A specific question about smart meters

[spikey]

Our electricity meter is in a place which makes it ideal for replacement by a smart meter.  Our gas meter is in a box on the exterior wall.  We have a very strong O2 signal here, and an apparently acceptable one on the other networks.  I do not feel the need to wear a tinfoil hat, so have no qualms about hacking, snooping or anything else-ing.

 

Is there still any valid reason for us not to switch to SMETS2 meters for both utilities now in order to take advantage of a corresponding tariff reduction?

[AndrewC]

36 minutes ago, spikey said:

Our electricity meter is in a place which makes it ideal for replacement by a smart meter.  Our gas meter is in a box on the exterior wall.  We have a very strong O2 signal here, and an apparently acceptable one on the other networks.  I do not feel the need to wear a tinfoil hat, so have no qualms about hacking, snooping or anything else-ing.

 

Is there still any valid reason for us not to switch to SMETS2 meters for both utilities now in order to take advantage of a corresponding tariff reduction?

Apart from the rather fetching tin foil hat, there is no real reason not to switch if it is going to save you a bit of cash. We had little choice once the certification on the old meters expired. Depending on how your supplier sets things up, you can tune it to only send off the readings on a monthly basis. The newer models no longer have the limitation of being useless if you change suppliers. If it can't communicate, you just send the readings manually as you probably do already. Really, the only downside is from rampant paranoia. 

[JohnR]

Go for it. Many of the problems were over stated in the first place, and current ones are very good.

[APOLLO]

Just wait till peak demand pricing kicks in - you will think otherwise.

 

The current energy crisis will expedite this.

 

Brit15

[Tony_S]

3 hours ago, spikey said:

 

Is there still any valid reason for us not to switch to SMETS2 meters for both utilities now in order to take advantage of a corresponding tariff reduction?

I did wonder how the smart gas meter got its power to connect to the electricity meter which then transmits the readings to the supplier. It has a battery. So what if it goes flat I asked. Before it does it sends a signal asking to be replaced and someone comes and does it apparently. One of the issues at our house was that the gas meter (on an outside wall) is a long way from the electricity meter (in the garage ) but it was fine. Never had a problem. Seeing the daily cost  display reduce after we replaced some old device with a new low energy appliance was nice. 

[Tony_S]

16 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Just wait till peak demand pricing kicks in - you will think otherwise.

 

The current energy crisis will expedite this.

 

Brit15

If it does it does. I suspect the higher cost will be passed on some other way to those who don’t or can’t have smart meters. 

[Michael Hodgson]

4 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Just wait till peak demand pricing kicks in - you will think otherwise.

 

The current energy crisis will expedite this.

 

Brit15

Indeed.  Unfortunately it's only a matter of time till we're forced to have these things - there will come a point where suppliers will refuse to accept you as a customer.  Meters are required to be replaced every so many years (20 or 30 I think) and I expect the old technology will cease to be available for installation.  The recent price increases are a major political problem for the party in power come election day, as are "green issues" - governments will have to review not only immediate issues such as the level of the price cap and potential future price spikes, but also our reliance on imported fuels, the whole structure of delivering power and paying for it, including considerations like trading solar power from private houses to electric car charging.

 

The OP sees tariff as an incentive to install one. 

Another way of looking at it is to see it as a price penalty of you don't.

As far as he is concerned he is apparently better off to do now what we will all have to do sooner or later.  For now I'm sticking with the old clockwork meters.

[Michael Hodgson]

5 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

I did wonder how the smart gas meter got its power to connect to the electricity meter which then transmits the readings to the supplier. 

 

Not your problem! 

If it doesn't tell them you've used some gas, you won't have to pay for it - so rest assured they'll come and fix it.

[Tony_S]

13 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Not your problem! 

If it doesn't tell them you've used some gas, you won't have to pay for it - so rest assured they'll come and fix it.

Actually it would be my problem as if the smart (gas) meter is unpowered it will cut off the gas which is why I wanted to know what happened with the battery. It hasn’t been a problem yet. When it does need replacing, I will let RMWeb know  what happens too.

Edited October 8, 2021 by Tony_S

[AndrewC]

38 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Just wait till peak demand pricing kicks in - you will think otherwise.

 

The current energy crisis will expedite this.

 

Brit15

At that point people without smart meters will have their rate based on the peak price, or very nearly the peak. No win for you. Not much different than the old economy 7 rates. People will just throw their laundry on when they go to bed or at low rate times. 

 

Much the same as people who resisted water meters that ended up paying for the company's leakage as their bill was based on the average for their area's total consumption. Ours dropped by about 20% after the water meter went in. 

[Tony_S]

5 minutes ago, AndrewC said:

 

Much the same as people who resisted water meters that ended up paying for the company's leakage as their bill was based on the average for their area's total consumption. Ours dropped by about 20% after the water meter went in. 

We moved into this (new build) house when Property Rates had been replaced by Community Charge aka Poll Tax. So as the house hadn’t been “rated” we had to have a water meter. This soon turned out not to be a problem as our charges were about half what the neighbours were paying for unmetered water (their house being slightly older). We still know people locally who are convinced that they won’t be able to afford to flush the loo if they have a water meter fitted. 

[melmerby]

42 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 Meters are required to be replaced every so many years (20 or 30 I think) and I expect the old technology will cease to be available for installation. 

 

Here's a snip from the relevant Government information (Office for Product Safety & Standards)

 

"Meters for industrial and commercial customers are either certified or the supplier reaches agreement with the customer for a meter with a similar level of accuracy to be installed. Certification periods are allocated by OPSS and are restricted to 10 years for newly approved induction meters and for periods of between 10 and 20 years for static meters. Certification periods greater than 10 years (for static meters) are subject to the submission and validation of a component reliability model based on the Siemens Norm SN29500.

