Electricity is the important one, it can't be stored in large quantities. The others it's just about meter reading and cutting you off for non-payme nt.
Water meters would be very difficult/expensive I should think.
That would help.
Ask those who fill a kettle with water every time they want to make a cup of tea or coffee.
Which completely misses one of the good reasons for water meters. Leak detection.
If your consumption rises from a few litres a day to many thousands, that could indicate a leak. The trouble with existing water meters is that they are in holes in the ground and not connected to anything other than the pipe. They have no way of alerting anyone. A smarter version that could tell the householder of unusually high consumption could help.
In a rather more big brother-ish way, if the water company could see that change in consumption they could investigate. A highly-metered water distribution system, which metered at every branch of the entire system, could both detect the fact of a substantial leak and narrow its location to quite a limited amount of pipework.
Yes, it would cost. Yes, we can have a gigantic thread about the merits versus the demerits. But if the government is pushing smart water and gas metering, and has any intention of implementing smart water metering, the number of meters would be substantially due to adding water. And it would make a lot of sense to ensure that the smart meter for gas and electricity could also handle a remote link to the water meter before they are installed.
For anyone who says electricity and water don't mix...
The state of the roads won't matter once they've finished converting every inch of them to a 20mph speed limit.
well the real issue is peak clipping.
There have been a couple of times that leccy prices peaked at up to 40p wholesale, for a few minutes.
getting rid of those is good
With speed bumps.
But for one small point: water companies don't much care about leaks.
If the electricity cables ran inside the water pipes they could use less copper :)
NT
Have you noticed the way the surface breaks up close to a hump? So not only do they cost thousands, but actually do damage to the roads.
They do since the regulator started imposing targets for reducing leaks, with the threat of fines if they are not met. They wouldn't otherwise be spending a fortune replacing Victorian pipes which - as I see day by day around here - is a major job.
It isn't just water companies that care. I do!
A couple of years or so ago we had a leak on our mains. Thames Water were OK about coming out and fitting a stop c*ck (we didn't have our own) - which included a fitting a meter. But I would have been very much happier to have known about it much earlier. What I thought was a bit of sogginess due to rain was actually caused by that leak. Had it carried on for very much longer it could well have washed away the support of our garage block.
In our circumstances then we could not be charged but if it happened in future, I think we could end up with a hefty water bill. Another reason that customers probably want to know about leaks!
The main culprit doesn't get any pocket money, if fact no one does.
In a family home I suspect the telly(s) and/or PC's on from 1600 to
0000 at a 100 W each make a quite a contribution to consumption.
PCs are gteting much better. My desktop PC which is a quad core I5 based system with 3Tb of hard disk, quite a ppowerful system, but it only uses about 20 watts. Also has the advantage that the fans don't run most of the time.
Excess traffic from the doggers watching the hump?
The one big problem is that there is no one design for a SMART meter so each company is working on its own model ... hoping theirs will be the final accepted version.
It is unfair on company's to be legislated to provide a Smart meter than nobody wants or needs, and against a time frame when there is no clear design.
This will be a horrendously expensive programme of works - and it will cost consumers for something that brings little benefit.
In case you think this will be by some clever signalling down the wiring, the SMART meter has a mobile data sim installed.
And there's the rub. Mate in Tooting wanted one. And they couldn't get a signal. Ordinary terraced house with the meter in a cupboard under the stairs. So doesn't look good if you live in the sticks.
Which will be as much use as a chocolate teapot at our house.
You can get a monitor for a fiver. It clamps on to a meter tail, and wi= relessly tells a large LCD display anywhere in your house what your cons= umption is. Why on earth would you need to change the meter for that?
I guess smart meters might save on meter reading, but I already send my = own readings in over the internet anyway. EDF's system emails me every =
6 months, I fill in the numbers, and that's it. No person employed at a= ll. It even adjusts my direct debit itself if required.-- =
Hard work pays off in the future. Laziness pays off now.
That's also a problem. There's quite a bit of SIM-connected telememtry equipment out there now which was expected to have a life of decades, which is all dying as the 2G technology it uses is being switched off by the network operators to convert to 4G bandwidth. The mobile data technologies have very short lives compared with the expected meter life.
I suspect the meters are made in the Far East, so there will be a worsening balance of payments to go along with the new imports of Chinese steel.
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