Better to have a real smart meter or dumb smart meter?

[Mark Carver]

My main fuse (and millions of others) is external to the house.

[alan_m]

So, don't have a smart meter and the utility company will charge you less.

Long before smart meters there was a meter replacement scheme with a target of 10 years.

I agree that we are paying a lot but smart meters are not going away and there is currently no £440 cost saving for rejecting one.

The choice for the OP is to have a smart or dumb meter as a replacement.

[N_Cook]

OK my really really smart meter (It told me I had an old PVR on standby , to avoid manually resetting its clock each month or so of sole use, was wasting 0.2 units of electricity a day as a vampire device). OK its not calibrated but I will try this. Monitor one rotation of the proper old house supply meter disc on all the stand by devices only, fridge disconnected , for the base load, and then plug in a TV or something with my smarter meter in line, for an hour, and compare the 2 readings.

[SteveW]

The majority probably aren't though, as they only started fitting external meter boxes in recent decades.

It does seem a very poor idea. Someone passing sees you loading your car for a holiday or one of your household puts too much on social media and anyone who wants to burgle you can cut your power off, leave immediately and come back a few days later, when the alarm batteries are flat.

[SteveW]

But by using them to push people (through timed tariffs) to use energy away from the peaks, they can save more than that by not building an extra nuclear power station.

It is the wrong solution, but I can see why they've chosen it.

[Mark Carver]

Has there ever been a documented case of that actually happening, or is this yet more Usenet style overthinking and paranoia    ?

[Robin]

If so then smart meters are a boon: you can download your meter's readings while you are away, see (within a day or 2) that power is off, and get someone to investigate.

[alan_m]

If you are on a dumb meter the chances are you will only be offered the more expensive tariffs whereas those on a smart meter will at least have the opportunity to switch some activities away from the high cost per hour periods. At this stage of the game having a dumb or smart meter isn't going to change what is going to happen.

Is it just the power stations that need upgrading? When we all have electric cars and electric heating can the rest of the existing infrastructure cope?

Even being generous with COP figures for heat pumps and taking a low efficiency figure for fuel in an ICE vehicle a average household switching to all electric is likely to use x2 to x3 more electricity in a year - but most of that extra will be in a 6 month period where CH is required so perhaps the infrastructure needs to supply x5 more.

[Mark Carver]

Not even that, I get an instant notification on my phone  every time the doorbell loses its internet connection, and a clip of the last received image

[alan_m]

The vampire usage of electricity has been vastly overstated. Modern devices, by law, have to be less than 0.5W in a standby state. However this can be a bit misleading. My PVR has a standby state and a deep standby state and its only the deep standby that consumes the low figure. In standby little is switched off and so the power saving is minimal. My PVR can wake up from deep standby for a recording and then be configured to go back into deep standby afterwards.

Friends did find that the timer on their oven was power hungry and that was only being used as a glorified kitchen clock for 99% of the time. They now switch off the power to the oven whilst not cooking :)

[Chris Green]

So where's the meter etc.?

Mine is all in a locked garage, I thought most people's CU, meter, etc. were in the house.

[David Wade]

Others have reported that they have received re-furbished non-smart meters.

Reading a Smart Meter can be faffy. From what I remember mine don't show the consumption by default and button pushes are needed to enable the display.

well you have to read the dumb version and like I say it might be a tad faffy.

You say it offers nothing to the consumer, but in fact you can get detailed usage data e.g.

more ways to access the data here:-

I find my "in-home" display useful. When it goes read its usually because my wife is baking and she now is much more aware of how much a home baked loaf costs....

... as for remote cut off, I think that is a long way off. You are very unlikely to be on the same sub-station as critical infrastructure and I am sure thats the level at which cut-offs are being managed...

Dave

[David Wade]

In the north not even a SIM card as our meters don't use the mobile network...

Dave

[David Wade]

Yes, but what is the cost of refusal. Because of government targets the power companies are not allowed to take "no" for an answer, and as many have found they still nag. The staff costs for this must be huge.

[Mike Clarke]

...isn't used for billing yet ?

[Andy Burns]

I keep forgetting it's gr^H^Harqiva oop north.

[Mark Carver]

In the same box, on an outside wall. Surely you've noticed homes with such cabinets !

Here's a picture (not of mine, but a similar set up)

[Andy Burns]

Any suggestion that's going to change? Other than it seems like a bee in BigClive's bonnet and some Dutch university having their 5 minutes of fame regarding smart meters using Rogowski coils which no UK meters use.

[The Natural Philosopher]

Its just another desperate attempt to 'make renewable energy work'

The cost of installing all those smart meters would easily have built another nuclear power station

[AnthonyL]