This is a diagram of the data flow.
I'm not sue if 'snoop' is the right word, but a number of companies including Capita, O2 (Telefonica) the DNOs, energy suppliers and "other authroised parties" have some access to your energy and or smart appliance usage profile.
There is also a level of control possible, e.g. to cut off the supply or feedback to smart appliances, although that's rare at the moment, but could include a link to a smart electric car charger in the future, etc.
As to why and what is done with the data, there are several reasons from several interested parties (copied):
- Suppliers
- Meter readings - for billing purposes
- Half Hourly readings - for additional services or sophisticated products
- Maintenance messages about the health of the meter - such as memory problems
- Firmware messages - to update the software in the meter
- Configuration messages - to set up new products
- Pay As You Go messages - to top up PAYG credit
- Tamper messages - to detect theft and security attacks
- Export meter readings - to measure how much electricity your solar cells or wind turbine is passing back to the network for load management and to credit the customer depending on the commercial arrangement.
- Distribution Network Operators
- Power outage messages - to know when and where outages occur
- Meter readings - for network billing to suppliers
- Half Hourly readings - for network load planning
- Voltage, Current and Power Factor readings - for network operation and planning.
- Export meter readings - for network operation and planning.
- Other Authorised Parties
- Meters readings - to analyse and show you your energy usage
- Half Hourly readings - to analyse and show you your particular energy profile shape.
The final why comes down to money, if the various parties can optimise their systems they gain from the info.
Almost all companies that deal with a lot of data spend a lot of money on analytics to 'profile' their customers. eBay have 2 massive data centres just to look at what you buy, click on, how long you spend on each page, etc so they can give you the best adverts and the best 'suggested other items' that will make them the most money. The same with supermarkets when you use the same credit card or a loyalty card to shop with them.
So it depends on if you mind the above companies knowing your usage profile. Analytics are never 100%, but you can bet as the technology matures companies will be using your usage profile to make a best guess at what kind of heating you have, if you work from home or not, how big your household is, if you have an electric car or not, if you cook with electricity or gas, how do you heat your water, when you are home, what kind of lighting you mainly use (from the power factor), etc.
Advertising and selling the data onto other companies who use it to look at target markets is the usual motivation for doing this.
There are cases of people in the US where their equivalent of the DNO has cut off the power to homes as they have determined a storm is coming and it would be safer to do so. People have confirmed the supply to the meter is still live, but the meters have been shut off. Maybe this is good and saves electrical fires from starting or maybe it's annoying to have your freezer turned off as someone else thinks a storm is coming?
