Smart gas meters

Chris Hogg · 2023-10-20T07:29:34+00:00

My gas supply company wants me to install a smart gas meter. As Ican't really find satisfactory answers on the net to the questions Ihave, maybe someone here can explain. The existing meter is on theoutside wall of the garage. I have a smart electricity meter alongsidethe CU in a cupboard in the kitchen, a few metres away from the gasmeter. This meter has a little mains-powered readout display by the TVin the sitting room, so that in idle moments I can see how much juiceI'm using, before finding more productive things to do. I get myelectricity from OVO, my gas from British Gas.AIUI, they don't power gas meters from mains electricity, due to riskof explosion. Is this correct?Because of the above, gas meters are powered by a lithium battery witha nominal lifetime of about 10 years. How does this battery getrecharged, if indeed it does, or does it just get replaced? Whoreplaces it, me or an engineer, and how do I/they know whenreplacement is needed?A remote display is available similar to the one for the electricity.But my understanding is that to avoid running the gas meter batterydown too quickly by continuously sending data to this display, it orthe data-stream can be switched off. If the data-stream gets sent tothe supplier (via DCC?) anyway, how does this save battery life on thegas meter itself? Or is it just the remote display that is switchedoff, in which case why aren't they mains-powered like my electricitydisplay?Can a smart gas meter be used to turn off the gas supply remotely,like a smart electricity meter is supposed to be able to do?Is a smart gas meter going to be even less exciting than a smartelectricity meter? Apart from my not having to go outside and read thegas meter directly once or twice a year (no great hardship), is therereally any point to it? I suppose it does mean that a meter readerdoesn't have to call (once a year at the moment IIRC) but that doesn'tbenefit me in any way.Questions, questions! They'll do for the moment, until I think of...

Oct 20, 2023 Last reply: 2 years ago 70 Replies

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alan_m 2 years ago

Then if you defaulted on your bills they would take 5 minutes to get a court order to enter your premises and change the meters.

From Money Saving Expert......

The plan is for all SMETS 1 meters to be remotely upgraded with software to allow them to meet SMETS 2 specifications and be connected to the central network.

The Government-backed Data Communications Company (DCC), which is responsible for putting the infrastructure in that underpins the roll-out of smart meters, has upgraded about 10 million meters so far. There's no set date for the upgrade to be completed, but eventually all SMETS 1 meters will be updated.

Your meter will be upgraded remotely, so you won't have to do anything. But it's up to your supplier to inform you when it's going to take place and whether it was successful or not. In the unlikely event your meter can't be updated remotely, worst case is you'll need to have your SMETS

1 meters replaced with SMETS 2 meters. Annoying and inconvenient, but not the end of the world.

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Robin 2 years ago

Them's "tokenless" smart meters. So /if/ they ever managed to make them "smart" again they could remotely switch you to prepayment. You'd get a card so you could top up at POs, PayPoints etc (& with cash) as well as online.

It's down to DCC to do the software update. And I wouldn't rely on EDF to tell you if DCC have done it. You could of course check for yourself from time to time. DCC have provided a tool just for that:

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Andy Burns 2 years ago

I realise that.

Which doesn't acknowledge the existence of either meter by MPAN/MPRN.

I've also searched DCC's endless stream of documents regarding re-enrolling dormant SMETS1 meters ... my L+G meters used to get mentioned, now they do not, there are some newer L+G models, installed by British Gas on Vodafone that they seem to have tested but not yet rolled-out (but mine were by E.on on O2/Telefonica)

Even those newer L+G meters seem might use an outsourced data collection system from Trilliant, rather than talk direct to DCC's own systems, so maybe they are awkward edge-cases?

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Jeff Layman 2 years ago

I doubt it.

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Has this temporary ban ended?

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Robin 2 years ago

Apologies - no condescension intended.

I don't know just what that means. Do just wonder if one possible explanation is that supplier has not released (or whatever the term is) your meters to DCC.

I'd assumed their lists were getting shorter as they'd dealt with the other meters. Silly me. (Unless they have but don't know about yours.)

Don't know. Trilliant did a deal with DCC in 2017 to enable meters using their comms hubs to be enrolled. I'd assumed that was working OK else DCC et al would have screamed: Trilliant claimed to have ~7 million meters. But there could be subsets which remain blocked.

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ajh 2 years ago

juxtapose a couple of digits and they may send someone to check ;-)

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Tim+ 2 years ago

Tell them you’ve developed cataracts and can no longer read the meter yourself. ;-)

Tim

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Robert 2 years ago

My last 2 Companies have encouraged me to pay by DD but only for the amount used each month. No averaged-estimated payments.

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Vir Campestris 2 years ago

I've said this before - but my supplier contacted me to tell me my meter was out of calibration and needed replacement.

This turned out to be a ploy to get me to take a smart meter. Once they'd worked out one wouldn't work here they lost interest. When I said "Hang on, what about the calibration?" They said "Oh, that doesn't matter".

Interestingly a SMETS2 meter might work - but they haven't asked again.

Andy

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