https://github.com/BitBangingBytes/gr-smart_meters https://github.com/BitBangingBytes/gr-smart_meters
theshrike79 5y ago
Note to people outside of the US who are worried about this: The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters, they are usually also connected to a different APN than generic mobile data. Sometimes multiple meters are connected to a central hub with a physical wire (in apartment buildings for example). The hub is then the only gateway to the internet. The hack in question is only viable because of the weird way US smart meter collection is done. US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Source: I did smart metering software for L+G.
- gruez 5y ago
  >US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. I thought they transmitted over the power line? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    PLC does have its limits, mostly in range and bandwidth and it's highly dependent on the type of copper actually in the ground. But when it works, it's a lot more reliable than the RF abomination some networks are doing =)
- orf 5y ago
  > A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. What the fuck
  - tgv 5y ago
    It's like the meter man visiting your house, but now they no longer have to enter. Isn't it wonderful? If I lived in the US, I'd immediately try to hack up a small Arduino project to read out my neighbours' energy usage.
    - toomuchtodo 5y ago
      Use SDR networks to do it from afar. http://www.websdr.org/ http://www.websdr.org/
    - amluto 5y ago
      I think most of the modern gear uses ZigBee’s publicly document smart energy protocols. It’s encrypted.
    - dperfect 5y ago
      I do this with a cheap (~$20) USB RTL-SDR – no Arduino or custom electronics necessary. Of course, I only use it to monitor my own energy usage (electricity and gas) using rtlamr[1] and a script that periodically sends the data to InfluxDB, then displayed using Grafana. The result is a smart home energy monitor that doesn't require any clamps near the electrical panel, and it exactly matches the usage for which I'll be billed. [1] https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr
      - flatiron 5y ago
        Crazy how easy that is. I bet within a year we hear about criminals using something like this to know when people leave their house for extended periods.
        sokoloff 5y ago
- gregimba 5y ago
  The reason we got smart meters in Austin, TX is because they weren't even recording readings just guessing what that reading should be based on historical data. https://texasmonitor.org/settlement-reached-on-austins-made-up-meter-readings/ https://texasmonitor.org/settlement-reached-on-austins-made-...
- yaantc 5y ago
  > The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters, they are usually also connected to a different APN than generic mobile data. Yes. I guess it's worth stressing this, as it seems taken for granted by people experienced with cellular M2M/IoT but maybe not so well known in the general public. A cellular modem is first connected to an operator network. For mainstream subscriptions it is then connected from there to the Internet, making a device behind the modem reachable over the Internet, with all the security issues associated. But for business customers the telcos offer "private APN" subscriptions, with a VPN connection to the customer. Then the modems are connected to the customer and not to the internet, and the devices behind are not publicly reachable. Support of private APNs is part of cellular data since 2G GPRS, so from the very start. One can expect industrial cellular users to use them.
  - laurencerowe 5y ago
    Mobile networks evolve fairly quickly. Spectrum is limited so mobile operators like to phase out older standards in favour of newer ones to make better use of their available spectrum. Upgrading the modem in a smart meter requires visiting every location you serve. That's not something a utility would like to do more than once every few decades. With 3G and 2G now being phased out, will utilities have to replace all their smart meters? https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/ https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/
    - yaantc 5y ago
      It's a valid concern, but it's a contractual problem more than a technology one. Companies doing smart meters are not taking the basic subscriptions made for the public. They have dedicated contracts with their telcos, with commitment for long term support. So these smart meters companies have visibility and guarantees, and are updated on the telcos long term plans. That's what enable them to deploy meters with 15 years of life span. The way it works in practice is that telcos may close their "old" 2G (or 3G, but 3G is not used much there. Most jump direct from 2G to 4G) networks to the public, but keep some capacity in operation for those industrial users only for a lot more time --- as long as needed per their contractual obligations. The general public won't see this, as these frequencies will be denied to anyone but specific industrial subscribers. There's no need for much capacity either, as smart meter don't "talk" much. Another way these long term needs can be addressed is through standard support. For IoT, LTE (perceived as a 4G technology) meets the 5G requirements from R15 onward. And there's work to support these LTE IoT devices (LTE-M, NB-IoT) over "5G" (the tech is called "NR", or "New Radio". Engineering naming ;) channels onward, so there won't be a need for dedicated LTE IoT channels for IoT, as is done for 2G. So independent of the way it's done, the cellular industry does support long term commitment for M2M/IoT. But as you can see, it's geared toward big customers in practice. In theory one could think about ways to open this to smaller clients (cloud like subscription and access), but I'm not sure anyone does this. It's not a tech problem, more a cultural and business one.
- jaywalk 5y ago
  > A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Maybe it used to work this way, or some uncommon types of meters work this way, but I've never seen them. The only ones I've seen broadcast to collectors that are usually on street lights, which are then connected to the power company's network. If you go to the wiki that's linked at the end of the article, they've even got pictures of one: https://wiki.recessim.com/view/Landis%2BGyr_Collector https://wiki.recessim.com/view/Landis%2BGyr_Collector The connector on the front would have an antenna, and they're usually placed right before the light on the pole facing down.
  - ARandomerDude 5y ago
    I've lived in a couple (new) houses in Texas that all use the method described above. I see the utility trucks driving around pretty frequently, and have even had a guy get out and get closer to my meter until his handheld device beeped, apparently indicating he got the data.
- h2odragon 5y ago
  More info: Read Home Power Meters With RTL-SDR https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...
- organsnyder 5y ago
  It depends on your power company. My power company in Michigan uses cellular.
- api 5y ago
  Sounds secure. I bet you could build a box to spoof your readings low and steal electricity.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- tzs 5y ago
