We are all required to have a "smart"meter installed on our house power. If you refuse, as I did, they offer to allow you to opt out, for more money, and install a smart meter that failed in switching tests instead. If you still refuse, as I did; in writing, with the engineering reasons included; they will sneak up while you are at work and replace it anyway! These units are poorly designed (I am an electrical engineer so I am NOT guessing), and present a real fire hazard as a direct result!
They are a design directly from the idiots in DC! They use a 1970s technology called and SCR (Silicone Controlled Rectifier); in a double back to back device called a TRIAC. These devices Can switch AC power, if designed properly. These meters are NOT designed right. My house uses 45,000 watts incoming, so the design has to handle that power level. There are new devices, that cut the heat sink size by half called IGBT ( Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors), but they are expensive.
I repair SCR based rectifier units in a 12 building plant here in Tulsa. They are three phase (More Efficient than house power) units, the size of a refrigerator (or much larger), with forced air cooling over heat sinks that fill half the enclosure. I repair them, because even with is large a heat sink, they sometimes burn up!
Enter the stupid meter...it has no air circulation, and is in a package about 7 inches in diameter. The only available heat sink is the copper wiring in your house. We lost power here last week, because of a house fire, that started at the meter! :(
This is just another power grab from DC, all puns intended! They allow real time monitoring of every house so equipped, and will lead (the only reason for the expenditure) to fines for power waste; per laws not on the books, YET! We need to fire all the fools that support this, and require their replacements to reverse this fecal matter! >:(