53 million Smart Meters?

homes AND small businesses

tim

Has anyone even agreed the tariff regime which might be implemented to take advantage of this potential mechanism?

Chris

How many boil a kettle just for the fun of it? Do a washing load because they're bored and it didn't need doing?

If you had electric heating an the meter told you that lowering the temperature would save you money, some might take notice. But do they really need to be told that leaving things on when not needed wastes money?

There was a program on Radio 4 around lunchtime on this. Suppliers said they'll offer variable charging tarrifs when there are more people on smart meters. Austrialia has been offering them for 5 years and there's only a 1% uptake. I think they said 39% of those who switched to them found themselves worse off.

Also, tarrifs changing through the day will only apply to electricity. There is no variation in gas prices through the day, as the pressurised supply pipework stores several days worth of gas.

The other thing the program mentioned is that there's still no agreement between suppliers on smart meter technology to be used, so at the moment, you need to assume your smart meter will become a dumb meter if you switch supplier.

I don't think there are 53 million households in the UK.

reamining: 1741

Installers: 5074

Read it again.

True, but the vast majority of homes will have both gas and electricity meters as will many businesses. Add them all up and you could get 53 million.

Yeah, I've never quite understood why anyone would choose to have a pre-payment meter. But I guess those that have them have them don't have a choice as they can't get credit or have failed to pay in the past.

Without any linked, automatic, method of load shedding when the price is high all the adjusting the rate for the consumer is going to do is make the costs totaly unpredictable. Even if you could load shed I doubt the savings will be that great.

In this household my ration fo switching lights on to switching lights off is about 1:4... And it's the smaller loads that are on for a long time that really bump up the bill.

Smart meters arent about load shedding, they are about charging a different rate for the power you use depending on the time of day you use that power.

I was driving in parts of Yugoslavia in 1990 when the country was still getting used to its new freedom (but unknowingly, only a few weeks from civil war breaking out). A lack of money meant that about

On Thursday, I drove around the M25, and it was exactly the same.

Building roads is about the most profitable thing the government does, with around a 5-fold return on cost of new roads and maintenance through motoring taxes.

Many also have water meters...

Unless you have no credit rating in which case it's the only tarrif anyone will offer you...

Is there anything you can't get wrong? The impact assessment of UK smart meters devotes a lot of words, figures and references to the benefits from load shifting as well as time-of-use tariffs; and reflects such benefits in the costs and benefits.

I'm not saying I believe all the savings will be realised but at least they have *not* scored the more optimistic benefits which might come with, eg, dynamic tariffs, remote control of appliances, and greater use of heat pumps with storage capacity.

Increase their pocket money but get them to pay a part of the leccy bill. ;-)

Yes. Many say it's only lights - but most devices in the home other than heating don't tend to take a lot of current for long.

We'll see...

The impact assessment of UK

Load SHIFTING isn't the same thing as load SHEDDING.

There is only one reason for smart meters, MONEY, they would not bother if they were not going to get more money out of the consumer.(Or save money by not having to update supply equipment)

So you divide the number of meter change visits by three?

Can't see them changing every water meter on expense grounds. Also water caqn be stored as can gas so smart metering is not relevent.