Smart meters to be compulsary?

[harry]

[FMurtz]

Are you surprised? always was going to happen.

[nightjar]

Meters have always been replaced as their calibration periods expire. It has always been inevitable that it would reach the point where only smart meters were available. However, at present, you can still have the smart function disabled.

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Yes one issue that has come up though is the method used to measure the power used. Gass is pretty easy since it relies on flow, but Electricity can be influenced by the phase of the current draw in the AC voltage waveform, and there have been questions before on what is the most accurate way to deal with this aspect. Brian

[Brian Gaff (Sofa)]

Until all the companies can actually supply a customer monitor module that has a voice so it can be used by blind people, they will not offer us one according to EDF. However I've heard and touched one which is now, apparently available and yet EDF have they say never heard of it, instead offering an Echo skill or a smart phone app instead. I am just going to sit here and wait and see what happens. I've seen three meter changes over the years in this property. Apparently, meters have to go to be refurbished every so often and hence they will probably leave the hassle of changing them till that period is reached. However if they are still reconditioning old ones, maybe you can get one of those. What would be nice is to have an economy 7 type system where you can elect to ovr ride it in circumstances where cost is not the issue. After all we can do that on water heaters already. When I asked about it I was told that I'd need to change all my storage heaters and give each a dual supply. Not very helpful, maybe remote controlled smart meters is the answer. Brian

[John Rumm]

Gas also varies in energy content, so knowing the volume metered is not quite enough information to work out what to bill for. Hence the conversion fiddle factors included in your gas bill.

Domestic meters have historically been quite good at measuring only the instantaneous real power transfer, and ignoring reactive currents. How good they are with with modern loads with poor power factors caused by high harmonic content (like many small SMPSUs) rather than a more traditional phase shift is perhaps a more interesting question.

[Dave Liquorice]

In theory, ours are dated 1967, 1980 and 1996... The two digits in the first part of the meter number are its calibration year.

The first two are mechanical, the 67 one almost certainly "out of date", the second might be, some mechanical meters "last" 40 years.

I'm in no rush to get smart meter(s) unless they also agree to "tidy up" the incomer and meter board and fit isolation switches. The chances are a smart meter wouldn't have a comms signal anyway being in the North and the Northern Network not using one of the mobile networks but a system operated by Arqiva.

[Broadback]

I had a smart(?) meter installed. It does not work properly as it is too far away from the meter. a waste of space!

[Dave Liquorice]

But posibly quite beneficial as new storage heaters would be the high heat retention type with programable room stats so don't dump all thier heat during the day when the weather suddenly turns cold leaving nothing for the evening.

There was a grant scheme available a while back to swap old "pile of bricks in a tin can" storeage heaters for modern high heat retention ones. Donno if it's still running or what the requirements to qualify were.

They are remote controlled or do you mean the customer having control?

[Chris J Dixon]

I guess the way they will go is to introduce tariffs which require a smart meter, and will be the cheapest overall.

Chris

[Dan S. MacAbre]

You know it's coming. Before we had a water meter, our monthly bill was £60. As soon as one was fitted, it dropped to £40. Hard not to believe that we were simply being penalised.

[Max Demian]

Turning a storage heater on during peak times won't do much good as it'll just be heating the storage bricks. Dual supply storage heaters have a separate element at the top that gives instant heat.

[Michael Chare]

My water bill reduced when I had a meter fitted, but that was because the previous bill was based on the rateable value. Smart meters will make it very easy for suppliers to raise the price when I want to cook the dinner in the evening.

[Tricky Dicky]

We had a meter replaced at the last house and it is surprising how long the old meters to be refurbished sit on the shelf. The first we found out was when we started to get bills backdated for three years showing usage and payments we had made. These bills kept arriving in batches until they worked up to the most current bill. When I phoned them up it turned out somebody had read the meter wrong at the change over and it was only after someone had taken it off the shelf they noticed a discrepancy in the numbers, I could not believe it had sat there for three years before someone noticed there was something wrong. When the final bill came through it was not a refund we owed them! I was amazed that they could reclaim monies owed so far back but apparently when the energy companies were privatised the act gave them unlimited ability to back date bills and seek monies owed. I did make my displeasure known at suddenly out of the blue I had an unbudgeted bill come through when it was their mistake whilst we had continued to make payments in good faith, the best I managed to wrangle out of them was a discount!

Richard

[Bill Wright]

It's bollocks. The govt are saying that the reason for charging more for non-smart meter use is the cost of meter reading. But I read my own meter and send the figure to the company.

Bill

[Dan S. MacAbre]

Well, I'm going to wait as long as I can get away with it. My mum and dad had a smart meter fitted last year, and were without power for a day, because 'something got broke'. And they /still/ have to read it themselves, because they changed supplier. Plus, I would have to take a day off work.

[Roger Hayter]

I don't think there is any question at all about *how* to do it; just how well various electronic meters perform, especially with unusual waveforms.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Tricky Dicky pretended :

You should have said you couldn't afford to pay it and offered to make a token payment per week until it was paid off.

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Bill Wright submitted this idea :

Even with smart meters, they still come round and read them..

[Andrew]

+1. And I pay EDF immediately using their auto-phone number, and they take the amount electronically, i.e. a 'direct debit'