hayfield Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 6 hours ago, PaulCheffus said: Hi It’s this that worries me as being diabetic I have to eat at certain times which are likely to be the peak times so I will be penalised for my illness. Cheers Paul Paul The scaremongering about the cost of cooking is quite outrageous* and only relates to electricity, its designed to stop people using high energy using machines at peak times. The problem is now to cover peak times it costs a fortune for that extra bit of the peak, the point is that those of us who can change our habits will reduce the cost to all users My son in law is considering buying a power bank (Battery system) to buy electricity when its cheap, to use (and resell) when its dear During a phone in someone claimed it cost them £5 to cook a chicken, well if you calculate how long you would have to leave an oven on to use £5 worth of kwh the chicken would come out as ash. The worst thing was the presenter accepting this false fact Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted March 28 Share Posted March 28 4 hours ago, hayfield said: During a phone in someone claimed it cost them £5 to cook a chicken, well if you calculate how long you would have to leave an oven on to use £5 worth of kwh the chicken would come out as ash. The worst thing was the presenter accepting this false fact It's 10PM and so far today we've used £4.89 of electricity. That's cooking all meals on electric plus the computer on all day with two 32" monitors. The computer is in the garden office which is heated by electric and it's been cold today. That chicken must be glowing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold Jonboy Posted March 29 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 29 19 hours ago, Michael Hodgson said: Is it even accurate ? It says the display unit showing how much you're using has to be working or you may get estimated bills. I thought that all they needed to get their data was the actual meter on the wall and its comms, and the display unit was merely a convenient accessory that the user could look at or ignore as he sees fit. so as mentioned a few months back our electric meter isn’t sending readings and my energy providers customer services made promises to get someone to call back about arranging a time to replace it, that didn’t happen. Had reason to do a subject access request for other billing issues (won’t go into them here) and in there it reveals they have blocked replacement for a year, as they currently get fined by ofgem for removing smart meters under their rollout rules, even if they don’t work and are replaced with another one…it’s bizarre. 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hodgson Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 6 minutes ago, Jonboy said: Had reason to do a subject access request for other billing issues (won’t go into them here) and in there it reveals they have blocked replacement for a year, as they currently get fined by ofgem for removing smart meters under their rollout rules, even if they don’t work and are replaced with another one…it’s bizarre. If you have evidence of a supplier following that policy, it sounds like a practice Ofgem should be investigating 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 1 hour ago, Jonboy said: so as mentioned a few months back our electric meter isn’t sending readings and my energy providers customer services made promises to get someone to call back about arranging a time to replace it, that didn’t happen. Had reason to do a subject access request for other billing issues (won’t go into them here) and in there it reveals they have blocked replacement for a year, as they currently get fined by ofgem for removing smart meters under their rollout rules, even if they don’t work and are replaced with another one…it’s bizarre. I think if they fail to turn up you are due compensation (my son in law got paid by BT for a missed appointment) Complain to OFGEM Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 Just out of interest I got an email from Octopus suggesting I increase my DDI (despite being in credit) and stating if I wanted to change it back they gave a link back to my accounts DDI section to alter it back. Sadly it would not change, so I phoned and they apologized and reset it immediately. In my case my DDI payment is 3 days after the billing event, plus their algorithm certainly does not include my solar panel exports and perhaps the radical decrease in usage in the spring, autumn and summer months. So far this week I only have to pay for a third of my energy usage (plus standing charges) so when the sun shines it makes a lot of difference to me and my system is quite small!! But it has kept my payments the same for 4 years Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JJGraphics Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 Red Devil said, "Smart meters have to be the most idiotically named items ever ....." Agree 100% with that. In my experience a significant proportion of things which have "Smart" in their name are anything but. Some are useful and work well, but a lot are just "got to have" items which contribute nothing much of use to life that anyone with a normal amount of common sense could not achieve for themselves. John 1 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 4 hours ago, JJGraphics said: Red Devil said, "Smart meters have to be the most idiotically named items ever ....." Agree 100% with that. In my experience a significant proportion of things which have "Smart" in their name are anything but. Some are useful and work well, but a lot are just "got to have" items which contribute nothing much of use to life that anyone with a normal amount of common sense could not achieve for themselves. John John Quite a lot of folk think the cheap giveaway display box is the smart meter, being cheap their life span is limited and not replaced by the energy companies, mine has been trying to die but it still relays correct data Something like 4 years ago we had both meters changed and a smart system fitted, about a year later I noticed we were not using much gas despite being mid winter. It took me a while to get them to send someone out, and at the beginning the engineer said all was working fine, half an hour later seeing how hard our central heating was working he changed his tune The smart meter was working correctly sending data every 15 mins, it was the dumb system and agents that did not realize more often than not it was sending zero readings, despite me telling them my central heating was working full blast, when challenged they said I had a very efficient boiler. The culprit was the gas meter itself, sending intermittent readings. The smart part was doing its job. I have to have a smart metering system as we have solar panels, glad to say its doing its job. We also have a smart thermostat (Tado) Saves us quite a lot of money each year , this year we have invested in making it even smarter. Had the system 7 years and a great asset Most of us have cars with smart systems and sensors all over the place, I guess somethings are less smart than others, some may even be quite dumb. My phone satnav even remembers I go to Colchester on Tuesdays, agreed many things smart gadgets are easy to do but make life much easier, in fact our smart phones are much better at remembering phone numbers than we are Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyPenguin Posted March 29 Share Posted March 29 We have solar panels & no "smart" meter, also, we get paid for what we produce if we use it or not. I