  > US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. > Source: I did smart metering software for L+G. How long ago? I believe that was how the earliest meters that did not require someone to actually look at the dials worked, but many or most have moved on. For example the meters that Puget Sound Energy is in the middle of upgrading too (they did mine a couple months ago) (Landis+Gyr meter using their Gridstream RF system) form a mesh network to communicate with the mothership, which they describe thusly [1]: > At the center of the Gridstream RF Mesh solution is a true mesh, peer-to-peer network where each endpoint, device and router communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion, extending the coverage and reliability of the network. The asynchronous, multi-channel communication structure allows for increased data throughput and opens more paths to the data collector. > The self-healing network features dynamic routing messages that automatically adjust for changes to endpoints and the introduction of obstructions, such as foliage or new construction. System routers utilize one Watt of power to increase transmit distance and throughput, while data collectors support up to 25,000 meters, further minimizing infrastructure and maintenance costs. The documents tab on that page has PDFs with product sheets for the various components (endpoints, collectors, routers). The previous meters PSE used looked like traditional analog meters, but my account page at PSE showed my daily usage, updated daily, so they definitely had some kind of remote reading capability. I'm sure it was not someone driving around the neighborhood daily because it continued updating even whenever weather made it so it was very difficult to get a vehicle into my area for several days. I don't know if those were a mesh network--they were installed sometime in the very early 2000s I believe which seems a little early for that. Could have been cellular or power line networking. I know that both of those techniques have been used fairly widely--I just don't know what my particular meter was using. [1] https://www.landisgyr.com/product/gridstream-rf-2/ https://www.landisgyr.com/product/gridstream-rf-2/
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    The RF stuff is old, I didn't touch those that much. Americans had their own systems, did hear the stories though. Meshnets are the newer system, but still use RF and have their own issues (like car keyfobs in the same frequency either freezing completely or randomly opening/locking car doors :D)
- aftbit 5y ago
  But that's even worse, because then the meters are connected to the internet, rather than only accessible within a few block radius.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Nope. Check out yaantc's comment. tl;dr it's a completely separate network with no internet access. Basically a VLAN inside the cell network.
- consp 5y ago
  This is also done for the calorimeters on my radiators for centrally provided heating. That is in Europe.
  - Scoundreller 5y ago
    Have you tried modifying/pointing a microwave at your calorimeter exit sensor to heat it so your meter spins backwards? (Source: employer locked up the thermostat to keep us frigid to save money, but I just put an ice pack on top of it)
    - consp 5y ago
      My neighbors basically heat my home in the winter so that would wind it back below zero which they probably would not like. One of them is close to a refrigerator and actually measured heat output but the radiator is disconnected. I got my 60ct of charge back that year. You might not be able to wind them back (they are digital) but I'm pretty sure you can manipulate them with sufficient heat shielding something like your method to change the value.
      - Scoundreller 5y ago
        Wait, what are they measuring? Shouldn’t they measure incoming fluid temperature, outgoing fluid temperature, and volume? I thought the scam would be to heat the metal temperature probe inside the exit pipe faster than it rejected that heat (doable with an RF beam).
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  > A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. I wonder how long it is until Uber or Amazon, or the postal service, strikes a deal with the power company to power this last mile sneakernet.
  - mike_d 5y ago
    Never because it doesn't work this way. All the smart meters I have seen form a peer-to-peer mesh and relay data until it hits a collector (every 8-10 blocks) on a telephone pole that has a connection to the power/water company.
- markus_zhang 5y ago
  Interesting. The truck somehow reminds me of the radio signal tracking trucks anti-espionage offcials relied on back in WW2.
- joncrane 5y ago
  Someone told me a long time ago that this arrangement was due to employment agreements with the so-called "meter maids." They originally wanted to fully automate it, but they didn't want to un-employ their fleet of meter readers, so the compromise was for the meter readers to simply drive down all the streets rather than go behind all the houses. The meter readers' jobs got a lot easier but they got to collect the same amount of money. I believe a union was involved but don't quote me on that. This is what someone told me, I am not presenting it as fact. If you know differently, please debunk.
- dkarp 5y ago
  In the UK, new smart meters can apparently function as a mesh network and forward readings through each other. They also use "Long Range Radio" instead of 2g/3g service in some locations. https://www.smartme.co.uk/technical.html https://www.smartme.co.uk/technical.html
- KirillPanov 5y ago
  I've noticed that US utilities generally have a "dependency hierarchy": the telephone company is allowed to rely on the electrical utility, but not vice-versa. Water+sewer are another step up (and often have large, expensive diesel generators). I think most electrical utilities in the US would balk at being dependent on a cellular telephone company. Many of them won't even lease fiber from the telcos, insisting on stringing up their own instead.
- blantonl 5y ago
  A power company vehicle drives around the neighborhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Actually, most is collected now via Internet connected reception points typically installed on traffic lights and electrical poles strategically stationed near neighborhoods.
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    Still you've got RF meters shouting their statistics to everyone. The Germans would have a fit about that. It's illegal to measure electricity with under 24 hour granularity in Germany and IIRC in Switzerland. And there are really specific rules on what can be measured and how much of the data can be stored in the meter.
- ortusdux 5y ago
  I was at a local hacker space for a photo-op visit by the mayor. One of the things she talked about was the city's new smart power grid. Several members were upset about the fact that they were required to have these meters on their house, mostly because of how insecure they were. If I remember correctly, they were not password protected, and they had just turned off SSID broadcasting. One of the members couldn't help himself and showed her how trivial it was to access the meter's mesh network, which he demonstrated by pinging the meter at the mayors mansion. It was an awkward evening.
  - reaperducer 5y ago
    Do you mine stating which city this was in? I ask because I've a long-standing curiosity about which cities still maintain mayors' mansions (and governors' mansions). I know New York does, but I haven't run into it too many other places.
    - keanebean86 5y ago
      Arkansas had a really nice governor's mansion years ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/19/us/little-rock-journal-governor-s-mansion-is-a-triple-wide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/19/us/little-rock-journal-go...
    - kleton 5y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mayors%27_mansions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mayors%27_mansions_in...
    - ortusdux 5y ago
