gas and electricity supplier

I'm looking for an alternative gas and electric supplier. According to some price comparison websites, the cheapest for my purposes in the Sc Hydro area appears to be a company called First Utility who say they will fit "smart meters" free of charge. This is a new technology and company to me. Seems a bit too good to be true that they can fit new meters foc and still be cheaper than other suppliers.

But perhaps I'm being unduly cynical or cautious.

I'd be very grateful for your comments and advice.

Thanks,

Reply to
John J Armstrong
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They'll be writing the cost of the smrtmeters and their fitting off over a couple of decades. I recently had both my meters changed for smartmeters, but my fixed period discount is unrelated to having them done, they do help you see when and how much energy you're using, and what habits you might want to change ... such as the cost of leaving PCs running ...

During the summer I got my usage down to under £1/day for gas and electricity combined, now it's creeping up to jsut over £2/day with a little central heating and one server running 24x7 the moment.

Reply to
Andy Burns

In article , John J Armstrong writes

I'd be very wary of switching to First as I have found their customer service to be sorely lacking when things go wrong.

I attempted to switch my account and 3 others to them in October 2009 and they made a complete hash of 3 out of the 4. Lost applications, huge delays and one screwed up credit check (which is required to be considered, also home owners only).

Watch out too for low unit prices but high standing charges.

If it's a small price difference I would be inclined to avoid them.

Search the MSE forums for other tales of woe.

Reply to
fred

We were with First Utility for a few years and they were absolutely fine. At the time they only fitted smart meters if you lived in their home area, which we didn't. We only switched away in January because our usage changed and Eon came in a bit cheaper.

Reply to
Reentrant

I have just had smart meters fitted. They were free and had no effect on my tariff. Its cheaper for the power company, they get the usage over the O2 phone network instead of sending a reader out.

Reply to
dennis

Depends what smart means... grin.

Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

Does anyone do talking meters, or ones that can send their data to a computer so one can use screenreaders to hear the readings. I feel left out with all this energy monitoring. I've approached various companies and nobody will do it. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

The current cost devices will upload their data to some web services like

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may be able to use a reader on these sites even if you can't on the current cost software.

There is a development kit of sorts if you want to write your own software.

Reply to
dennis

Brian Gaff :

Are you confusing a smart meter with an energy monitor? (You wouldn't be the first.)

A smart meter allows the supplier to read your meter at any time without bothering you.

An energy monitor allows you to see how much energy you're consuming at any time, and might total it to give you consumption over a period.

Reply to
Mike Barnes

Or it might talk to the smart meter and display actual readings and real time data as mine does. The gas meter talks to the electricity meter every 30 minutes and the electricity meter relays it to the display. The gas meter is battery powered so doing it more frequently runs the battery down.

Reply to
dennis

Is there any possibility that smart meters could save energy by detecting gas leaks? Calculate the difference between what customers are seen to use against how much is being supplied to that area.

Over the past few years I have repeatedly noticed general gas smells while driving through an area - only to see gas repairs anywhere between months and years later. So I suspect that gas losses are pretty huge.

Obviously that would not actually directly help a pure marketing company. And equally obviously, in the world of electricity it would be more likely to help in detection of theft rather than leaks.

Reply to
polygonum

My meter was changed a few months ago to an electronic one, although it's not a smart meter.

It has an LED which flashes (every 1/100th kWH, IIRC), and it also has an IR data link which can be used to read it and program it. You can buy an RS232 adaptor to access the IR link from a computer, but it's expensive. The supplier can password protect some or all of the data in the meter. I would imagine the programming has been locked for obvious reasons, but you might be able to read out the consumption. However, I'm not forking out several hundred quid just to find out.

Have you tried asking your supplier if you can have a meter (or other method) to enable you to get your energy usage? You might find them willing to go to some extra effort, or to put you on a trial of any suitable programme, such as smart/remote reading which you can access over the Internet?

Reply to
Andrew Gabriel

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