Smart Meter = smart move?

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, Silver Sidelines said:

As with so many things today - no joined up thinking.  You can have a properly insulated building or you can have a Smart meter but in areas with weak wirelss signals - don't expect both.

 

Still happy with my over 100 years old building with no smart meter or mobile reception inside - I feel ever luckier to have that!

[jbqfc]

On 23/08/2019 at 19:41, jbqfc said:

my wife without me  knowing book to get one fitted 

well they turned up today took one look at our electric meter oh dear mate cannot fit it 

we have storage heaters so our meter has 5 out puts instead of the normal 4 

you need a special meter will have to order one could be 10 -15 weeks 

will phone to make new appointment 

a win hopefully they will forget about us 

 

John 

 

 

they started to pester us again so made a booking telling them that we needed a special meter

guess what turned up today same fitter as last time nope cannot fit it not got the right meter 

he told me do not book another appointment they have not got a f@$king clue to what is going on 

 

John 

[Reorte]

I had them turn up a few months ago (just before lockdown) to change the meter (not to a smart meter), the fitter said that smart meters don't work properly with my consumer unit anyway, for some reason no-one seems to know that particular model keeps getting tripped by smart meters. That was a new one for me!

 

[big jim]

I’ve just had a year of being supplied by a company (EDF) who couldn’t use our existing smart meter as it’s a first generation one so I’ve swapped back to the company I was with when it was fitted (OVO) so it can be used again

 

out of protest I didn’t send any meter readings in for the year I was with EDF As they didn’t tell me when switching the meter was useless, sent one in today so it will be interesting to see if I’m in credit or debt with them when I swap at the end of the month 

[J. S. Bach]

My smart meter has been in service for about four years now (installed on 02nov16) and has given absolutely no problems (watch it blow out as soon as I hit the submit reply button! ) so I can not complain.

Old meter:

 

 

smart meter:

 

Note that I collect meters but could not get my old one.

 

 

Edited September 3, 2020 by J. S. Bach

[Pannier Tank]

14 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

My smart meter has been in service for about four years now (installed on 02nov16) and has given absolutely no problems (watch it blow out as soon as I hit the submit reply button! ) so I can not complain.

 

During that period has the Smart Meter saved you any money?

[GeoffAlan]

On 16/11/2019 at 01:00, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I think the V2s were more useful than the V1s...........

 

A friend on the technical side of metering tells me:-

Gen' 1 were dire, service provider unfriendly if you changed provider you may well need another meter, and generally useless.

Gen' 2 are a little better, but not good enough to have been released to general use.

and...

Gen' 3, currently in development, 'might work', if we're lucky.

 

Apparently the issue was that there was zero central control, with individual companies originally going their own sweet way, with many seeing non-compatibility with other providers as a positive, locking customers with them forever. The gibberment tried to get them onto an inter-operable track for Gen' 2, but failed. 

 

His prediction is that Gen' 3 won't be too bad, but still far from perfect and, if I can, I should hold off on having one fitted until Gen' 3 is available. The mobile signal issue is one that will dog them to the end. His boss has a 3rd generation in his home as a Beta test, and so far, so bad!

Edited September 4, 2020 by GeoffAlan
grammar

[Ron Ron Ron]

55 minutes ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

During that period has the Smart Meter saved you any money?

They won’t save you any money, unless you are proactive and start reducing your electricity consumption, usually based on watching the meter ticking over at a rate of knots when your own domestic demand is high.

[J. S. Bach]

1 hour ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

During that period has the Smart Meter saved you any money?

I noticed no real difference but then I am quite conservative in electricity usage. Most things stay off (unplugged if they have a parasitic load; think pilot lights, instant on, etc. here).

[J. S. Bach]

On 15/11/2019 at 20:00, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I think the V2s were more useful than the V1s...........

The V2s certainly did more damage.

[Hroth]

Just now, J. S. Bach said:

The V2s certainly did more damage.

 

But the V2s were almost as effective as the A3s!

 

 

[Phil Himsworth]

Our smart meter has saved us a significant amount of money, mainly through allowing time-of-use tariffs.

 

A few years ago our daily routine saw us using very little power in the peak hours of 4-7pm, so a TOU tariff that was more expensive when we weren't using power but cheaper when we were took a decent chunk out of our bills.

 

Then we bought an EV, and this is where it took off. We moved to the Octopus Go tariff, which means normal prices most of the day but 5p/kwh for four hours, normally overnight; running the dishwasher and charging the car during these times slashed our bills enormously compared with what they would have been otherwise.