      Confusingly enough, the "mayor's house" belonged to the city's first mayor, and is now a museum and event space. It has a proper name, but the locals all know it as the mayors house. It is not a residence set aside for the current mayor.
    - canadianfella 5y ago
      Mine?
- tkojames 5y ago
  I think most places have upgraded to sending the RF signals to a local repeater and backhaul it. I know for pge they send the data hourly no trucks.
- dingosity 5y ago
  FWIW, this is also how some organizations collected data from grow houses in the 2000s and early 2010s. Though they didn't broadcast SSIDs and wouldn't chat on the network unless they saw a specific sequence broadcast by the mobile station.
- ljm 5y ago
  I'm sure my UK-based smart meter is RF-based, but you can hook it up to your wifi to link your energy account to it. The metres themselves have a 10m range (one for gas, usually outside, another for leccy, usually inside) so a receiver outside of that won't function.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters I'd suspect this is an exaggeration. I've been plenty of places in the world (yes, even Europe) with no cellular connectivity. So clearly "the rest of the world" is a generalization.
- cool_dude85 5y ago
  The drive-by van stuff is old tech, I think most new metering platforms are on mesh networks now where there is some kind of central receiver connected via wire that all the meters communicate to. I don't know if they still use RF to do so, but the van driving is specifically considered very old fashioned these days.
- Faaak 5y ago
  Landys&Gyr is a bit old school in this regard. Some countries (like France or Spain), use communications via PLC which are encrypted to the local transformer. They are then sent to the distributor via 4g/whatever
- makr17 5y ago
  From my desk in a residential but dense area I can see 60-70 meters at any given time with a usb sdr. Water meters in our area do the same, but since it is near the street and below-grade I can only see a few of those. After having looked around for a while in disbelief, I now filter the capture from the SDR to just the ids of my meters. And I accept the fact that someone sufficiently-motivated could figure out when we're on vacation based on the broadcast consumption values...
  - theshrike79 5y ago
    This is one of the reasons Germans/Swiss freak out about too exact power metering, it's a privacy issue. Germans did royally fuck this up at one point and they had a provider that measured power consumption at so high a frequency that you could detect what TV show people were watching based on the power consumption. [0] [0] https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-meter-hacking-can-disclose-which-tv-shows-and-movies-you-watch/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-meter...
- stevenhubertron 5y ago
  I use my RTL-SDR to read my own power meter and then pipe that data into my Home Assistant instance so I can get depressed when I see the spike when I use my central AC. It's actually quite cool. I haven't yet figured how to do it for my water meter yet though.
dylan604 5y ago
"quietly emit data that shows how long businesses and residences have gone since their last power outage" who knew that 'uptime' would be such a security potential?
- deepserket 5y ago
  yeah, this use case is really interesting
- toomuchtodo 5y ago
  It’s not terribly signal worthy imho. It’s obvious what are critical loads: finance, healthcare, telecom (local CO or your local datacenter, comms), government services such as first responders and dispatch, water/sewer. This is yet another excuse and data obfuscation to hide incompetence and less than good faith decisions. ERCOT and utilities didn’t even to know which circuits not to shed to keep gas pipeline infra (compressor stations) running during the spring winter event. Local permit data around electrical infra and ground truth from open data sources will take you far if you want to identify these loads. Folks answer a lot of questions they shouldn’t if you roll up with a hard hat, clipboard, and hi viz vest from your non descript pickup truck if you’re more bold.
  - rtkwe 5y ago
    Those are the ones that should be kept on line so it'd be interesting to see what areas if any retained power that don't have any of those critical facilities in them.
- thinkingemote 5y ago
  It's actually a federal protected secret for some industries like data centres.
  - pbhjpbhj 5y ago
    Uptime of data centres is protected by federal law? Which USC is that? Can't you just ping a couple of servers at a centre and get an extremely accurate readout of a data centre's uptime?
oblib 5y ago
"A recent study published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Colorado School of Mines, and University of Massachusetts-Amherst asserted that minority areas were over four times as likely to suffer from an energy blackout than white-majority areas." That's a problem.
- jimbob45 5y ago
  Poorer areas are going to have poorer infrastructure in place more susceptible to natural disaster. If you fix the infrastructure, it stops being as poor of a region and then the poor leave due to higher property taxes. Also “over [N] times higher” is usually a marker that you’re being misled. Four times 0.00001 is still an extremely small number, not even statistically significant.
  - matmatmatmat 5y ago
    Statistical significance is whether or not the data support rejecting the null hypothesis. Effect size is the difference between the two samples. You can have statistically significant results with a very small effect size.
  - edoceo 5y ago
    They said "minority" then you equivocate to "poor". Those are not the same thing. Also, TFA: "Income status of areas did not appear to be a strong factor"
- username90 5y ago
  They didn't shut down areas with hospitals or other important facilities. Likely there aren't many such facilities in minority areas.
  - vlovich123 5y ago
    At the bottom of the article: the prescience of these important facilities decreased the probability of a shutdown from 0-6%. Probably look for a better hypothesis. What was also interesting is that it correlated with altitude of the meter which indicates a preference for wealthier neighborhoods. The problem is that the data Hash collected is incomplete and hard to draw conclusions from: * It’s a war driving effort of a small strip of Dallas * The data becomes impossible to capture as normal interruptions happen and reset the uptime counter. It’s also unclear to me if these uptime counters are affected by having a generator or other backup power supply. One of the examples he noted was a Chase Bank that hadn’t experienced an interruption at all.
ryanmarsh 5y ago
I follow the researcher on TikTok, whilst I enjoy his work this article is a big nothing burger. Each individual ERCOT customer is able to access fine grained meter data *of their own meter*, not the meter data of others. If everyone is so concerned about what the meters actually say Texans can volunteer their data for the purposes of this research. Since the meters broadcast in the clear I would not be surprised if war driving becomes standard practice for the retail electricity providers. Yes that's right. When you sign up with a REP they don't know your habits: how much power you're actually going to use or when. Having historic meter data is a competitive advantage in building your pricing models. I'm getting really tired of people who have no idea how the system functions in Texas making strong assertions based on errors and sweeping generalizations from journalists that don't have a clue how things work either. I have two U.S. ISO's, multiple REPs, and a large generator as clients. I know people on the board of ERCOT and get the back story on everything, especially things the public will never hear about. This business has nothing in common with anything you've probably read unless it comes from industry insiders.