could not resist posting this ; 2 10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 11 hours ago, GrumpyPenguin said: We have solar panels & no "smart" meter, also, we get paid for what we produce if we use it or not. I could not resist posting this ; You are on an old system designed to get people in the early years of home solar energy to take up the system. Feed in tariffs have not been available for years and became less valuable income wise as the cost of installation has dropped dramatically. Smart systems thankfully are here to stay, and the cartoon shows how stupid some are by starting machines as the tariff goes up, amusing yes, accurate no Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GrumpyPenguin Posted March 30 Share Posted March 30 5 hours ago, hayfield said: You are on an old system designed to get people in the early years of home solar energy to take up the system. Feed in tariffs have not been available for years and became less valuable income wise as the cost of installation has dropped dramatically. Smart systems thankfully are here to stay, and the cartoon shows how stupid some are by starting machines as the tariff goes up, amusing yes, accurate no We are indeed (thankfully) on a FIT & have (IIRC) another 10 years to go. We will resist the installation of any so called "smart" systems in our home for as long as possible. Personally I feel that there is far too much intrusion &/or control into our lives - our privacy is being erroded bit by bit. If I want I can track our electrical consumption/generation by the minute with the software provided with our PV/battery storage system, but I'm not that sad. The carton I posted was meant to be in humour (although I do know a few people who have "smart" meters who arrange their whole lives around them. Lets just "agree to disagree" & leave it at that ? 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ouroborus Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 (edited) We have a dumb meter. Around 12 years ago, we had solar installed under the FIT scheme and get paid for this. Two years ago we had the capacity doubled with further panels. The FIT payment remains the same, it's based on the first set of panels. The statement that you "have" to have smart meter installed for a solar install is untrue. And if you think there isn't any truth in the cartoon, have a gander here : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_Heat_Incentive_scandal?wprov=sfla1 The RHI scheme that paid people to turn their heating on and leave it on. The more you heated your home, the more they paid you. Edited March 31 by Ouroborus 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted March 31 Share Posted March 31 (edited) 2 hours ago, Ouroborus said: We have a dumb meter. Around 12 years ago, we had solar installed under the FIT scheme and get paid for this. Two years ago we had the capacity doubled with further panels. The FIT payment remains the same, it's based on the first set of panels. The statement that you "have" to have smart meter installed for a solar install is untrue. Firstly I was talking about new systems, then some people cannot connect to the system, thirdly off the grid has no metering I was referring to be able to get the best rates, plus I believe all meters now being fitted are smart meters, whether they are connected or not Re Renewable Heat Incentive, Politics gone mad. Edited March 31 by hayfield Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium phil-b259 Posted April 4 RMweb Premium Share Posted April 4 Energy costs: Smart meter left woman, 87, scared to turn on heat - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckk77v4wvr0o Older article Smart meters: Almost three million still not working - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-67591320 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hayfield Posted April 4 Share Posted April 4 (edited) On 04/04/2024 at 08:42, phil-b259 said: Energy costs: Smart meter left woman, 87, scared to turn on heat - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckk77v4wvr0o Older article Smart meters: Almost three million still not working - BBC News https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-67591320 Its a great pity that firstly we have to endure in my opinion miss/lazy reporting, then people fail to read it,and make their own opinion on the facts, Taking the second report first Nearly 3 million people with faulty meters, of that under 3 million units 2.750,000 were turned off, all that means is they were not in smart mode, not faulty !!! When my smart tv is turned off its not faulty but just turned off !! Less than 250,000 meters were faulty, which I guess when there are probably 20 million in operation is not a bad ratio. But then how many of these smart meters have a fault on the smart box or are they just faulty meters ?, I have been told the same meters are used for smart and non smart installations, which explains why so many are turned off The first report is very disturbing, and when you read the report fully it has nothing to do about the smart meter ( which when checked, all meters were working correctly) but it highlights that in this country need energy advice. The report would be much better if the title had it highlighted this, which when reading the article fully was seemingly the real issue, especially as reported the meter was working correctly When smart meters are used properly, they could (and should) have shown up the issue long before a major problem was caused. Firstly in June last year, when she received a bill of £600 despite the warm weather something is clearly wrong, why was the bill so high was the question which should have been explored. This should have set the alarm bells ringing. Secondly look at the date on the bill which is shown to be January!!! and much lower than the summer bill. This is one of the highest cost months of the year so everyone should expect high usage, Looking at the bill Gas usage, it looks very low (when it should be high), where as electricity looks very high *. Sadly the report misses the real issue of why the July bill was so high !!, which was the catalyst that started the sad state of affairs Then reading on the lady was using electricity to heat the room rather than gas (which is four times less expensive) unfortunately this was compounding the issue . The problem was not the smart meter but the energy provider not understanding what the customer was asking (Why is my bill so high in June, and presumably after) Clearly the lady spotted the issue in June, but when did she contact here provider, elderly people should be treated with an additional duty of care as they are with financial products. There is a lot more to this case than is reported and it seems, she would benefit with some advice about using energy. This a reminder to all of us in an advanced age (myself included) if we are concerned about anything ASK. The worst thing to do is do nothing Octopus Energy said although both Mrs Bowen’s old and new meters "have been working correctly", they would do additional testing on the device. So it was clearly not a faulty smart meter, plus we have wiped her £305 account debt *(I had the opposite issue and it took me ages to get British Gas to check my gas meter, as it happened the smart feature was working correctly but the dumb part was faulty) Thank you for allowing me to use my brain actively this morning, which apparently is good for my brains health Edited April 5 by hayfield 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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