53 million Smart Meters?

I've been in intermittent talks with EDF about this for nearly three years. I say, perhaps now we can have a talking meter or at least a talking interfacce controller as you can now get from third parties for central heating. They say, all we can offer is wifi and large lcds. I say, but even tvs can talk now, it is not rocket science. They say, no call for it. I say, have you asked blind people? They say they will pass it down to the implementation team. If this scenario is being repeated over and over about other potential features etc, then its no wonder we are where we are now. Lots of waffle not much do. Brian

Perhaps we could rewrite that Katie Meluar song about bicycles? Brian

I can't see the benefit for most people. Is the government really expecting people to be looking at their meters every few hours to see what electricity they're using, and thereby cutting back? I can't see it happening. If people aren't aware of what kit uses how much electricity, they're unlikely to be interested in the usage at any one moment, or what is using it. If people are sufficiently interested, they either know what uses large amounts, or they can go out and buy a monitor that tells them.

The only useful smart meter would be one that can be interrogated remotely from some central computer, so that it's not necessary to employ someone to come and read it every six months.

It was rewritten.

Adam

And here it is.

Neither can Germany. They said they won't be doing it.

Tests have shown the effect lasts less than 3 months. Then it backfires when people realise that boiling a kettle, running the washing machine, etc costs vastly less than they would have guessed beforehand, they stop worrying about energy use and consumption goes up.

Not really.

The only real use is for reverse auction for supply, something the energy companies are not interested in at all. e.g. I auction my 500W base load - bid for the supply of that, and the cheapest bidder (or some other critera I choose) supplies it. (As a base load, I pay for it regardless if I use it or not, but get it at a cheaper rate than unpredictable loading.) I want to run my 3kW immersion heater for 2 hours every night - someone bid for that and they can choose the time it runs each night. I want to run my washing machine sometime in next 48 hours - someone else bids for that and specifies the time it runs.

None of the consumer side of smart metering is being rolled out at all.

It won't. I've studied my readings for a period to calculate what size radiations I will need (looking at energy put out by electric heaters).

After that, I don't give a XXXX.

Or if they are really tight on money and need to force-budget, there are key meters.

Remember when the meter reader came quarterly?

There are other objectives here I think - such as being able to ramp costs up and down in the day according to demand, as they will not be able to generate enough in a few years.

Looks to me like a typical case of a British Politician modus operandi:

- Maths/science and facts are for geeks - I didn't do that as part of PPE at Oxford, and ignoring it has never stopped me in the past

- I made a decision, and as bad as it may be, it would be better to continue regardless of the evidence, as stopping it would make me look bad and may prevent me from winning my seat at the next election

Aren't those expensive due to the tariffs?

I suspect you are correct. The looming darkness at the end of the tunnel is where the lights go off thanks to a lack of an energy policy and listening to the tree huggers.

Or I made an idiotic decision and am sure it's a great one, voters will love me for saving the planet and the other 98% of you that don't want to go along I'll coerce into doing so. Just another useless jerk that thinks they know best.

NT

an excellent summary - you should go into politics ;-)

That's what my wife says quite often ;-)

My ready-made answer to her is that I lack the very basic requirement though - the ability to look somebody straight in the eye and lie...

I wonder how many of our heading-towards-3rd-world-standards roads 11 billion would fix :)

The odd few will get electrocuted ...

if you need it re-written the guilty party is Mike Batt (of Wombles "fame")

tim

but that's because it requires smart appliances - which no-one makes, because no-one can use...

Which is the classic chicken and egg problem for which someone has to broker a solution (or not).

tim

As the consumer has show a complete aversion to road "tolling" there would be no way of collecting this extra 11 billion to fix the roads.

I can't see the leccy companies stumping it up via fuel bills (which is how it is going to be collected for this initiative)

tim

being on a key meter is the last way to solve a "tight budget" problem

tim

The Government already collects 10's of billions in taxes from motorists. They just choose not to spend it on the roads.