- djanogo 5y ago
  Sort of agree, the only "secret" in this case is how long the meter has been up?, I assume they can mitigate the "hack" by just rebooting RF part of the meter randomly? (I only say this because I read they have remote capability to reboot zigbee feature) I know they stopped accepting zigbee device pairing starting this year, and only allow authenticated API based requests which is delayed by 24 hours. Right now there is no way for customer to get real time data from the meters themselves.
  - jackson1442 5y ago
    I think this is interesting not necessarily in a security sense, but more in a "wow, you can do that" kind of sense. Also considering how distribution companies have refused to provide this data, you'd think it would be harder to obtain.
  - BitBangingBytes 5y ago
    There are two radio’s in the meter, one for zigbee and one for the 900MHz mesh that sends this data back to power company. The zigbee side isn’t used at all here anymore, they killed our ability to view our usage with it.
Black101 5y ago
using this: https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr, I could read the meters of about 30 of my neighbors... and I was not living in apartments... Yards in that neighborhood were about 150ftx75ft. And I would get meter reading updates about every other minute. I used the stock rtl-sdr antenna and didn't even place it outside my home.
Scoundreller 5y ago
So, how much energy do these smart meters use? I’ll assume since the user pays for it, there’s no consideration for this cost of equipment that saves the utility money.
sys_64738 5y ago
Is this legal?
- yellow_lead 5y ago
  Yes
- smartbit 5y ago
  Under the GDPR it would probably not be legal to send the signals unencrypted.
pluto7777 5y ago
I live five minutes away from my sister and my house gets cut three seconds the entire time. Meanwhile my sister's family had to huddle around the fireplace in their den for warmth. Does she live in the ghetto? Her neighborhood is nicer than mine. If I were to guess, it's because I live near the local police station and she doesn't. It's no grand mystery here. Stop tying to make it about inequality or some other BS.
- moate 5y ago
  Sample size: 2. Nice neighborhoods were powered down. Poor neighborhoods were powered down. Maybe some had essential infrastructure. Maybe they didn't. There's a possibility that poor or minority majority neighborhoods were unfairly targeted. The inverse is also possible. The bottom line is, you and I both have NO idea who was affected, how, or how that decision was made. So stop trying to pretend racism or inequality can't exist. There literally is a grand mystery here because the companies responsible won't inform anyone. And yes, I fully accept that while it can exist that doesn't mean that it does exist in this situation but you have to also accept that with incomplete data you can't prove it doesn't.
  - pluto7777 5y ago
    Just because I can't know every variable doesn't mean I'm going to dismiss what I've seen. Inner cities also have some of the best hospitals and infrastructure in the state while containing the most poor. It's just nonsense what you're preaching.
    - moate 5y ago
      I mean the whole idea that "I don't know every variable, but I'm going to jump to a singular conclusion while pointing out that a hypothesis I disagree with is nonsense" seems like a bad take to me but I'm a fan of science.
naikrovek 5y ago
> “If we want a secure system that’s resilient against attack then it must be openly attacked, otherwise nothing will be done.” this is a brilliant bit of knowledge that I had somehow slightly understood and had never seen verbalized anywhere previously. as a bonus, it is perfectly worded. he is exactly right; to use an analogy: an immune system that is never attacked cannot defend against any attack, because only attacks can teach the immune system how to defend. it's the same (mostly) for computer security concerns.
speakspokespok 5y ago
The person mentioned in the article bought the meters off eBay and is reversing the firmware off those. Perhaps they’re identical to what’s on his house but it’s implied he’s ‘phreaking’ over his city’s power grid and that’s not the case at all. There’s nothing illegal here. Remember when we understood and applauded this behavior?
kingsuper20 5y ago
Next up. Jiggling in the power usage will allow hackers to reconstruct video signals on monitors.
Rapzid 5y ago
I don't buy their security excuse. Oh you don't want people to know you weren't cutting power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure buildings? No shit. There's something else they are hiding IMHO. Perhaps it includes answers to how the few million without power is either a BS number, or an explanation as to why my city alone(which owns a power company and had enough power generation for its citizens/owners) had 1-2/3 of the resident without power for days.. If only about 1/10th of the state was without power why did the rolling blackouts stop rolling for so many people? We essentially "took one for the team". My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence.
- bsder 5y ago
  > My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence. I'd call you Captain Obvious(tm), but this is the Texas Laboratory for Shitty Government (to paraphrase Molly Ivins) we're talking about. Things they are likely hiding: 1) The grid is shit and has no control granularity. The granularity is sufficiently high that they couldn't disconnect enough load. Too many things are on the same circuits as the essential things. To fix this requires new power feeds (read: expensive copper wire) and the controls to run the smaller granularity. Nobody wants to to pony up the cash to fix this, so this will not get fixed. 2) Factories aren't connected with controls ERCOT couldn't summarily disconnect manufacturing plants with controls and had to fiddle with pricing games to finally force the plants to disconnect. The fact that people were without power but manufacturing plants still had power will make some people upset. But, don't worry, they'll still vote for Republicans. 3) The "critical" portions of the grid are now larger than the "non-critical" At least in the winter, residential simply just isn't pulling enough load to be able to stop a grid collapse. People have energy efficient residences. Consequently, essential things like your water treatment plant are consuming an amount of energy that takes a lot of residences to match. The only way to fix this is to keep fuel and backup turbine generators on-site to allow the plant to keep working after it disconnects. This costs money, so nobody will do it. The whole point of Texas not being on the national grid is so that the pieces of the grid don't have to spend money and be useful when things go to shit.
  - smolder 5y ago
runbathtime 5y ago
This information should be a freedom of information request and made available to the public. If the same people are always forced to endure the burden of blackouts, and elites are not they will keep happening.
runbathtime 5y ago
I also don't buy their security excuse for not releasing info on whose power never got turned off. If the ERCOT Grid was really concerned about cyber attacks they wouldn't be partnering with Bitcoin mining companies that have access to the grid, and have a special partnership with ERCOT. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/layer1-launches-bitcoin-batteries-to-stabilize-energy-grids-by-releasing-electricity-to-meet-market-demand-301063984.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/layer1-launches-bit...

