Another Smart meter grumble

[David]

I've booked my install because it is a requirement for the tariff I am on.

Nearly at the end they ask if you want information collecting every 30 minutes, weekly or monthly (IIRC).

Well, if I'm going to get any value at all I might as well have enough data to see daily trends.

Hang on, if I ask for 30 minute data capture I have to agree to EDF using the information to offer me services to improve my energy usage. So reversing the privacy options that I have selected.

I'm having data collected monthly.

Remind me again how this Smart meter is going to save me money?

Cheers

Dave R

[Max Demian]

Don't you have real time access to current consumption through your wizzy remote gadget? What else would you expect to see?

It won't.

[dennis]

By letting you use the tariff you are on.

[Michael Chare]

The Government is making the energy suppliers roll out smart meters, and imposes penalties if they fail.

So you are helping your supplier avoid this penalty which may reduce their costs which they are likely wanting to pass on to you.

[FMurtz]

It won't save money The purpose of smart meters is to make money for the provider

[Graeme]

But is that true? Assuming 'The Government is making the energy suppliers roll out smart meters, and imposes penalties if they fail' is correct, then is it fair to assume that the suppliers would not bother with smart meters if there was no Government pressure to install them? Should that be the case, are the suppliers really any more keen on these things that the consumers?

[harry]

The ultimate purpose of the smart meter is for our brave new world of renewable energy when tariffs will be continuously varied depending on availability of electricity. It will then be possible to make big savings.

[Martin Brown]

It might save you a few pounds if you seek out the main contributors to your base load once you can see it. If you already have an Owl or equivalent realtime power monitor then it merely allows your supplier to get a slightly smaller non-compliance with ridiculous target fine.

Personally I would not let them install a first generation smart meter in my home even if it could get a mobile signal to work which it can't.

[Martin Brown]

Probably just as disgruntled. Its a bit like DAB radio half cocked implementation rolled out too soon barely working, wrong technology and not interoperable so they turn dumb the first time you switch suppliers.

[Dave Liquorice]

Well apart from the OP switching to a tariff that requires a Smart Meter. These tariffs tend to be at the cheaper end of the scale.

The supplliers also like them as they don't have to send a team round to dig up the road or scale a pole to cut some one off. Does a Smart meter still carry the statutary requirement to be manually read every

6 (12?) months?

[Brian Gaff]

I would have thought the local terminal would let you know in real time, its only the analysis by edf which is done periodically Otherwise how on earth would tariffs like Economy 7 ever work on a smart meter. It has to be real time measuring surely or its pointless both for the supplier and yourself. Sounds to me like they don't understand their own kit. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

It only saves you money if you react to the real time readings of usage. I do have misgivings about the elderly being frightened by the huge consumption going on with some stuff, like heaters and cookers and putting their health at risk because of it. There needs to be some education here I feel.

I tell people who are getting one that its always been the way it looks on the remote device, its just that its now more 'in your face' unless you are a person who sits in their meter cupboard watching the disc going around and the needles moving, a pursuit probably only marginally less boring that current TV viewing these days. Brian

[Brian Gaff]

I was told the new ones are the ones that can do the job properly, and have updatable firmware. Not that I've been offered one since the talking terminal has not yet come in in sufficient quantities apparently. I guess if you go for faster data, then you can monitor it via a smart phone. For some reason they will not let you get the meter onto your network and hence be easy to get at on computers and phones. Is this perhaps a security issue, or more to do with trying to keep the calculation of the money as a black art? Brian

[Brian Gaff]

To be fair though, the big c*ck up in smart meter design and availability is not of the energy companies making. These were supposed to have been designed years ago by a company who got the contract. Its been a comedy of errors ever since. Brian

[Dave Liquorice]

Only if you let the tail wag the dog. Base load is base load, there is very little one can do about that unless you're still using incandescant light bulbs.

Our next largest consumer is cooking, normally takes place close or at the evening peak, odd that. Prices would have to be extremely dynamic and guaranteed to make me shift cooking very far. Say normal rate 15p kWHr and 1800 to 1830 50p kWHr but unless it was guranteed to be back down to 15p at 1831 and I could see what my tariff actually is, I'd just take the hit. No point in delaying the cooking

30 mins only to find that the next 30 mins is also 50p kWHr... I'd also need to see these guaranteed prices at least 24, or better 48 hours, in advance so things can be planned.

What would be more useful would be a dynamic E7 tariff. You still got your 7 hours reduced rate but those 7 hours could be split up into 30 min periods through out the day. There would have to be some guarantee that the overall energy "stored" never fell below "zero". ie an off period was never so long that it required more energy than that provided by the previous on/off periods.

[tabbypurr]

Almost everyone would take the hit. The suppliers will be smiling at getting 50p a unit for a peak hour each day. That of course is the point. And they will insist on blaming it entirely on the intransigent & sometimes irresponsible consumer. Perfect.

It would be pointless, and no supplier wants to slash prices like that.

NT

[Robin]

Ofgem decided in 2016

"to repeal the two-yearly meter inspection licence conditions in gas and electricity in their entirety. We consider other legal obligations to be more effective and efficient tools for achieving the policy objectives."

[Max Demian]

Would you really want your electricity supplier to have access to your home network? Are you (or anyone else) sure you would be able to stop them from seeing the contents of your hard drives?

[Jethro_uk]

So ?

If you have to use the resource at <x> time, then you have to - regardless of cost. Same principle as road pricing when it get s introduced. You can bet your life the most expensive times will be the times people have no choice to travel at (thanks to the religious adherence to "9-5" by employers).

[Mike Clarke]

And you'll have to pay ten times as much for each unit when the sun isn't shining and there's no wind (or even too much wind).