Currently I read the electricity and gas meters at the end of eachmonth, fill in an online form, and pay for the actual usage near themiddle of the following month. I'm very happy with this arrangement.My supplier (First Utility) has offered me free "smart meters". A smart meter takes automatic readings of your energy usage It sends the readings via a mobile communications link to First Utility We make your energy usage data available to view online You receive an accurate, monthly energy billExperience tells me that if something is free there must be a downside,but I can't see it. Is there one? Is this a consumer-subsidised schemelike those "free" CFLs?

What if you subsequently want to change suppliers?When no other suppliers are yet using smart meters they may have you by the 'nads?Maybe there is a contractual lock-in.

That is not likely to be anything more than a software upgrade. The meters are made by Landis+Gyr (AMPY). Our electric meter looked like this the left) - we did not have the optional remote display.The gas meter had a digital display which you could read locally by pressing a button.

Smart meters: what's the catch?

Oct 28, 2010 26 Replies

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Andrew Gabriel 15 years ago

They have the ability to remote disconnect you without any visit. Some people might regard that as a disadvantage.

Personally, I think this control needs to be taken away from the suppliers and passed to an independant body which will require some suitable evidence and/or court order before allowing disconnection. I'm not very comfortable with the suppliers being able to control it themselves. There's also the issue of this control being broken into due to poor security - imagine if some school kid in Russia finds he can switch off the power to

10 million UK homes at the push of a button on his laptop.

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Chris J Dixon 15 years ago

Are you sure that these meters have that capability?

Chris

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Mark 15 years ago

All the information states that there will be two-way communication between the utility company and the meter. Nowhere, in their marketing leaflets, do they suggest a use for communication from company to meter only the other way. So what use could they put it???

In addition - in the consultation documents it states "further work is needed to asses some of the issues raised before a final decision is taken on this element" (remote disabling). Only remote disabling for commercial customers has been ruled out.

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funkyoldcortina 15 years ago

They check that before they fit the meter.

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funkyoldcortina 15 years ago

I already indicated why they need two way comms.

From another post:-

The same meters can be used for pre-pay or post-pay billing. For pre-pay billing, the customer can pay on the web, over the phone or at a Paypoint location and the account is automatically topped up a bit like a mobile phone topup account. The credits are added to the meter over the GPRS interface and you can see on the meter how much credit you have remaining. If you switch between pre-pay and post-pay a signal is sent over the air to the meter and it alters its behaviour accordingly.

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Chris J Dixon 15 years ago

ISTMT the final details for the national roll-out of smart meters is yet to be fully agreed. Therefore any early implementers can only be working to rules of their own devising, and may well have to replace such meters with ones complying with whatever is imposed.

Chris

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funkyoldcortina 15 years ago

That is not likely to be anything more than a software upgrade. The meters are made by Landis+Gyr (AMPY). Our electric meter looked like this

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the left) - we did not have the optional remote display.

The gas meter had a digital display which you could read locally by pressing a button.

Vote

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