Smart Meters and supplier swap delays

[Harry Bloomfield]

OVO installed SM's for us last June. In Nov we changed suppliers to First Utility. FU then said they could not enable the SM's to work with them, but months later changed their minds and said they could use them.

Gas SM then began working, but not the E SM. More enquiries to FU and if I agreed they would send an engineer to swap the E SM for another. I agreed and the engineer arrived last Tuesday. He said he would have to swap both meters and the indoor display too. Both meters and display were swapped out for _identical units_.

Gas SM then worked with display, but not the E SM. Engineer said it might take 48 hours before it all worked.

E SM and there web site consumption still not working properly yesterday, 6 days later, so I rang FU late afternoon - who said engineer was wrong, it could take 28 days. Come around midnight, when data is exchanged - the E SM suddenly began to work.

Coincidence - probably not, I had exactly the same delayed operation when OVO originally installed them, until I rang OVO to complain they were not working, then suddenly they began to work.

The _identical units_ suggests that the only difference between OVO SM's and FU SM's is the firmware in the units.

So for less than 50% of the time, despite agreeing to have SM's fitted, they have been none functioning as SM's. Come Nov when my contract with FU ends and I will reassess suppliers, likely the SM fiasco will begin again.

[Andy Burns]

Which is odd, I assume your meters work similarly to mine, the gas one being battery powered and sending its readings over low powered radio to the electricity meter, which is mains powered and forwards electricity and gas readings to the in-house display and for billing via a GSM network.

[Harry Bloomfield]

Andy Burns has brought this to us :

Well, that was what I too thought, but maybe not.

The G SM reports through to the display every few minutes, the E SM every few seconds.

[Andy Burns]

Same here gas every 30 minutes, presumably to conserve its battery, I was told the gas only speaks via the elec to the IHD, but who knows?

[Brian Gaff]

I'd not worry cos all first generation smart meters are going to need to be replaced due to the insecure data exchange used in them allowing a nasty country to turn off everyone's leccy. This was on the news about a week ago. GCHQ found the hole some time ago but nobody admitted it existed till quite recently. It seems that the new system needs new hardware to work. The replacement of 16 million meters is goind to cost an awful lot of money and nobody seems to have decided who will pay for it.I bet I know who will end up paying for the monumental c*ck up, us! Brian

[Andrew Gabriel]

There is no money to pay for replacing the existing (and still being installed) SMETS1 meters, and the cost would completely wipe out the supposed (but no longer believed) gains from smart meters. The original intention had been to perform a firmware update, but the security GCHQ insisted on adding to prevent hackers turning off your supply cannot be added to smart meters currently being installed.

The advice is not to fit a smart meter now, because you may be stuck with an insecure one which no one will pay to replace, and won't automatically collect readings anymore if you change supplier.

Wait until SMETS2 meters are being fitted (probably in a year's time) if you really want a smart meter for some reason.

[Martin Brown]

It wouldn't be too bad if they were actually smart enough to operate with any supplier and secure enough that some script kiddie with a stolen bag of NSA tricks can't switch them all off at once.

I will resist having a "smart" meter installed until such time as they are cryptographically secure. Mine is still of the prehistoric counter rotating indicator dials on 10:1 gears type. There is little chance of ever seeing a viable GSM phone signal where the meter is located.

[Andrew Gabriel]

Actually, main reason power companies were interested was because they can cut off the supply without visiting the premises and trying to gain entry.

[michael adams]

More likely the fact that they no longer had to pay meter readers, either directly or indirectly, to attempt to read every single meter in the Country 4 times a year.

Long term Govt wise it also offers the possibility of energy rationing - only so many Kw or BTU or whatever, per household or per individual(per household) per day.

michael adams

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[tim...]

But that's hardly fair if you have electric heating.

When I has SR I used to use 18,000 units a year (and that was to keep the house barely warm), now in a property without them 2,500. Where do you set the limit that actually imposes some restriction on people who only use electric for their lighting/entertainment equipment that doesn't make life completely unbearable for people with electric heating?

It's all very well saying insulate better and change to gas, but not all properties are suitable for that (the one in question wasn't)

tim

[Steve Walker]

And what of those with electric showers; children who come home from school with a filthy blazer that has to be washed, dried and ironed ready for the next morning; that work from home and have PCs/servers running; no longer work, so at home all day; have an electric car to charge; use electric oven and hob - the list is endless.

SteveW

[tabbypurr]

C'mon, we all know they won't limit it, what they'll do is extract more money from folks that don't obey the not-really-limit.

NT

[Chris J Dixon]

Once demand-led pricing takes off, the battery suppliers will really get into gear to sell you your own peak-lopping kit. They should be able to fudge the figures enough to convince some.

I guess that, if the price curve is steep enough, battery systems really might be viable.

Chris

[michael adams]

Ye Gods.

The most likely scenario for a Govt to need to introduce energy rationing would be as the event of some natural or man made calamity or disaster which severely impacted on the power generation and distribution capability of the UK. Along with much else besides quite possibly.

At the moment in the UK we have a situation where both media and public go into headless chicken mode in the face of a threat which since the year 2000 has managed to kill around 3.5 people per year.

Now whether in the face of the kind of calamity or natural disaster which would require energy rationing, the first thought going most through people's minds would be regret at not having bought a property capable of being properly insulated, I very much doubt somehow.

All rationing is unfair. The more complex you make the criteria the more scope there is for fiddling which penalises the honest. Food rationing favours people with smaller builds with smaller appetites. Etc. etc. etc.

I'm not even claiming that in practice energy rationing of this kind could ever be made to work. But from the point of view of a Govt which needs to have contingency plans in place to meet all kinds scenarios, unlikely though they might be, smart meters that offer the potential for energy rationing on an individual basis are a plus, rather than a minus.

michael adams

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[Chris Hogg]

Like the introduction of renewable energy? :-)

[michael adams]

It's nice to see I have at least one reader anyway.

It's noticeble that on this NG, the only reference to the record amount of solar energy generated in the UK yesterday, or whenever it was, was to a mistake in the headline.

Not that all I'm bitter and twisted about it.

michael adams

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[tabbypurr]

There will never be a need to ration electricity here. It's just another way to deliver less, charge more for it and saddle us with extra costs we have to pay ourselves (demand management hardware).

NT

[The Natural Philosopher]

I afraid that it isn't.

Car batteries are perhaps the largest volume lowest cost battery.

Thousands of pounds of batteries and inverters that would scarcely last a couple of days .... of charge and probably 5 years of service life?

Peak electricity would have to be up in the £1 a unit...

[The Natural Philosopher]

+1000

[The Natural Philosopher]

Well the more panels are installed the higher the peaks will be. The more high in the sky the sun is, and the less clouds there are the greater will be the peak output.

Its a total non event.

Totally overshadowed by the number of solar power companies that have gone bust this year.