Smart meters, nearly fell off my stool.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa]

I have just, well last week, had an email with a contact number on it to call and get a smart meter installed complete with a talking consumer device. Not run them yet, intend to do that tomorrow afternoon, but wondered as I know we have had some people on here who might know this, do they have any issues like making radio frequency interference from their power supply or whatever?

One of my hobbies is listening around the short waves and it hard enough already with wall warts, tvs and internet over the mains devices to contend with, without having my own personal interference make permanently wired into the house!

Brian

[Tim+]

It?s only the in house display (IHD) and presumably the speech synthesiser that will require a wall wart. No reason you couldn?t unplug it whilst you?re using your short wave radio. It won?t interfere in any way with your smart meter functioning.

Tim

Brian Gaff \(Sofa\) snipped-for-privacy@bluey> I have just, well last week, had an email with a contact number on it to

[Brian Gaff]

Yes I'm worried though as presumably the modem and other bits of the meter have to have an internal psu as well which you cannot of course do much about. Brian

[Tim+]

They?re battery powered.

Tim

Brian Gaff snipped-for-privacy@bluey> Yes I'm worried though as presumably the modem and other bits of the meter

[Andy Burns]

smart gas meters are battery powered (but brian has said before that he gas no gas supply) but smart electric meters are mains powered, so will have an internal PSU (presumably switch-mode) and there's precisely nothing he can do to "unplug" that

[Chris Bacon]

Why would sir want such a thing?

[Andrew]

He is blind !, so either essential or very useful to him.

[Pancho]

Hopefully in future they will give us a web interface, to give the required info.

I would have thought that would be relatively easy to add a talking interface to. Presumably Brian has some apps that already help with the web?

[Chris Bacon]

OIC. Do meters give such problems to blind people? I thought that operatives from the suppliers were still sent out. Maybe the service has been cut.

[Tim+]

Apologies. You?re quite right.

Tim

[Max Demian]

Smart meters are sold on more than remote metering. We're supposed to be able to save oodles of money if we consent to having them installed - not sure how.

[Tim+]

By allowing variable tariffs. I currently get 4 hours every night charged at 5p/kWhr as opposed to 15p during the day. Perfect for charging my car.

Tim

[Chris Bacon]

I can't think of a single advantage, except for the car charging thing that someone mentioned. Indeed, that seems to be the sole reason for the push to make people have them. So that charging times can be somewhat controlled.

[Andy Burns]

The more people move to that type of tariff, the less advantageous it will become, ISTR the graphs already show the average and maximum daily prices creeping up?

[Tim+]

It?s not a question of ?controlling? it, it?s just makes it much more affordable if you have a significant consumption that you can time-shift to an off-peak period.

Tim

[Tim+]

Indeed. Prices will be going up across the board soon I think and you?re probably right that the peak/off-peak difference will diminish as the number of EVs increases. Meanwhile, paying 1.5 pence per mile for my fuel is rather pleasing. ;-)

Tim

[tim...]

Yup

when I used to have storage rads and use E7, the night rate was less than a quarter of the standard daytime rate

now you're lucky if you can find a rate better than half (the standard rate, not the enhanced E7 day rate)

The economics of E7 has gone out the window now.

[Theo]

They can also tell you whether you have any particularly energy hungry appliances. For example you might have a really inefficient fridge which could be because the door seals are leaky and so it's always trying to cool the room. (They don't tell you per-appliance, but you can deduce things as they come on and off)

You might find the display makes it easier to correlate with what you do. For example, on a normal day we would use 10kWh, but if we were doing lots of washing and drying it might be more like 13-14kWh. So I could say each dryer load was about 1kWh.

Plus if you are on a low income you can ensure you don't get bill shock at the end of the month/quarter, since the meter tells you exactly how much each day costs you. You're more aware of your usage than just when the bill lands.

These things don't magically happen just by getting one installed, but they do provide tools which can help save if you're prepared to do a little bit of work.

Theo

[Chris Bacon]

Of course it is. That's the major reason that they're being being pushed. I can't think of any other real advantage, can you?

[Tim+]

My smart meter doesn?t ?control? my car charging. I choose when I charge it. You could argue that I?m being ?manipulated? into charging my car off peak overnight. But even without a smart meter I would be charging most nights anyway so that I start the day with a ?full tank?.

Or are you talking about a ?Big brother? scenario whereby folk could potentially be cut off remotely?

Tim