My meter will ‘soon’ need updating and they want to ‘upgrade’ it to a smart meter……

I understand I can refuse – what are others doing?

I’m sure it will benefit BG but will it benefit me…

Think of the privacy concerns – they will know when you have a bath!!!!

Rachel

http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

I wouldn’t – I’ve heard from a shadowy industry contact (my mate) that although you can monitor your use more effectively which should help to reduce usage, the meters are actually more accurate (i.e. your probably paying less than you should at the moment)

http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

That’s a pretty weird place, more random conspiracy theories and health scares than the Daily Mail!

They’ve been writing to me for 1 or 2 years trying to get me to take one for electricity. I have very low usage and I think they believe I am fiddling the meter !

I’m not sure I understand why any one wouldn’t want one? They don’t need to come in to your house to take a reading and you can check they have the right reading and that it’s accurate. where’s the problem?

I don’t have one by the way.

Oh and, Robdee, surely you could also be paying more?

where’s the problem?

The evil radiation from the radioactive smart meter which they don’t tell you about. Makes you infertile, bald and likely to vote LibDem!

I’m not sure I understand why any one wouldn’t want one? They don’t need to come in to your house to take a reading and you can check they have the right reading and that it’s accurate. where’s the problem?

I take my own meter reading and submit it online. If there are more smart meters British Gas will need less meter reading staff, so less employment.

I do also wonder whether if you have a smart meter its harder to change suppliers ?

Do they use your wifi to transmit the info to BG?

I read somewhere (probably theregister) that the savings you make from having a smart meter are entirely down to you realising how much you are using, and then using less.

I don’t really see any benefit from them, but I don’t have any real problem with them either.

I don’t really see any benefit from them,

Less staff, they can read a whole street’s worth of meters just by driving past. Currently they send out Siemens staff to knock on doors and drop off cards etc….

Eventually it will all be smart metering. It isn’t like they charge you for more than you use – it’s a meter.

Overall, they will go a long way to reducing energy consumption, and therefore pollution, so in the big scheme of things, they are good.

Currently they send out Siemens staff to knock on doors and drop off cards etc….

and in my case it would seem then completely ignore that reading.

Having done some work with a company that specialises in smart meter software in the States, they will eventually be used to profile and alter peoples habits.

For electricity: At the moment there are a number of usage peaks in the day that require a sudden surge in power generation (end of Eastenders, etc). This short term generation is in the order of 10 times more expensive to perform. By charging more at these times the companies hope to smooth out the daily usage and thus save them money.
The consumer shouldn’t see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.

I’m sure there will be corresponding effects with gas, but have no experience.

I know someone who knows someone who’s the system architect for the Smart Meter movement. While it’s nominally secure this guy was able to pick a meter at random and see unaudited live data from it, with the energy use flickering as a TV backlight ramped up and down.

Until proper safeguards are in place, I’m not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone’s watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they’re at home or not.

Not normally drawn to being paranoid but I was astonished at the potential for abuse when the system was described to me.

Until proper safeguards are in place, I’m not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone’s watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they’re at home or not.

you think your sky box can’t already do this?

With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone’s watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they’re at home or not.

How could a smart meter know what TV channel you’re watching?

Until proper safeguards are in place, I’m not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone’s watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they’re at home or not.

Maybe not the best example, but I’m in the same boat. I don’t really want any 3rd party knowing exactly when I’m watching tv, making a cup of tea, having a shower or any number of other activities, including being out of the house.

There’s just too much potential for abuse, and not enough of an incentive for the power companies (at the moment) to spend the time and money on making a totally secure, privacy respecting system.

To play devlis advocate…

Why is targeted advertising an abuse and why is it bad?

With all of these tracking type technologies they are designed ensure people selling stuff to us know more about us. The benefit to the company with the data is that they can either sell more stuff or sell the same stuff more efficiently and therefore make more profit.

But that isn’t inherently evil. We need to shape this through application of regulation and willingness to exert comercial presures.

We can use it to our advantage as well. Who is to say that when smart meters are widerspead we couldn’t bid suppliers off against each other better to get a better price for the consumer, facilitate simpler switching between suppliers, etc.

But it is up to us to guide and demand this. If we just resist change progress will not stop but it will take us from beind. We will get bummed by progress. But if we embrace change it will work in our favour.

I didn’t think smart meters logged usage on a minute by minute basis, just allowed for remote reading (of a single figure or set of figures)?

I didn’t think smart meters logged usage on a minute by minute basis, just allowed for remote reading (of a single figure or set of figures)?

I think the current design is for half hourly updates. If everyone is using them it also gives the utility companies the power to charge more during peak usage times, whether this is likely to save consumers any money, I don’t know, but I’d be doubtful.

whether this is likely to save consumers any money, I don’t know, but I’d be doubtful.

A company selling something will be trying to charge the most they can at the lowest cost, while still retaining you as a customer. For them smart meters are a tool to help them do this.

But you don’t have to be a hostage to this. You should also be able to use the fact you have a smart meter to turn the tables, to pay the least possible will still receiving the service.

Here’s the really important bit…

According to a friend who has one he can now know longer transfer his energy providers as the smart meters only work with British Gas.

