Another great legacy from David Cameron' days in power. Goes nicely with the other (only?) one: the wind turbine on one of his houses that would have paid for itself after 40 years of use (maintenance costs not included)...
From the article, "53 million of them are due to be installed". That's almost one each for every man woman and child in the UK. 53 million meters for £11b = £207 per installation resulting in a saving of £11 per year - or a break even payback of 19 years, and for a gas meter with a non-user replaceable battery life of 10 years (or less).
On the radio this morning I liked the phrase from one of the people in charge of the smart meter roll out that smart meters give the consumers full control over how they use electricity as though those of us without such a meter have our consumption controlled by a third party.
The same person suggested that we would get meaningful savings from our investment. I would gladly invest in my own smart meter if he could prove that £11 per year projected saving was a lot more than the cost of the meter plus installation. Yes, I do realise that I'm actually paying for one in my bill whether I have one or not!
Is there any meaningful data to back up the projected energy savings, or even money savings for the consumer? Could it be that someone has looked into the energy use in a household before and after a smart meter installation and not factored in that the light bulbs have been replaced with LED and many appliances have been changed in the normal course of events with items that use less energy or now automatically switch off when not in use?
On a similar subject, changing energy suppliers. On personal experience, one to avoid is GreenStar Energy. Long story short, for me I cannot get them to give me a final bill when I changed to another supplier. There is nothing special on my account, they have my monthly readings, they have been taking regular monthly DD payments, the DD is still open and I believe that I'm slightly in credit with them. Switching is meant to be hassle free and up to now has been for me - this time I'll have to contact the energy ombudsman.
If smart meters made economic sense there would be no need for government i nvolvement. Energy companies would offer a tiny incentive to have them when meters are due for replacement & everyone would benefit.
There is of course no mechanism by which they save energy. Once people see what tiny amounts can be saved by making life a pain they typically abandon any further attempt at energy saving, thus if anything they tend to increa se use.
NT
I've always understood that the funny little thing called a switch was one way to control electricity usage, or maybe just pulling the plug, BICBW...
(snip)
I have been wondering who "...the government said..." person was. I assume he was from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, but who in particular? And who agreed the briefing notes from which his reply would have been made? I doubt that it's very often 95 MPs agree to gang up on something in that manner, but will they get anywhere?
But a (weak?) mechanism where they might encourage people to see if they can save something, if you're not poor enough for energy bills to hurt you probably won't bother otherwise.
Yes well this is what you get when you go blindly on with things when they don't really work or contain any incentive for anybody at all. I really do not think most people want to find out how much watching coronation street cost them in power. Brian
The smart meter implementation program was announced in 2006 and legislated for in 2008 (Labour government). Then Ed Davey (Lib Dem) drove it on in the coalition. So no party has clean hands.
Robin presented the following explanation :
Nor has any country, other countries are going through this as well, the UK is not alone..
To save very much at all you have to become rather anal about turning lights and devices off. Nobody can keep that up for very long. The best way is for devices themselves to go into a low power mode if not turned off, but these days they mostly do that for themselves anyway. And I would anyway rather keep complete control of when my fridge goes on/off, thanks. Likewise the cooker. Odd that, ain't it?
Which reminds me there was also the European Commission who aimed for 80 per cent smart meter coverage by 2020 :)
But the whole point of smart meters is that suppliers can introduce demand management. Make it very expensive to cook your tea at 18:00, and cheaper to cook it at 21:00. Then, and only then will consumers be able to make any significant saving. (in money not energy).
I don't know why they are not honest enough to come out and say that and I don't know why the journalists are too dumb to ask questions about demand pricing.
But isn't it much like those electricity monitors that have been around a lot longer. The ones that clip on the incoming supply. While the novelty value is there on the first day you may monitor how much power is being taken by each of your appliances and maybe change some of you habits such as not filling the kettle but on the second and subsequent days the display is ignored.
Wasn't that one of those wind turbines where on average the control box took more power from the main supply than the power that the wind turbine could generate in the position that it was fitted?
Another hypothesis is that there's nothing wrong with smart meters as such; but that they do need smart consumers. There's some empirical support for that: I saw a report that smart meters were leading to decent savings for consumers in Germany ;)
And users need better education. The guides and ads are too superficial. Eg one use I've not seen mentioned is as an alert to things left on. Seeing ours change t'other night alerted me before bed to the fact an iron had been left on. And ISTR there was a post a while back about a heated towel rail that'd been on since the Suez crisis or thereabouts. (And yes, I know you can do much the same with a clamp meter but I don't visit the CU under the stairs that often.)
They could also be made more fun - eg some countries are proving data ports so consumers can play around with the data easily.
The B&Q offering was it?
Robin submitted this idea :
I have several printers, tucked away in my office, rarely used, so I have them (one) powered via a wireless remote control switch. That allows me to switch them on and use them from where ever I am using a computer - usually a laptop in the living room. Problem was, I would turn them on remotely, then promptly forget to turn them off. I just plugged in a socket tester, which makes a noise, when they are powered. The noise alerts me to the fact that they have been left on.
That would be really useful.
Harry Bloomfield pretended :
I am surprised no one seems to have found a way to hack into the HAN, to grab the data being sent to the indoor display. It cannot be that complex..
It's becoming more common to have appliances with auto shut off or to go into a >1W standby mode. I've had an iron for probably 5+years that shuts off automatically if left standing. I also have TVs, STBs, printers, washing machine etc. that all automatically switch off and so are unlikely to be accidentally left fully powered for extended periods.
Even with a smart meter you still have to be looking at the display to see that you have possibly left something on. I have a clip on energy monitor with a display in my front room. I rarely now even look at the display.
That should "less than" 1W.
I've not tried snooping the radio data, but have snooped the SPI data bus inside the display ...
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