I eventually had a samrt meter installed in March, only because it was the only way to get an EV charging point installed - long story.
I just have had an email from SSE asking for a gas meter reading as the smart stuff isn't working!
Jonathan
Do you have a smart gas meter?
IME, anything with "smart" in the name is only smart for those peddling the product or the concept/service and NOT the customer!
Not true if there are potentially real benefits for the customer. I say ?potentially? as frankly the technology seems way too flaky at the moment. On my second smart meter now in my quest to get cheaper off-peak rates.
Tim
When I enquired about a smart meter I was told that my gas meter was too far from my electricity meter. When I queried that statement I was told that the gas meter sends readings to the electricity meter which relays them to the billing company.
The benefits are to the supplier - they can slowly move people to variable tariffs, charging them more at peak times, to discourage peak usage, saving them building the power stations that we would otherwise need. Basically pushing people to adapt their lives around pricing, instead of what suits them.
If it were to benefit the consumer, then it would work the other way, as shown in a pilot project decades ago - where a whole estate was hooked up to a computer, which looked at demand every 15 minutes and struck a new deal with the cheapest supplier at that time.
Yes, the gas meter is battery powered so can't handle communicating with the mobile networks as that would drain the battery too quickly. Instead it uses a low power signal (possibly zigbee) to communicate with the electricity meter. The electricity meter is mains powered and can handle the power requirements to send readings over the mobile network - both its own readings and those relayed from the gas meter.
Mike
LOL! Oh, the irony! :-D
Maybe.
My electrickery company wrote to me and said my meter was out of calibration, and they wanted to replace it.
I ignored them.
They wrote again. So I called them.
Once they had established that the mobile signal here is **** and in fact there had been several failed installs in the area they lost interest.
When I asked about the calibration they said it didn't matter.
So I now know they were lying to me.
Andy
I think the "needs calibration" and "need to perform a gas safety check" are there standard excuses, because in the last resort they *can* exercise statutory rights of entry for both of them ...
Given the cost and time it takes to increase generating capacity that seems like a pretty sensible approach to me.
Octopus has a tariff that changes every half hour based on the market price of electricity. It even used to go negative at times. On balance though this tariff didn?t work for me.
For me, with an EV, a variable tariff that gives me a fixed reduced rate for several hours every night (like the old Economy 7) makes the most sense. For this I need a smart meter.
Tim
Yes, the electricity meter is apparently working but not the gas one.
The half-hour bands are pretty standard across the electricity supply industry I think. Many moons ago (in the late 1970s) I designed small control systems to optimise the amount of electricity a consumer (large, commercial consumer) used in each half hour window to minimise their costs. The charges consisted of a rate for the electricity plus an amount which depended on the largest consumption in any half-hour period so that a 'flatter' consumption cost significantly less.
We're on an economy seven tariff and don't have a smart meter.
Lucky you. ;-) As I understand it though you do still need a special meter though and I don?t think that many power suppliers offer Economy-7 tariffs.
Just out of interest, what is you standing daily charge, ?regular? tariff and economy tariff?
Tim
Has the gas smart meter ever worked? Maybe it's too far away from the electric one to transmit the signal and the fitters didn't test it properly. Or maybe there's intermittent radio interference.
Most of them do, but you don't get any choice in when your E7 period is - it's decided by your meter. Roughly 'midnight' to 'breakfast' is what you get, although it can vary a bit (eg summer/winter time because the meter clock doesn't go forward/back).
If you have an E7 meter you can have a 'normal' tariff, but often you need to ask for it (the switching sites don't handle that).
With a smart meter they can deploy a different cheap period, which might suit your usage better (eg Octopus Go can start at 20.30).
The killer is usually the 'regular' tariff is quite a bit higher, which means it only works if you can shift a lot of your usage to the night time.
Theo
It?s always going to be ?horses for courses? but as I *can* shift a significant amount of my usage, it works for me. My current tariff is
14.19 p per kWhr peak, 5p off peak, 25p/standing.I don?t think my peak rate and standing charges are ?quite a bit higher?.
Tim
If I go on EnergyLinx now and say I use 20000kWh pa with 80% at night time, and tick 'show me all the tariffs' it reckons cheapest E7 is Ecotricity
15.488p/day, 9.24p/night, 34.293p/standing. Next is Utility Warehouse at 24.5p/day, 7.56p/night, 12.9p/standingMost of the tariffs I've looked at are more like the UW one - big penalty for daytime use.
Theo
Oh, I know why they are doing it - decades of failing to prepare for the end of coal, future end of gas and the lifetimes of the existing nuclear plants.
That is variable pricing based on what Octopus can buy at. The system I described was based on actually shifting supplier every 15 minutes to get the *best* price.
Or an old style E7 one! Smart meters are being pushed as necessary for the consumer, instead of being honest and admitting that they are a sticking plaster to cover a long-term failure to invest and prepare.
I agree. They come reasonably close to my 12.638 p per unit and 19.048 p per day. Your slightly higher prices are well worth it when you can shift significant consumption to the 5p per unit off-peak period.
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