I posted a story about the next generation of smart meter on overgrow, it was that long ago. As I recall, we even discussed a decade long time frame before they became commonplace. That would be now, BTW. The biggest part of the story back then was that the meter could detect the on/off time of your grow equipment and log the wattage increase and decrease. Power would then know even your flower light size and when the girls were sleeping, and you were less likely to be in the room.
This is just the case, they can detect the ballasts turning on or off.
Every appliance in your house has an energy signature, which is the combination of how many watts an appliance is using, and how quickly it turns on to use up all these watts.
It's called
appliance load monitoring, or
non-intrusive appliance load monitoring (NALM) in this case. (Oddly also referred to has NILM)
Check it out, I've posted this link a few times but no one really comments.
http://www.georgehart.com/research/nalm.html
That is the technology that they use to bust you.
Interestingly this page is from 1997, and it involves the old analogue type of meter. So basically they don't even need a smart meter on your house to get this info, but the smart meter has it built in, so that allows easier monitoring by computers, which changes the game a bit.
So if you do have a smart meter, and if you are in areas like Canada, where they changed the law to allow police to access power data without a warrant, then you may be vulnerable if you are showing any patterns.
And smart electrical grid is online this year! With no laws it allows the police to put in a data link to the electrical company, which will allow the police to sort the information through computers (IF THEY HAVE THE FUNDING!) This can actually be done rather cheaply, and would work on detecting patterns of use, and ballast signatures.
Then they just wait for the computer to build up a series of red flags against you, as it counts up the times it has potentially caught you up to no good. When they have enough data points to be sure, they'd be allowed to do a further investigation, either walking around your house, trashing your, or checking out your place with IR. They can also do knock and talks, but DO NOT OPEN YOUR DOOR TO POLICE EVER! (unless it's a very legitimate reason, like they have your kid on the doorstep, nothing can be set in stone)
Easiest way to get rid of this ability to detect you. 24 hour veg cycles, and 12 hour flip flop relays on your ballast.
FLIP FLOP RELAYS! Important! You must know what this is, if you don't already. A flip flop relay takes 1 ballast, and switches the power between 2 bulbs. So 1 ballast can run 2 1000w grows by switching the power every 12 hours exactly. This switch does not change power usage at all, there is no spike.
ALSO COST! A flip flop relay is typically $100 a ballast. So usually around $400 will get you a relay to run 4 ballasts, that's 8 lights, and no visible power usage!
BASELINE POWER USAGE! This will Increase when using flip flop relays and a 24hour veg cycle. If you checked out the page I linked, notice in the graphs how 0 power usage is never achieved, there is always a constant load on the lines coming from your house. Lots of things have lights, which use some power. The idea is you're building up this base power usage.
Now here's where it gets tricky. Baseline power usage being too high, can be reason for suspicion, but you can hide that with the 240v line (or maybe not, but you do allow more amps)
240v Your electric stove, washer and drier, all are usually hooked to a 240v line (high wattage appliances). Every house has 1. You CAN add others EASILY, but seriously read an electrical manual very well, and if you don't understand anything about it ASK LOTS OF QUESTIONS or call the damn electrician!
Now the benefit is your ballast uses half the amps on a 240v line. If it was using 8 or 9amps, it now uses 4-4.5amps, which is also how they measure power usage.
240v lines are CHEAPER! (people are contending that it is not cheaper, if you know an electrician ask them!)
But the 240v line still has another advantage.
Also your typical house has 150amps of draw, 100amps if it's small. That's 8-12 lights, but 16-24 lights with 240v, not counting any other appliances though, factor those in and it's more like 6-10 and 12-20.
So no on/off patterns, and lights on 240v lines to reduce baseline power signature, and cost!