289 points by certifiedloud 5y ago

Link to the repo mentioned in the video: https://github.com/BitBangingBytes/gr-smart_meters https://github.com/BitBangingBytes/gr-smart_meters

theshrike79 5y ago

Note to people outside of the US who are worried about this: The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters, they are usually also connected to a different APN than generic mobile data. Sometimes multiple meters are connected to a central hub with a physical wire (in apartment buildings for example). The hub is then the only gateway to the internet. The hack in question is only viable because of the weird way US smart meter collection is done. US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Source: I did smart metering software for L+G.

gruez 5y ago
>US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. I thought they transmitted over the power line? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power-line_communication
- theshrike79 5y ago
  PLC does have its limits, mostly in range and bandwidth and it's highly dependent on the type of copper actually in the ground. But when it works, it's a lot more reliable than the RF abomination some networks are doing =)
orf 5y ago
> A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. What the fuck
- tgv 5y ago
  It's like the meter man visiting your house, but now they no longer have to enter. Isn't it wonderful? If I lived in the US, I'd immediately try to hack up a small Arduino project to read out my neighbours' energy usage.
  - toomuchtodo 5y ago
    Use SDR networks to do it from afar. http://www.websdr.org/ http://www.websdr.org/
  - amluto 5y ago
    I think most of the modern gear uses ZigBee’s publicly document smart energy protocols. It’s encrypted.
  - dperfect 5y ago
    I do this with a cheap (~$20) USB RTL-SDR – no Arduino or custom electronics necessary. Of course, I only use it to monitor my own energy usage (electricity and gas) using rtlamr[1] and a script that periodically sends the data to InfluxDB, then displayed using Grafana. The result is a smart home energy monitor that doesn't require any clamps near the electrical panel, and it exactly matches the usage for which I'll be billed. [1] https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr
    - flatiron 5y ago
      Crazy how easy that is. I bet within a year we hear about criminals using something like this to know when people leave their house for extended periods.
      - sokoloff 5y ago
gregimba 5y ago
The reason we got smart meters in Austin, TX is because they weren't even recording readings just guessing what that reading should be based on historical data. https://texasmonitor.org/settlement-reached-on-austins-made-up-meter-readings/ https://texasmonitor.org/settlement-reached-on-austins-made-...
yaantc 5y ago
> The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters, they are usually also connected to a different APN than generic mobile data. Yes. I guess it's worth stressing this, as it seems taken for granted by people experienced with cellular M2M/IoT but maybe not so well known in the general public. A cellular modem is first connected to an operator network. For mainstream subscriptions it is then connected from there to the Internet, making a device behind the modem reachable over the Internet, with all the security issues associated. But for business customers the telcos offer "private APN" subscriptions, with a VPN connection to the customer. Then the modems are connected to the customer and not to the internet, and the devices behind are not publicly reachable. Support of private APNs is part of cellular data since 2G GPRS, so from the very start. One can expect industrial cellular users to use them.
- laurencerowe 5y ago
  Mobile networks evolve fairly quickly. Spectrum is limited so mobile operators like to phase out older standards in favour of newer ones to make better use of their available spectrum. Upgrading the modem in a smart meter requires visiting every location you serve. That's not something a utility would like to do more than once every few decades. With 3G and 2G now being phased out, will utilities have to replace all their smart meters? https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/ https://hyphabit.io/2g-network-closure-uk/
  - yaantc 5y ago
    It's a valid concern, but it's a contractual problem more than a technology one. Companies doing smart meters are not taking the basic subscriptions made for the public. They have dedicated contracts with their telcos, with commitment for long term support. So these smart meters companies have visibility and guarantees, and are updated on the telcos long term plans. That's what enable them to deploy meters with 15 years of life span. The way it works in practice is that telcos may close their "old" 2G (or 3G, but 3G is not used much there. Most jump direct from 2G to 4G) networks to the public, but keep some capacity in operation for those industrial users only for a lot more time --- as long as needed per their contractual obligations. The general public won't see this, as these frequencies will be denied to anyone but specific industrial subscribers. There's no need for much capacity either, as smart meter don't "talk" much. Another way these long term needs can be addressed is through standard support. For IoT, LTE (perceived as a 4G technology) meets the 5G requirements from R15 onward. And there's work to support these LTE IoT devices (LTE-M, NB-IoT) over "5G" (the tech is called "NR", or "New Radio". Engineering naming ;) channels onward, so there won't be a need for dedicated LTE IoT channels for IoT, as is done for 2G. So independent of the way it's done, the cellular industry does support long term commitment for M2M/IoT. But as you can see, it's geared toward big customers in practice. In theory one could think about ways to open this to smaller clients (cloud like subscription and access), but I'm not sure anyone does this. It's not a tech problem, more a cultural and business one.
jaywalk 5y ago
> A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Maybe it used to work this way, or some uncommon types of meters work this way, but I've never seen them. The only ones I've seen broadcast to collectors that are usually on street lights, which are then connected to the power company's network. If you go to the wiki that's linked at the end of the article, they've even got pictures of one: https://wiki.recessim.com/view/Landis%2BGyr_Collector https://wiki.recessim.com/view/Landis%2BGyr_Collector The connector on the front would have an antenna, and they're usually placed right before the light on the pole facing down.
- ARandomerDude 5y ago
  I've lived in a couple (new) houses in Texas that all use the method described above. I see the utility trucks driving around pretty frequently, and have even had a guy get out and get closer to my meter until his handheld device beeped, apparently indicating he got the data.
h2odragon 5y ago
More info: Read Home Power Meters With RTL-SDR https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-rtl-sdr/ https://hackaday.com/2017/12/21/read-home-power-meters-with-...
organsnyder 5y ago
It depends on your power company. My power company in Michigan uses cellular.
api 5y ago
Sounds secure. I bet you could build a box to spoof your readings low and steal electricity.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tzs 5y ago
> US Smart Meters use RF to shout out their values everywhere like an RF beacon. A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. > Source: I did smart metering software for L+G. How long ago? I believe that was how the earliest meters that did not require someone to actually look at the dials worked, but many or most have moved on. For example the meters that Puget Sound Energy is in the middle of upgrading too (they did mine a couple months ago) (Landis+Gyr meter using their Gridstream RF system) form a mesh network to communicate with the mothership, which they describe thusly [1]: > At the center of the Gridstream RF Mesh solution is a true mesh, peer-to-peer network where each endpoint, device and router communicate in a peer-to-peer fashion, extending the coverage and reliability of the network. The asynchronous, multi-channel communication structure allows for increased data throughput and opens more paths to the data collector. > The self-healing network features dynamic routing messages that automatically adjust for changes to endpoints and the introduction of obstructions, such as foliage or new construction. System routers utilize one Watt of power to increase transmit distance and throughput, while data collectors support up to 25,000 meters, further minimizing infrastructure and maintenance costs. The documents tab on that page has PDFs with product sheets for the various components (endpoints, collectors, routers). The previous meters PSE used looked like traditional analog meters, but my account page at PSE showed my daily usage, updated daily, so they definitely had some kind of remote reading capability. I'm sure it was not someone driving around the neighborhood daily because it continued updating even whenever weather made it so it was very difficult to get a vehicle into my area for several days. I don't know if those were a mesh network--they were installed sometime in the very early 2000s I believe which seems a little early for that. Could have been cellular or power line networking. I know that both of those techniques have been used fairly widely--I just don't know what my particular meter was using. [1] https://www.landisgyr.com/product/gridstream-rf-2/ https://www.landisgyr.com/product/gridstream-rf-2/