 

Now we are on an experimental tariff called Octopus Go Faster, which shifts the cheap period to 8:30pm - 12:30am, so we're able to charge the car, do washing, run the dishwasher and often cook dinner all during the cheap period. We don't use much electricity at other times, so overall the average cost of a unit is about half of what it would be. As this is an experimental tariff they also give us £5 a month back for reasons I don't understand but am happy to live with :-)

 

The other month they even paid us to use electricity for a couple of hours on a Sunday morning. I imagine the main fuse was glowing...

 

It is a SMETS1 meter and has no issues since fitting. The in-home display is rubbish, so we don't use it, but other than that I can't fault the meter or supplier.

[Pannier Tank]

1 hour ago, Phil Himsworth said:

Our smart meter has saved us a significant amount of money, mainly through allowing time-of-use tariffs.

 

A few years ago our daily routine saw us using very little power in the peak hours of 4-7pm, so a TOU tariff that was more expensive when we weren't using power but cheaper when we were took a decent chunk out of our bills.

 

Then we bought an EV, and this is where it took off. We moved to the Octopus Go tariff, which means normal prices most of the day but 5p/kwh for four hours, normally overnight; running the dishwasher and charging the car during these times slashed our bills enormously compared with what they would have been otherwise.

 

 

 

Having just ordered a PHEV I'll be keeping a closer eye on electric usage, I will have a look around for time-of-use tariffs.

[30801]

14 minutes ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

Having just ordered a PHEV I'll be keeping a closer eye on electric usage, I will have a look around for time-of-use tariffs.

 

Even at normal rate it'll cost you about a quarter of what petrol would.

[boxbrownie]

2 hours ago, Phil Himsworth said:

Our smart meter has saved us a significant amount of money, mainly through allowing time-of-use tariffs.

 

A few years ago our daily routine saw us using very little power in the peak hours of 4-7pm, so a TOU tariff that was more expensive when we weren't using power but cheaper when we were took a decent chunk out of our bills.

 

Then we bought an EV, and this is where it took off. We moved to the Octopus Go tariff, which means normal prices most of the day but 5p/kwh for four hours, normally overnight; running the dishwasher and charging the car during these times slashed our bills enormously compared with what they would have been otherwise.

 

Now we are on an experimental tariff called Octopus Go Faster, which shifts the cheap period to 8:30pm - 12:30am, so we're able to charge the car, do washing, run the dishwasher and often cook dinner all during the cheap period. We don't use much electricity at other times, so overall the average cost of a unit is about half of what it would be. 

 

There are downsides when the higher rate is active though eh? 

[Michael Hodgson]

5 hours ago, Pannier Tank said:

 

During that period has the Smart Meter saved you any money?

Of course not,  It does what every other meter does, it tells you how much you've used.  If you want to save money on on your leccy bill, just turn something off. 

 

They reason the industry want them is it saves them the cost of meter readers.  At the moment I believe you still have a right to refuse to have one, but that will change.  As i understand it meters must be taken away for recalibration (which in practice means replacing them) every 20 or 30 years.  Once everybody is on smart meters they will start charging us more per kW/hr in the peak than in quiet periods which you can't do with the old clockwork jobs.

 

Just don't get me started on intelligent water meters.  They dug up the street putting them in for everybody and my next bill was for a grand.  When I challenged that, a man came round and said the idiots have put it in back to front, so they came back to dig it up and refit then I got a similar bill.  This time they said it's outside your property but that's not the pipe to your house - it's on the feeder to  several other houses further down they street - so they were billing me for all the neighbour's water (as well as billing them!).  They then said we'll have to do a proper survey of the pipes round here ... but nothing has happened so I'm the only one in the street still paying for my water based on the rateable value!  Given how much I water the garden, I'm probably better off with that than with actual usage.

[jbqfc]

On 03/09/2020 at 17:58, jbqfc said:

 

they started to pester us again so made a booking telling them that we needed a special meter

guess what turned up today same fitter as last time nope cannot fit it not got the right meter 

he told me do not book another appointment they have not got a f@$king clue to what is going on 

 

John 

 

yep they haven't got a clue got an Email today welcoming me to my new smart meter and to rate how the fitting went 

 

John 

[30801]

5 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

They reason the industry want them is it saves them the cost of meter readers. 

 

But they've done that simply by not having meter readers....

[woodenhead]

It's Government mandated and paid for in our energy bills, nothing about saving the energy companies money, we're paying for them whether installed or not.

[PatB]

7 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

The V2s certainly did more damage.

But neither was as effective as the later Town Planning Committee superweapon. 

[JJGraphics]

13 hours ago, 30801 said:

 

But they've done that simply by not having meter readers....

 

We don't have a smart meter and have not seen a meter reader for getting on for three years. We've changed supplier twice in that time and just submit our readings online.

