Smart meter dumb supplier?

[Brian Gaff]

I was listening to the late show on BBC in the south the other night and a bloke rang up and said his smart meter had actually cut all his energy off displaying that there was no credit on his account or something. However the energy company who fitted it, he was not allowed to name it on air, said that they had him as having paid up to date. They were coming out in the morning to replace it as it must be faulty. In the mean time of course he freezes.

So much for technology.

I'm glad I still have my old fashioned one.

Brian

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Gaff submitted this idea :

Really, that could happen with any type of meter failing. What is inexcusable is not treating it as an emergency and getting someone straight out to fix it.

[Andy Burns]

Sounds more related to the fact that it was a credit meter, than a smart meter ..

[Bob Minchin]

Not true Harry, It is only the new "smart" meters that are fitted with a contactor to cut off the power. Presumably these have a solenoid to operate them which can fail at any time.

[Robin]

And smart meters do have benefits for prepayment users (IMO more so than for others): eg they can give them warnings when their credit is getting low, and "emergency credit" so they aren't left without power when the shops are shut.

[Andy Burns]

How do "card" meters work then?

[Bob Minchin]

OK fair point they must have a switch too.

But the real point is that smart (credit) meter which the guvmint are trying to get us all to have fitted, will all have this potential failure mechanism in them. For a very small number of defaulting consumers, these might be justified but for the vast majority of us, they can only offer reduced reliability for an item that has not had a risk of supply cut off before due to a fault.

[ARW]

Assuming that this is a faulty meter then is it acceptable that the customer should go without electricity for more than 3 hours?

[Bob Minchin]

I don't believe so but I'm not sure what the service level agreement is for a normal domestic supply. Our DNO has given us an emergency number in the event of a supply problem as my wife does not have good health and they text us in advance if they anticipate a problem such as bad weather. They refer to is as being "registered for priority services" and to be honest I can't recall how we got onto their scheme.

We have not had to use it and as our gas fired heating is backed up by a UPS and I have a generator, we can cope for several hours.

[The Natural Philosopher]

They wanted to fit one here, till I pointed out there wasnt a breath of Mobile RF in the whiole area..

[The Natural Philosopher]

NO.

So what?

[ARW]

I can usually (exceptions for bad weather and remote locations) get an engineer out without an hour if I suspect that the electrical supply is in a dangerous condition or if the meter is tampered with[1].

I suspect that in this case the person that was on the radio just did not shout loud enough when they made their complaint.

I set my parents up with an inverter to run their boiler etc if they had a long power cut. It would need a car to keep it going for some time but it would do a few hours from the stand alone battery I fitted.

[1] By others not by me

[Andy Burns]

If the property was registered as having an occupant on the list of elderly/medical/new-born etc, I would expect them to treat it urgently.

Ringing a radio phone-in is unlikely to have much effect, maybe the chap could have phoned the supplier worried about a sparking noise or a faint smell of burning?

[Tim Watts]

Customer should have said "I think I can hear buzzing and crackling sounds coming from the meter." They'd be out pretty fast.

[Roger Hayter]

I can see no reasonably foreseeable failure mode of my meter which would have that result. Apart from being melted by the external application of extreme and prolonged heat.

[Roger Hayter]

The current generation of credit meters supply emergency credit. The natural human tendency to run on emergency credit before bothering to go and get a top-up probably negates this in practice, though.

[Cursitor Doom]

I avoid like the plague anything described as "smart" because it's pretty clear it's only smart for the people who sell it.

[Rob Morley]

"Hello, my meter just failed so I've hot-wired it - hope that's OK with you." That ought to do it. :-)

Now that's a good idea.

[tabbypurr]

Yep, nearly everything 'smart' is dumb.

[Andy Burns]

I think I managed to extend Douglas Adams' reaction to new technology a good decade past 35 in my case, but now everything new just seems to be a shit idea ... or not new at all.

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