- theshrike79 5y ago
  The RF stuff is old, I didn't touch those that much. Americans had their own systems, did hear the stories though. Meshnets are the newer system, but still use RF and have their own issues (like car keyfobs in the same frequency either freezing completely or randomly opening/locking car doors :D)
aftbit 5y ago
But that's even worse, because then the meters are connected to the internet, rather than only accessible within a few block radius.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Nope. Check out yaantc's comment. tl;dr it's a completely separate network with no internet access. Basically a VLAN inside the cell network.
consp 5y ago
This is also done for the calorimeters on my radiators for centrally provided heating. That is in Europe.
- Scoundreller 5y ago
  Have you tried modifying/pointing a microwave at your calorimeter exit sensor to heat it so your meter spins backwards? (Source: employer locked up the thermostat to keep us frigid to save money, but I just put an ice pack on top of it)
  - consp 5y ago
    My neighbors basically heat my home in the winter so that would wind it back below zero which they probably would not like. One of them is close to a refrigerator and actually measured heat output but the radiator is disconnected. I got my 60ct of charge back that year. You might not be able to wind them back (they are digital) but I'm pretty sure you can manipulate them with sufficient heat shielding something like your method to change the value.
    - Scoundreller 5y ago
      Wait, what are they measuring? Shouldn’t they measure incoming fluid temperature, outgoing fluid temperature, and volume? I thought the scam would be to heat the metal temperature probe inside the exit pipe faster than it rejected that heat (doable with an RF beam).
Scoundreller 5y ago
> A power company vehicle drives around the neighbourhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. I wonder how long it is until Uber or Amazon, or the postal service, strikes a deal with the power company to power this last mile sneakernet.
- mike_d 5y ago
  Never because it doesn't work this way. All the smart meters I have seen form a peer-to-peer mesh and relay data until it hits a collector (every 8-10 blocks) on a telephone pole that has a connection to the power/water company.
markus_zhang 5y ago
Interesting. The truck somehow reminds me of the radio signal tracking trucks anti-espionage offcials relied on back in WW2.
joncrane 5y ago
Someone told me a long time ago that this arrangement was due to employment agreements with the so-called "meter maids." They originally wanted to fully automate it, but they didn't want to un-employ their fleet of meter readers, so the compromise was for the meter readers to simply drive down all the streets rather than go behind all the houses. The meter readers' jobs got a lot easier but they got to collect the same amount of money. I believe a union was involved but don't quote me on that. This is what someone told me, I am not presenting it as fact. If you know differently, please debunk.
dkarp 5y ago
In the UK, new smart meters can apparently function as a mesh network and forward readings through each other. They also use "Long Range Radio" instead of 2g/3g service in some locations. https://www.smartme.co.uk/technical.html https://www.smartme.co.uk/technical.html
KirillPanov 5y ago
I've noticed that US utilities generally have a "dependency hierarchy": the telephone company is allowed to rely on the electrical utility, but not vice-versa. Water+sewer are another step up (and often have large, expensive diesel generators). I think most electrical utilities in the US would balk at being dependent on a cellular telephone company. Many of them won't even lease fiber from the telcos, insisting on stringing up their own instead.
blantonl 5y ago
A power company vehicle drives around the neighborhood, collecting the values, storing them and moves on. Actually, most is collected now via Internet connected reception points typically installed on traffic lights and electrical poles strategically stationed near neighborhoods.
- theshrike79 5y ago
  Still you've got RF meters shouting their statistics to everyone. The Germans would have a fit about that. It's illegal to measure electricity with under 24 hour granularity in Germany and IIRC in Switzerland. And there are really specific rules on what can be measured and how much of the data can be stored in the meter.
ortusdux 5y ago
I was at a local hacker space for a photo-op visit by the mayor. One of the things she talked about was the city's new smart power grid. Several members were upset about the fact that they were required to have these meters on their house, mostly because of how insecure they were. If I remember correctly, they were not password protected, and they had just turned off SSID broadcasting. One of the members couldn't help himself and showed her how trivial it was to access the meter's mesh network, which he demonstrated by pinging the meter at the mayors mansion. It was an awkward evening.
- reaperducer 5y ago
  Do you mine stating which city this was in? I ask because I've a long-standing curiosity about which cities still maintain mayors' mansions (and governors' mansions). I know New York does, but I haven't run into it too many other places.
  - keanebean86 5y ago
    Arkansas had a really nice governor's mansion years ago. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/19/us/little-rock-journal-governor-s-mansion-is-a-triple-wide.html https://www.nytimes.com/2000/07/19/us/little-rock-journal-go...
  - kleton 5y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mayors%27_mansions_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Mayors%27_mansions_in...
  - ortusdux 5y ago
    Confusingly enough, the "mayor's house" belonged to the city's first mayor, and is now a museum and event space. It has a proper name, but the locals all know it as the mayors house. It is not a residence set aside for the current mayor.
  - canadianfella 5y ago
    Mine?
tkojames 5y ago
I think most places have upgraded to sending the RF signals to a local repeater and backhaul it. I know for pge they send the data hourly no trucks.
dingosity 5y ago
FWIW, this is also how some organizations collected data from grow houses in the 2000s and early 2010s. Though they didn't broadcast SSIDs and wouldn't chat on the network unless they saw a specific sequence broadcast by the mobile station.
ljm 5y ago
I'm sure my UK-based smart meter is RF-based, but you can hook it up to your wifi to link your energy account to it. The metres themselves have a 10m range (one for gas, usually outside, another for leccy, usually inside) so a receiver outside of that won't function.
reaperducer 5y ago
The rest of the world uses 3G/4G modems in their smart meters I'd suspect this is an exaggeration. I've been plenty of places in the world (yes, even Europe) with no cellular connectivity. So clearly "the rest of the world" is a generalization.
cool_dude85 5y ago
The drive-by van stuff is old tech, I think most new metering platforms are on mesh networks now where there is some kind of central receiver connected via wire that all the meters communicate to. I don't know if they still use RF to do so, but the van driving is specifically considered very old fashioned these days.
Faaak 5y ago
Landys&Gyr is a bit old school in this regard. Some countries (like France or Spain), use communications via PLC which are encrypted to the local transformer. They are then sent to the distributor via 4g/whatever
makr17 5y ago
From my desk in a residential but dense area I can see 60-70 meters at any given time with a usb sdr. Water meters in our area do the same, but since it is near the street and below-grade I can only see a few of those. After having looked around for a while in disbelief, I now filter the capture from the SDR to just the ids of my meters. And I accept the fact that someone sufficiently-motivated could figure out when we're on vacation based on the broadcast consumption values...
- theshrike79 5y ago
  This is one of the reasons Germans/Swiss freak out about too exact power metering, it's a privacy issue. Germans did royally fuck this up at one point and they had a provider that measured power consumption at so high a frequency that you could detect what TV show people were watching based on the power consumption. [0] [0] https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-meter-hacking-can-disclose-which-tv-shows-and-movies-you-watch/ https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/01/08/28c3-smart-meter...
stevenhubertron 5y ago
I use my RTL-SDR to read my own power meter and then pipe that data into my Home Assistant instance so I can get depressed when I see the spike when I use my central AC. It's actually quite cool. I haven't yet figured how to do it for my water meter yet though.

