OVO plan offers

[The Natural Philosopher]

Ah, a typical antisocial subsidy scrounger

[Spike]

I guess it boils down to a choice between making electricity work for you, and you working for the electricity supply system.

My garage is en-bloc and separate from the house, and it is fed with an underground SWA of about 10pm in diameter. I guess its current capacity is <10A, so not a lot of use for charging an EV. Parking in the street and running a cable across the footway is a big no-no. The local charge points are mostly broken. Therefore, to have an EV here is an expensive encumbrance and highly impractical.

My roof pitch runs N-S and the east-facing pitch is gabled, reducing considerably the area available for solar panels. The west-facing pitch is fully available, but is shielded by tall trees on the ridge-line at the back; at the height of summer the sun effectively sets at around 1630.

So what would be the costs and payback time for having a smart meter installed, a separate suitable supply put in to run to the garage to charge an EV, a smart charger, solar panels, and battery and inverter, together with a heat pump and full insulation?

Too long, I’m guessing…it could well prove cheaper to buy expensive dumb electricity.

[alan_m]

Just on smart meter, the payback cost is the same as keeping your exiting dumb meter.

You are already paying, as is everyone else, for the smart meter program through your bills.

It is debatable if the smart meter program hadn't been introduced if bills would have been cheaper. The industry previously had targets (usually missed) to regularly replace dumb meters for calibration purposes.

I know someone who used to work for BG in the office responsible for the program. Around 30 years ago they blitzed my local area with contractors brought in from all around the UK to replace meters. This may have been based on a finding that a high percentage of certain gas meters from the 1980s were over-reading by more than the allowed tolerance.

[alan_m]

But at one time (and still true for some households) there were potentially large savings to be made on the bills. Rather than the bills being based on the nominal taxable value of the house they were based on metered water usage. Having a meter installed for many people actually saved them quite a lot of money.

There was also the guarantee that the house owner requesting the meter fitment could revert back to paying on the rateable value within the first year of it being installed. Subsequent owners of a property fitted with a meter have no choice but to have metered water.

The cost benefits may have changed somewhat over the years as the ratio of standing charge to metered usage seem to have changed and a large percentage of the bill for low water users is now standing charges rather than metered usage. The same is true for sewerage where the standing charge seems to have increased more than usage cost. Sewerage is based on water usage where there is a water meter.

[Chris Green]

The cost of the meters which we're all paying for. If smart meters were installed at the user's expense directly I bet there wouldn't be so many.

[Robin]

It might help if you could clarify your "many, many stories of these things failing". The stories I've seen relate to them failing to transmit readings and suppliers then estimating use. That would leave you neither better nor worse off than now.

[Robin]

Not so many, but quite possibly still a lot. Suppliers would still have the incentive to offer those with smart meters cheaper tariffs as they would still get (a) savings from not paying meter readers, (b) fewer/smaller bad debts, (c) the means to manage peak loads by offering incentives to switch use.

Of course suppliers - and politicians - would also reap the criticism that it's unfair to poorer consumers who cannot afford the upfront cost but end up with higher bills.

[charles]

what subsidy? Solar panel were only installed 2 months ago.

[The Natural Philosopher]

The subsidy you will get on feed in and any subsidy you got to install them

[charles]

No installation subsidy these days and I don't think there's a feed in one either. Certainly the amount paid is nothing like it used to be. On the other hand I did get a subsidy for my car charging point - but that was 2+ years ago.

[Davey]

I haven't asked them to sign one, But, there are nowhere near as many problems reported with traditional meters as there are currently with 'smart' meters. I know of people wit 'mart' meter problems, I don't know of any with traditional meter problems. Just check the recent BBC item referred to elsewhere. And: It makes no difference if the failure is of the meter and its transmitting, or whether the Display fails. The system fails, even if it ever worked in the first instance. There seems to be a reluctance on the part of suppliers to fix failed displays. In my opinion, based on what I read, they are not yet 'ready for Prime Time'.

[Davey]

I have seen many stories of folks being unable to get the supplier to correct incorrect or missing readings from the 'smart' meter. If it has failed to do anything promised, it has failed.

[Davey]

Try the ng: u.l.moderated, thread:"Energy Ombudsman refuses to get my smart Meter working" for examples of these failures.

[Davey]

Should be: "I know of people with 'smart' meter problems".

[Andy Burns]

VAT free?

No more FIT, but you can get the SEG tariff (small export guarantee) which varies wildly by supplier. Normally that requires an MCS approved sparky, but I think Theo mentioned one supplier who will buy from you regardless if it's MCS certified or not?

[Robin]

The only failures I see reported there are (a) IHD not working and (b) comms to supplier not working. Either or both wd leave you no worse off than with dumb meters because, as several people point out in that thread, meter readings can still be taken by eye.

[Bazza]

Blame it all on the EU and this country's misguided eagerness to go green.

Whist the European Union has set targets to deploy smart meters to a certain percentage of households by specific deadlines, the implementation and enforcement are left to individual member states.

Hence France and Germany have fitted very few "smart" meters and have not made it compulsory.

So the UK could have ease off on the implementation which begs the question "WHERE IS THE BREXIT BONUS?"

[Bazza]

Whilst I'm having a little rant, I would add that none of the "smart" meter suppliers are UK companies. Here is a list of them:-

1. Landis+Gyr
2. Itron
3. Elster
4. Aclara:
5. Secure Meters:
6. Iskraemeco

[Tim+]

It won’t save us *all* money, but for those of us able to load shift, it saves a shitload of money.

It’s not just about saving energy, it’s also about reducing grid demand at peak periods so that the existing infrastructure can cope with increasing demand.

Lighting, TV etc are trivial power consumers (or at least are if you’ve swapped to LED bulbs) but washing machines, dishwashers, tumble dryers, EVs and home batteries are very significant power consumers and well worth time shifting if you can. With home batteries you can effectively load shift daytime consumption to off-peak periods by charging at night and discharging during the day.

Tim

[Tim+]

Some power companies are better than others and selling the benefits of a smart meter.

Even without an EV if you had solar panels and a home battery you could benefit greatly from a smart tariff. Whether it would be cost-effective in your lifetime is something that isn’t always easy to work out but for us, we can afford the hardware and I *hope* that we’re doing something useful with regard to climate change. Maybe pissing in the wind but hopefully better than doing nothing.

Nah, you’re stuffed. ;-). Thatch is terrible stuff. Rip it off and get a proper roof.

Well someone’s gotta have “picture postcard” properties for the tourist board photos.

Agreed. Not surprising then that so many thatched houses have had their thatch replaced with proper roof materials.

If your smart meter goes wrong it gets replaced FOC. You would normally revert to a non-smart tariff for the duration until it’s replaced and be no worse off than you are at present.

Tim