Shout if I am wrong.

How could a smart meter know what TV channel you’re watching?

@Jambo – Don’t have a Sky box. Problem solved.

To answer the question above – a modern LCD TV varies its backlight brightness depending on the contrast in the scene. It can do this very quickly with a corresponding change in power usage.

You actually only need a rough approximation of this from the power meter (think how accurate Shazam can be even in a noisy environment) and you could easily figure out what someone’s watching.

http://epic.org/privacy/smartgrid/smart_meter.pdf

The consumer shouldn’t see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.

But for most people this isn’t really an option, you can’t cook your meals bath the kids ect,ect at 3am. Life dictates higher demand at certain times, no getting away from that for most.

Where I live in the states smart meters are mandatory. It appears that they are all run by a central company who instals and maintains them and they charge a usage fee to the provider (who then re-charge it to me).

I can switch to any provider even if they can’t ready the smart part they can just look at the numbers.

I designed a smart metering system for someone, it used GPRS to send the data into a collector and was reasonably secure in that it was a private IPV and the meter encrypted all it’s data point to point. Lots of privacy concerns though and there were loopholes you could exploit if you cared that much.

They keep writing to me to ask me to get one …. I ask how they transmit they say a 3g sim card to which i reply . Yupgood luck with that. I think we live in the black hole of calcutta and then they lose interest for 6 months

“By charging more at these times the companies hope to smooth out the daily usage and thus save them money.
The consumer shouldn’t see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.”

This bothers me a lot.

Last time I looked into it, I think the gist of it was British Gas didn’t want to wait for the universal/standard smart meter to be developed/approved so adopted their own version.

This did (may still) result in an obstacle if you wanted to change to a supplier who has adopted the standard smart meter.

Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong 🙂

targeted advertising

Ahem…

This bothers me a lot.

It used to bother me more than it does now.

The Western world needs to use less energy. It also needs to use energy in a more even way across the 24 hr period – largely because this prevents the need to spool up additional capability to meet the spikes (7am / 7pm). It happens that this is to the advantage of those that generate electricity, therefore they will modify consumer behaviour to help things along. Economy 7 was the same thing – just a bit more blunt. It works with cars (fuel tax, congestion charges, tolls) and trains (off peak fares).
It will also drive change in electrical goods and house automation. There will be appliances that will be programmable to avoid peak times etc. The manufacturers will make stuff when there is a market, and that market will be when peak pricing really gets going.

Here’s the really important bit…

According to a friend who has one he can now know longer transfer his energy providers as the smart meters only work with British Gas.

Shout if I am wrong.

This is exactly what I’m worried about – thanks @curvature. I strongly suspect this is the case, its a customer retention tool. I rented a flat where the tennent had put in a pre-pay card meter which British Gas where quite reluctant I should replace. The pre-pay would have more closely tie me to them whereas a normal meter I can have any supplier.

The Western world needs to use less energy

How about the less developed world stops expanding so fast and using up an increasing amount of resource’s ? Only joking, well only slightly.

Only joking

I agree! Damn those former colonies for aspiring to have our lifestyles. Earthen shelters and shacks are more than good enough for the likes of them! Foreigners and their uppity ways – harrumph.

They looked at fitting a smart meter at our house, no signal for the 3g on Vodafone so they just put a new digital one in.

Wouldn’t bother me if they had, might have had more accurate billing.

I’ve worked in smart meters in water and a lot of the issues in energy apply. Whether you like it or not everyone will be on a smart energy and water meter in the next 20 years its just the direction of travel.

The peak lopping issue mentioned above is a huge, huge issue in energy and they are already looking at washing machines that link to smart meters so they switch on at night when energy is cheaper to flatten the load.

It might not save you money long-term but given where energy costs are going to meet carbon commitments, local distribution reinforcement etc being (ahem) smarter on energy use is inevitable unless even higher bills are wanted.

Granted you might want the washing done in the day, but there will be a premium.

No different to train prices being higher in peak times. Supply-demand, critical peak pricing, etc…

I suppose their is the political aspect of this. All this diferential pricing being used to shape demand is very capitalist.

We could be more socialist about this and all just pay for energy via a progressive tax system, just divy up the bill between all 20 million or so households at the end of the year.

This might get expensive though as everyone wacks the kettle on at 8.30 pm after Eastenders so we could retreat to the socialists old favourite tool, regulation. Maybe ration eneryg useage!

Quality thread. We get loads of emails from that stopsmartmeter site.

Anyway, BG IIRC, use GSM/GPRS to transmit to a local collector box and then that transports to mother. Pretty secure. if you think BG are advanced enough to work out anything about an individual consumer from their gas usage then you’ve not known them very long. They couldn’t work out if the sun is in the sky in my experience.

We’re rolling out smart meters (water company) and use bin wagons driving up and down the roads to collect readings. Again, if you think we’re interested in anything other than getting the right amount of money out of our customers pockets then you’re very sadly mistaken. These conspiracy theories are fantastic.

edit: Oops, sorry. Forgot. We’ve been looking at using smart meters as a way of identifying leaks in the network a lot quicker. That benefits all our customers. Hope this helps.