dylan604 5y ago

"quietly emit data that shows how long businesses and residences have gone since their last power outage" who knew that 'uptime' would be such a security potential?

deepserket 5y ago
yeah, this use case is really interesting
toomuchtodo 5y ago
It’s not terribly signal worthy imho. It’s obvious what are critical loads: finance, healthcare, telecom (local CO or your local datacenter, comms), government services such as first responders and dispatch, water/sewer. This is yet another excuse and data obfuscation to hide incompetence and less than good faith decisions. ERCOT and utilities didn’t even to know which circuits not to shed to keep gas pipeline infra (compressor stations) running during the spring winter event. Local permit data around electrical infra and ground truth from open data sources will take you far if you want to identify these loads. Folks answer a lot of questions they shouldn’t if you roll up with a hard hat, clipboard, and hi viz vest from your non descript pickup truck if you’re more bold.
- rtkwe 5y ago
  Those are the ones that should be kept on line so it'd be interesting to see what areas if any retained power that don't have any of those critical facilities in them.
thinkingemote 5y ago
It's actually a federal protected secret for some industries like data centres.
- pbhjpbhj 5y ago
  Uptime of data centres is protected by federal law? Which USC is that? Can't you just ping a couple of servers at a centre and get an extremely accurate readout of a data centre's uptime?

oblib 5y ago

"A recent study published by the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Colorado School of Mines, and University of Massachusetts-Amherst asserted that minority areas were over four times as likely to suffer from an energy blackout than white-majority areas." That's a problem.

jimbob45 5y ago
Poorer areas are going to have poorer infrastructure in place more susceptible to natural disaster. If you fix the infrastructure, it stops being as poor of a region and then the poor leave due to higher property taxes. Also “over [N] times higher” is usually a marker that you’re being misled. Four times 0.00001 is still an extremely small number, not even statistically significant.
- matmatmatmat 5y ago
  Statistical significance is whether or not the data support rejecting the null hypothesis. Effect size is the difference between the two samples. You can have statistically significant results with a very small effect size.
- edoceo 5y ago
  They said "minority" then you equivocate to "poor". Those are not the same thing. Also, TFA: "Income status of areas did not appear to be a strong factor"
username90 5y ago
They didn't shut down areas with hospitals or other important facilities. Likely there aren't many such facilities in minority areas.
- vlovich123 5y ago
  At the bottom of the article: the prescience of these important facilities decreased the probability of a shutdown from 0-6%. Probably look for a better hypothesis. What was also interesting is that it correlated with altitude of the meter which indicates a preference for wealthier neighborhoods. The problem is that the data Hash collected is incomplete and hard to draw conclusions from: * It’s a war driving effort of a small strip of Dallas * The data becomes impossible to capture as normal interruptions happen and reset the uptime counter. It’s also unclear to me if these uptime counters are affected by having a generator or other backup power supply. One of the examples he noted was a Chase Bank that hadn’t experienced an interruption at all.

ryanmarsh 5y ago

I follow the researcher on TikTok, whilst I enjoy his work this article is a big nothing burger. Each individual ERCOT customer is able to access fine grained meter data *of their own meter*, not the meter data of others. If everyone is so concerned about what the meters actually say Texans can volunteer their data for the purposes of this research. Since the meters broadcast in the clear I would not be surprised if war driving becomes standard practice for the retail electricity providers. Yes that's right. When you sign up with a REP they don't know your habits: how much power you're actually going to use or when. Having historic meter data is a competitive advantage in building your pricing models. I'm getting really tired of people who have no idea how the system functions in Texas making strong assertions based on errors and sweeping generalizations from journalists that don't have a clue how things work either. I have two U.S. ISO's, multiple REPs, and a large generator as clients. I know people on the board of ERCOT and get the back story on everything, especially things the public will never hear about. This business has nothing in common with anything you've probably read unless it comes from industry insiders.

djanogo 5y ago
Sort of agree, the only "secret" in this case is how long the meter has been up?, I assume they can mitigate the "hack" by just rebooting RF part of the meter randomly? (I only say this because I read they have remote capability to reboot zigbee feature) I know they stopped accepting zigbee device pairing starting this year, and only allow authenticated API based requests which is delayed by 24 hours. Right now there is no way for customer to get real time data from the meters themselves.
- jackson1442 5y ago
  I think this is interesting not necessarily in a security sense, but more in a "wow, you can do that" kind of sense. Also considering how distribution companies have refused to provide this data, you'd think it would be harder to obtain.
- BitBangingBytes 5y ago
  There are two radio’s in the meter, one for zigbee and one for the 900MHz mesh that sends this data back to power company. The zigbee side isn’t used at all here anymore, they killed our ability to view our usage with it.