 

Subsequent in-service surveillance monitoring through the national sample survey or In-service testing can result in the certification life of a meter type being either extended or reduced. When certification is required meters must be removed from service when the certification period expires."

 

Our electricity meter is 26 years old & our gas meter is 22 years old.

Eon told us some years ago they were out of certification and would be replaced. We had a choice of Smart or Standard. We haven't heard anything since.

They were supposed to be replaced with Smart meters even longer ago and that came to nowt as well.

 

Government information indicates that 24% of gas meters tested were faulty and 7% of electric meters were incorrectly installed or of the incorrect type.

[30801]

1 hour ago, Tony_S said:

If it does it does. I suspect the higher cost will be passed on some other way to those who don’t or can’t have smart meters. 

 

Exactly. Those with dumb meters will simply be paying an average of peak & off-peak calculated by their supplier with no means to shift their own average towards the off-peak.

[Jonboy]

46 minutes ago, Tony_S said:

Actually it would be my problem as if the smart (gas) meter is unpowered it will cut off the gas which is why I wanted to know what happened with the battery. It hasn’t been a problem yet. When it does need replacing, I will let RMWeb know  what happens too.

We had one of the earliest versions at work on the gas meter and it went the best part of 10 years without the battery being changed before we moved out…

 

(We also had a digital electricity meter display stop working and had to go through a process of monitoring usage and agreeing a figure to pay for the time it was not working. We didn’t accept their first figure as a they were trying to compare late winter to late spring and it was a bit of a hassle, so we then went over to making sure every bill was actual reading rather than estimates to avoid a repeat).

[spikey]

Thank you gentlemen.  My lady wife has just decreed that "we might as well get it over with now then", so I can always blame her if in due course it turns out to have been the wrong decision

[Hroth]

11 minutes ago, spikey said:

Thank you gentlemen.  My lady wife has just decreed that "we might as well get it over with now then", so I can always blame her if in due course it turns out to have been the wrong decision

Get that in writing, you know who'll get it in the neck if its the wrong decision...

[Reorte]

In short there are still no fundamental reasons for having a smart meter, although there's the potential of deliberately contrived ones to push people in that direction.

 

It's pretty sad when people accuse those who find that level of recording of your behaviour paranoid or "tin foil hat wearing." It's perfectly possible to find that odious and unnecessary without believing it'll be further abused.

[spikey]

Just coming back to this as the OP to report that the chap from Ovo turned up exactly when he'd said he would when he phoned earlier to advise his ETA.  Total time on site 1hr 10 minutes to change both gas and electric meters, test both systems, and talk me through the display setup.   Totally painless process thanks to a very civil mask-wearing engineer, and the OVO site confirmed next morning that it was getting both readings, so alles seems to be in ordnung.

 

Judging by what the chap said, before long we might  have cause to rejoice that we went for it sooner rather than later ...

[Sir TophamHatt]

On 08/10/2021 at 16:08, Tony_S said:

We moved into this (new build) house when Property Rates had been replaced by Community Charge aka Poll Tax. So as the house hadn’t been “rated” we had to have a water meter. This soon turned out not to be a problem as our charges were about half what the neighbours were paying for unmetered water (their house being slightly older). We still know people locally who are convinced that they won’t be able to afford to flush the loo if they have a water meter fitted. 

 

Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty certain Severn Trent will fit a meter for free.

If you pay more than the normal rates, you can go back and ignore the meter.  It means the next people to move into the house WILL be on the meter so playing the long game from Severn Trent's point of view.

[PeterStiles]

re: "Actually it would be my problem as if the smart (gas) meter is unpowered it will cut off the gas which is why I wanted to know what happened with the battery."

 

They aren't allowed to do  that.

[KeithMacdonald]

What I want (what I really want) is not a "smart" meter that just sends the supplier my data, but a WiFi-enabled device that would let me collect my own data. I could do a lot more good that way.

[figworthy]

9 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

What I want (what I really want) is not a "smart" meter that just sends the supplier my data, but a WiFi-enabled device that would let me collect my own data. I could do a lot more good that way.

 

I made a similar point in another place sometime ago, and opinion was divided as to whether or not it was (then)  possible.

 

Adrian

[Zomboid]

It's entirely possible. This is is an American advert "comparing" various things, but they all allow you to monitor the electricity you're using on a per-circuit basis (the granularity depends where you can clip the transducers).

https://www.emporiaenergy.com/best-home-energy-monitor?gclid=CjwKCAjwoP6LBhBlEiwAvCcthFOxuq2_2hCL8qUkwQLsVQt-md_3RyZz97cl9jVbpy7OOzu28cH_9RoC5vEQAvD_BwE

[Sir TophamHatt]

I'm a bit surprised that technology isn't invading things like electricity, gas and water supplies around the home.

 

I've said for ages that I'd love some sort of recharagable battery that powers something that can send me a message when the power is off.  Obviously would have to be through mobile network as no power = no internet.

 

But then again, perhaps a little uninterruptable power supply that will power a router for 5 minutes would facilitate this.

Seems a lot of faff but could also open the doors for other avenues.

[30801]

10 minutes ago, Sir TophamHatt said:

I've said for ages that I'd love some sort of recharagable battery that powers something that can send me a message when the power is off.  Obviously would have to be through mobile network as no power = no internet.

 

They do seem to be things you can buy.

 

https://www.ultrasecuredirect.com/gsm-powercut-alarms-c411