 

Having a smart meter would save us nothing as we only use what we need.

 

John

Edited September 5, 2020 by JJGraphics
Add further comment

[JJGraphics]

12 hours ago, woodenhead said:

It's Government mandated and paid for in our energy bills, nothing about saving the energy companies money, we're paying for them whether installed or not.

 

Mandated by nodding Government donkeys following the EU as usual. The first two types of meters have had very mixed results and the reliability has varied from good to useless. Maybe they'll get it right with the SMETS 3, or maybe they won't. Whatever, it costing us a fortune like most Government cock-ups do!

 

John

 

 

Edited September 5, 2020 by JJGraphics
Correct typo

[hayfield]

29 minutes ago, JJGraphics said:

 

Mandated by nodding Government donkeys following the EU as usual. The first two types of meters have had very mixed results and the reliability has varied from good to useless. Maybe they'll get it right with the SMETS 3, or maybe they won't. Whatever, it costing us a fortune like most Government cock-ups do!

 

John

 

 

 

 

We had a smart meter fitted last year (apparently one of the new universal use ones) and it does make us think about what we use in energy. Earlier on in the year we had an issue with very low gas readings during the winter period. We queried this and were told all was working correctly, obviously it was not and after a lot of pressure they investigated it

 

Now the smart meter part of the system was working as it should, but the new gas meter they fitted was faulty, as it was incorrectly registering the amount of gas used. The smart part was fine.

 

I must admit getting accurate bills every time is far better than estimated ones. Thumbs up from me

[steve W]

56 minutes ago, JJGraphics said:

 

Mandated by nodding Government donkeys following the EU as usual. The first two types of meters have had very mixed results and the reliability has varied from good to useless. Maybe they'll get it right with the SMETS 3, or maybe they won't. Whatever, it costing us a fortune like most Government cock-ups do!

 

John

 

 

Yes and No. 

Yes, it is an EU mandate which lays down some energy efficiency goals, but how and much in terms of scope and deployment is very much down to individual countries.  so No we are not just rubber stamping the EU rules which provide a lot of flexibility in this case:-

Quote "The overall successful roll-out of smart meters across the EU is dependent on criteria largely decided by Member States however. This includes regulatory arrangements, and the extent to which the systems to be deployed will be technically and commercial interoperable, as well as guarantee data privacy and security. There is also no EU-wide consensus yet on the minimum range of operations required by smart meters.) https://ses.jrc.ec.europa.eu/smart-metering-deployment-european-union

 

The original Europe wide studies, concluded there was no particular technical justification for a full national rollout programme (including in the UK) in most countries.  I think it was only Spain that was identified as an exception, having good technical and economic reasons and they went for a country wide meter replacement project (no choice, you had to have one fitted. In fact they didn't ask, they told you, then came and did it) My mate up in the southern mountains didn't realise he had had one fitted for several months.

 

Despite the technical evidence to the contrary, good old Blighty decided to go with the nationwide concept and added bells and whistles to the original idea, deciding also that a centralised government computer was  required.

Unlike all the other countries we are unique, I think, in getting the energy retailers to roll out the system rather than the companies actually responsible for the distribution  i.e.  energy shopkeepers rather than those with the technical knowledge.  Therefore, it is not surprising that being landed with the job (and penalties for not doing it in a limited time frame) and with seemingly no clearly mandated national technical specification, the retailers rushed to buy meters from the various makers without regard to the technicalities.  It was also not surprising that they would not talk to each other, let alone, at that time, the non-existent Gov computer that was meant to be the central anchor. 

These companies were good at 'selling' though, hence all the mostly false initial 'save you money' advertising which has probably done this entire project more harm than anything else.

 

The central computer is not in itself a bad idea.  Meter data to computer, relayed to supplier for billing,  block usage data to the generators and distributors and statisitical data for government analysis and green credential trumpeting. 

It's a pity the whole thing wasn't fully detailed before they started the introduction.

A bright spark somewhere saw that these things could identify the bits of our distribution system that were running close to the red line at times and it didn't take a genius to invent variable pricing tarrifs as a cheap way to defer/avoid costly infrastructure investment.  With the onset of electric vehicle charging, variable tarrifs could even be beneficial.  See, there is a bright(ish) light to this project, a very small and expensive bright light admittedly.

Yes, it will be costing us a fortune and continue to do so.

 

[spikey]

10 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

 

We had a smart meter fitted last year (apparently one of the new universal use ones) and it does make us think about what we use in energy ... I must admit getting accurate bills every time is far better than estimated ones ...

 

I don't understand.  Why did it take the installation of a smart meter to make you think about your energy usage?  And why were you getting estimated bills every time?