Had a cold call from someone claiming to be from EDF offering me a smart meter. I've no real view on whether I want one or not. He tried to 'sell' it by saying it did a reading automatically and sent it via its phone link. I said it was no hardship for me to read my meter as it's very accessible.
He then said that my reading was only an estimate, and the smart one would be much more reliable. Asked him to explain, and of course he couldn't...
Absolute cobblers! Maybe it can read fractions of a unit, but I'm not sure what use that is.
If you want Big Brother - and maybe the criminal fraternity - to be able to work out your movements from your rate of energy consumption, go for it!
I find that reading my meters once a month and plotting the readings in Excel tells me all I want to know.
Funnily enough, had the meter reader round this morning and asked what her idea of the benefits of a smart meter were. Apparently they let you see what's using the electric so that, if it's too expensive, you know to turn it off again...
Is it me or is anyone who can't equate consumption with cost really not cut out to live indoors?
Personally I see it as a way of sliding in multi-tier tariffs to make it more expensive at popular times.
One day it could be how all those people with electric cars end up paying the avoided fuel duty and VAT by have a special 'electric car charging rate'. The meter will of course know exactly what you are using power for.
I wonder if a 1:1 isolation transformer would act as a 'firewall' ?.
It can definately allow remote disconnection if you don't pay your bill because my neighbour has one and it shows credit/debit information.
Hehe.
Stepdaughters CH wasn't working so Mrs took a fan heater up there as she was going there anyway and didn't want to be cold herself.
She turned down the fan heater, producing a radiant heater along with the logic that 'fan heaters gobble the electricity up'. So, a 1kW fan heater consumes more electricity than a 3kW radiant heater apparently. ;-)
Cheers, T i m
How?
Dave Plowman (News) scribbled
I've been getting mail from my leccie supplier every month to move to a smart meter. They are offering 3 ways of using it. Monthly, daily or half-hourly readings. They need my consent to read the meter at half- hourly or daily intervals. They will be able to download the meter readings once a day
Along with smart meters, they want to send me marketing material, based on my electic usage, luckily that also requires my consent. To sweeten the spam, they are offering competitions, loyalty programmes, promotions, etc, plus the usual s**te from their "carefully selected partners".
You mean it stops supplying electricity when the credit has run out?
That is not the same as remote disconnection.
If you can tell my comings and goings based on a single reading per meter per month, you're a better man than I am ...
In message , Scott M writes
I'd be interested to know how a single meter can tell you which (out of potentially many) devices is using the most electricity.
Adrian
You just measure the changes in current as they switch in/out with the presumption that only one device changes state at any one time and from that build up a picture of each device's consumption since they will be unique (ie a 3kW kettle is 2865W while your 3kW heater is 2920W.)
At least, that works in my mind for obvious things like kettles and heaters. Washing machines are a bit of a ponder as they draw variable amounts of current - but perhaps if you set a floor so that only things over, say, 1kW are logged then the motor drops out as noise.
Who said anything about one reading per month? I know *I* did in relation to reading my dumb meters - but, AIUI, a smart meter can capture readings at very frequent intervals.
That's the frequency mine are read at, I have the option to allow more frequent readings (half-hourly and/or daily per fuel).
Had a cold call from someone claiming to be from EDF offering me a smart meter. I've no real view on whether I want one or not. He tried to 'sell' it by saying it did a reading automatically and sent it via its phone link. I said it was no hardship for me to read my meter as it's very accessible.
He then said that my reading was only an estimate, and the smart one would be much more reliable. Asked him to explain, and of course he couldn't...
As far as I am concerned anything `new` smart meters and other marketing ploys are designed to earn companies more profit and not to reduce my bills, so they can all Fekc off as far as I am concerned.
Give me more money in my pocket and I may listen, but you better be able to prove it.
I'd hope most people on here would have a good idea what most of their appliances take.
Thinks. Must use my tumble drier just for the hell of it. ;-)
Yes. My feelings too. Not in their interest to reduce my bills, so why would they?
Different matter if a gas supplier tries to sell you a more efficient boiler at some vastly inflated price with installation.
For me, money isn't everything. I like the simplicity and convenience of a bill in the first week of every month, for the previous month's actual usage, to be paid in arrears. None of that estimated readings and budget plan nonsense.
A cold call? Why would anyone listen? It only encourages them. If no-one listened, there wouldn't be any cold calls.
At some point they will become compulsary for everyone.
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