Black101 5y ago

using this: https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr https://github.com/bemasher/rtlamr, I could read the meters of about 30 of my neighbors... and I was not living in apartments... Yards in that neighborhood were about 150ftx75ft. And I would get meter reading updates about every other minute. I used the stock rtl-sdr antenna and didn't even place it outside my home.

Scoundreller 5y ago

So, how much energy do these smart meters use? I’ll assume since the user pays for it, there’s no consideration for this cost of equipment that saves the utility money.

sys_64738 5y ago

Is this legal?

yellow_lead 5y ago
Yes
smartbit 5y ago
Under the GDPR it would probably not be legal to send the signals unencrypted.

pluto7777 5y ago

I live five minutes away from my sister and my house gets cut three seconds the entire time. Meanwhile my sister's family had to huddle around the fireplace in their den for warmth. Does she live in the ghetto? Her neighborhood is nicer than mine. If I were to guess, it's because I live near the local police station and she doesn't. It's no grand mystery here. Stop tying to make it about inequality or some other BS.

moate 5y ago
Sample size: 2. Nice neighborhoods were powered down. Poor neighborhoods were powered down. Maybe some had essential infrastructure. Maybe they didn't. There's a possibility that poor or minority majority neighborhoods were unfairly targeted. The inverse is also possible. The bottom line is, you and I both have NO idea who was affected, how, or how that decision was made. So stop trying to pretend racism or inequality can't exist. There literally is a grand mystery here because the companies responsible won't inform anyone. And yes, I fully accept that while it can exist that doesn't mean that it does exist in this situation but you have to also accept that with incomplete data you can't prove it doesn't.
- pluto7777 5y ago
  Just because I can't know every variable doesn't mean I'm going to dismiss what I've seen. Inner cities also have some of the best hospitals and infrastructure in the state while containing the most poor. It's just nonsense what you're preaching.
  - moate 5y ago
    I mean the whole idea that "I don't know every variable, but I'm going to jump to a singular conclusion while pointing out that a hypothesis I disagree with is nonsense" seems like a bad take to me but I'm a fan of science.

naikrovek 5y ago

> “If we want a secure system that’s resilient against attack then it must be openly attacked, otherwise nothing will be done.” this is a brilliant bit of knowledge that I had somehow slightly understood and had never seen verbalized anywhere previously. as a bonus, it is perfectly worded. he is exactly right; to use an analogy: an immune system that is never attacked cannot defend against any attack, because only attacks can teach the immune system how to defend. it's the same (mostly) for computer security concerns.

speakspokespok 5y ago

The person mentioned in the article bought the meters off eBay and is reversing the firmware off those. Perhaps they’re identical to what’s on his house but it’s implied he’s ‘phreaking’ over his city’s power grid and that’s not the case at all. There’s nothing illegal here. Remember when we understood and applauded this behavior?

kingsuper20 5y ago

Next up. Jiggling in the power usage will allow hackers to reconstruct video signals on monitors.

Rapzid 5y ago

I don't buy their security excuse. Oh you don't want people to know you weren't cutting power to hospitals and other critical infrastructure buildings? No shit. There's something else they are hiding IMHO. Perhaps it includes answers to how the few million without power is either a BS number, or an explanation as to why my city alone(which owns a power company and had enough power generation for its citizens/owners) had 1-2/3 of the resident without power for days.. If only about 1/10th of the state was without power why did the rolling blackouts stop rolling for so many people? We essentially "took one for the team". My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence.

bsder 5y ago
> My guess is they are hiding layers of yet-uncovered incompetence. I'd call you Captain Obvious(tm), but this is the Texas Laboratory for Shitty Government (to paraphrase Molly Ivins) we're talking about. Things they are likely hiding: 1) The grid is shit and has no control granularity. The granularity is sufficiently high that they couldn't disconnect enough load. Too many things are on the same circuits as the essential things. To fix this requires new power feeds (read: expensive copper wire) and the controls to run the smaller granularity. Nobody wants to to pony up the cash to fix this, so this will not get fixed. 2) Factories aren't connected with controls ERCOT couldn't summarily disconnect manufacturing plants with controls and had to fiddle with pricing games to finally force the plants to disconnect. The fact that people were without power but manufacturing plants still had power will make some people upset. But, don't worry, they'll still vote for Republicans. 3) The "critical" portions of the grid are now larger than the "non-critical" At least in the winter, residential simply just isn't pulling enough load to be able to stop a grid collapse. People have energy efficient residences. Consequently, essential things like your water treatment plant are consuming an amount of energy that takes a lot of residences to match. The only way to fix this is to keep fuel and backup turbine generators on-site to allow the plant to keep working after it disconnects. This costs money, so nobody will do it. The whole point of Texas not being on the national grid is so that the pieces of the grid don't have to spend money and be useful when things go to shit.
- smolder 5y ago

runbathtime 5y ago

This information should be a freedom of information request and made available to the public. If the same people are always forced to endure the burden of blackouts, and elites are not they will keep happening.

runbathtime 5y ago

I also don't buy their security excuse for not releasing info on whose power never got turned off. If the ERCOT Grid was really concerned about cyber attacks they wouldn't be partnering with Bitcoin mining companies that have access to the grid, and have a special partnership with ERCOT. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/layer1-launches-bitcoin-batteries-to-stabilize-energy-grids-by-releasing-electricity-to-meet-market-demand-301063984.html https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/layer1-launches-bit...