Florida Power & Light peak demand control boxes

 ".....
(florida power and light) has a program where they attach control boxes
to a customers appliances so they can 'brown them out' in times of peak
demand for a brief period.  The customer gets a discount on their bill
for allowing this.  These control boxes are sent commands over the power
lines. ...and ...use a 154 MHz range
control receiver with a loop antenna in the PVC box......"

the above is from a post some years ago, describing the program FPL runs
in S. Florida (and perhaps the rest of the state)

my question is this, if I switch off the FPL grid and go on generator power,
will the control box kill my generator feed for the pool pump, water heater and
air conditioner? my generator covers the entire house, not just some part of it.

I've asked FPL and I've asked their contractor who does the install and they
don't
know!

 

Since the appliances are recieving a RF signal over the wire.
The interlock for the generator will kill that signal.Unless ,of course, you
are generating that signal yourself at the generator.
TXU and numerous other utilities have used a sub carrier over light lines
for decades.
Can remember some home doing that as well with intercoms.You plug one unit
in a wall here and the other in a wall there.
And the home wiring carrys the rf signal.Light companies did it to reduce
phone bills on interoffice/shop calls.In later years
they added a call forwarding version of the 1-800- number....You call the
light company about lightening strike that had a transformer
leaping off a pole.And the central office picksup hundreds of miles away on
the service call..Unknow to you is that 90% of the wire
the phone call ran over was powerline as a sub carrier.They also do that
with data as well....as among other things your control boxes will
confirm.Meters are another of the growing data  over powerline uses.It isn't
just company computers talking to each other on an ethernet sub carrier
anymore.




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 Arnold Walker wrote:

allow me to confirm, as I did not understand all of your reply.

I have no idea what an "interlock for the generator" means? or how I would be
signaling such myself.

my generator startup requires me to transfer off the FPL Main at which point the
gen
can be started and it runs my multi-stage heat pump on stage1 (cooling like an
AC), as
well as the rest of my house.

since the signaling devices are still attached to the AC, water heater and pool
pump,
how are these devices "aware" that I have come off FPL Main ?

 

    All rf signals have a propagation limitation of the inverse cube of the
distance. The signal can't be very strong as it is expected that the
radiator (antenna) which is the power line will be connected directly to the
appliance. Kill the power far away enough, and the box will not be able to
sense the signal. You could build a grounded Faraday Cage around the sensors
if they still trip. HTH.

 

Oh? :-)

Nick