Smart meters health & safety
Ensuring safety
There are exposure limits in place for the protection of the public, set by completely independent international bodies. ESB Networks ensure that all exposures from smart meters comply with these independent safe exposure limits. In fact, because the exposures from smart meters are so low, they comply by a large margin.
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Technology
Smart meters measure your consumption in the same way that any other modern digital meter does. They then send this information to ESB Networks using basically, mobile-phone technology. So you can think of the information as being sent in a text message.
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Exposures
Smart meters produce low levels of radiofrequency EMFs, because the power of the transmission is low, the meter transmits data only in infrequent short bursts, and you are not usually right next to the meter when it transmits.
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Scientific evidence
There has been some concern about possible health effects of radiofrequency EMFs, especially the higher exposures from mobile phones. Numerous scientific studies have been performed. Taken as a whole, the evidence does not support any health effects. Some individual studies do indeed report effects, but the overall evidence is against.
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