• This topic has 27 replies, 19 voices, and was last updated 7 years ago by Dibbs.
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  • Smart Meters ? Whats the Catch?
  • supertacky
    Free Member

    My supplier keeps contacting me wanting to fit a Smart meter for Elec & Gas.
    Me being a cycnical old fool I recon their up to tricks… Whats the Catch?

    wiganer
    Free Member

    I worked on a programme to roll these out a few months back. I’d avoid for now, industry hasn’t yet settled on proper standards, timeline for rollout not clear, continual delays from the integration partner, etc. Bit of a farce. Get one now and you may well need it replacing, some early ones already in existence are obsolete. That said, the concept is great, if only they can achieve it. I’d give it another 18 months

    plumslikerocks
    Free Member

    They benefit from not having to pay for meter readers to come out to you.
    If you’re running up a deficit, they can increase your direct debit quicker, so they basically sit on your cash for more of the year than vice versa.
    possibly they get to advertise / sell advertising to you via the smart meter app on your device(s)
    They may be able to forecast demand better and turn on the big windmill things

    Can’t think of any more upsides for them unless [tinhatmode] they get to know your habits [\tinhatmode]

    captainsasquatch
    Free Member

    In a world where elec/gas suppliers have been overestimating consumption and sitting on the money paid, it’s a ploy to make you think that they’re treating you fairly while they bleed you dry with unit cost price hikes and stop you from looking at insulating your house properly and looking for alternative sources of power.

    mattyfez
    Full Member

    I don’t really get them.. I had one a few years back, so maybe they have improved..

    But it’s not rocket science, don’t leave lights on, turn equipment off if it’s not in use. Some things need to be plugged in always, for me it’s just the fridge freezer and a router. Everything else gets powered down unless it’s being used.

    I’d even power the router down but it doesn’t use any significant power when it’s idle.

    supertacky
    Free Member

    I see Ive come to the right place!
    So mostly loaded to supplier gains than any real tangible improvement to my life then.
    I’ll ignore them again then.

    Cheers

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Well it might help you save energy too.

    Do you know how much energy your fridge uses? Do you know how its performance changes as it ices up?

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    Ultimately it’s to move everyone to being charged more for peak usage, or even different charging patterns per person. Whenever you use it the most, you’ll be paying through the nose for it.

    The excuse is it saves them money on meter reading but that’s balls as it’s almost all estimates now anyway and they rake it in from overestimating and charging massive amounts up front that they sit on.

    Of course it will be targeted as if you get a discount for cheaper periods but that will be the same price as you normally pay and the peak way more, but will be difficult to work it all out as the bills will be hideously complex and not comparable with anyone else.

    Also due to differing standards it’s a lock in for a provider.

    The funniest thing though is mine keeps sending me these “important” letters and emails telling me I should change because apparently my existing meter may be unsafe if I don’t! 😆

    Apparently I can get a smart meter for “free” – except for the premium number I have to call to arrange it, and of course the future high prices.

    Initially there will be some nice deals to convince you. Like whoever it is doing free off peak. Yeah, that gets you onto a peak/off-peak tariff anyway and it won’t last.

    bails
    Full Member

    of course the future high prices

    But you’ll be paying those prices anyway, you’ll just be submitting your own readings rather than having it done by the meter.

    I thought the energy companies had to move customers over to smart meters, I assumed they either got paid per ‘conversion’ or got a fine for people still on old meters.

    Well it might help you save energy too.
    Do you know how much energy your fridge uses? Do you know how its performance changes as it ices up?

    Don’t be silly, ice is cold, the more ice there is the less work the fridge has to do to keep itself cold. Science fact!

    mattyfez
    Full Member

    Do you know how much energy your fridge uses? Do you know how its performance changes as it ices up?

    Last time I checked they can account for 10% or more of your electric bill, as they are are always on, which is significant.

    So the fridge freezer is a good target if you want to cut bills, But that can be countered by not leaving the door open for longer than necessary, as it will use more power getting back down to it’s temp once you flood it with warm air, it can take hours too cool back down.

    Also temp settings in the fridge, an ambient target temp of 1 degree C is significantly more expensive to maintain than a target temp of 4 deg C.

    igm
    Full Member

    I’ve been involved in developing the business case for rolling them out. There are supplier benefits, distributor benefits (which ultimately flow back to customers) and customer benefits. I don’t have one at my house.

    cornholio98
    Free Member

    They are mandatory in my current location (Houston) but I have no issue with it. With the system here they are all owned by the grid so I can use any provider. My bill each month is exactly what I use so no cash accrual or deficit issues. I can go online and it breaks down my usage to 15 min blocks if I want it to so I can see when the kettle goes on in the morning….
    I may have tried to use it to see how low I can get my bills and now the only device running when I leave the house is the fridge freezer.
    However, if the device is unique to a particular provider it will turn out to be an arse…

    totalshell
    Full Member

    the make model style or who installed the meter are ZERO restriction on changing your supplier at any time.. the utilities companies seem pretty good at estimating useage over time i was a little over 15 quid in credit over the last year..folks only care about saving energy when the bills come in and then ( as above they turn lights off.. led lights that run on nothing..all the lights on downstairs in our 4 bed uses less than 1 100 watt bulb..) fridges and freezers use most electric domestically

    richmars
    Full Member

    Until they either tell me my oil use, or they install mains gas in my village I don’t think they give me enough info.

    dannybgoode
    Full Member

    I was offered one. Politely declined and plumped for a normal one which the blood wouldn’t fit due to the chaos which was our cellar (now sorted so need to get them back out).

    rkk01
    Free Member

    Putin can hijack your house and steal back your leccy???

    singletrackmind
    Full Member

    I dont get the advert
    ‘Do you know what Gaz and Leccy are doing at night??’
    ‘ With a smart meter you can find out’

    Yeah, because I am that sad that I get up in the morning and check my phone to see if its 11p or 12p worth of electricity that has kept my beers cool.

    There are alot bigger and more important things in this world than the minute by minute use rate of elecricity. Maybe its for people who cannot compute that 1000watts of halogen lighing left running 24/7 is the reason why they have a £200 pcm electric bill

    lodious
    Free Member

    We had one fitted byFirst Utillity. First Utillity were a total nightmare, (they could see our real time consumption via the smart meter, but could not bill us correctly during the 18months we were with them). We just had random bills / credits (like bill for 700 quid, we’d phone them up and ask if this was correct, they would say yes, then a couple of weeks later they would credit our account with 1000quid) it was just totally random.

    We left them to force them to calculate the bill correctly, but that wasn’t the end of it. British Gas had a record on their system that we had a smart meter. They could not read the smart meter information, which is fine, we didn’t expect them to.

    The problem was that we could not submit meter readings via website or the App, as they had us down as having a smart meter. Every meter read had to be done over the phone, and took 20mins, as we had to explain that although their system shows a smart meter, he have to give manual reads.

    They said they could not put our unreadable smart meter down as a non-smart meter in their database as they have to keep a record of all smart meters.

    BG sorted it out about 18months ago, but other suppliers may not, so based on my experience, it avoid at the moment.

    singletrackmind
    Full Member

    As above , same at work but worse.
    Zonal smart meter with 6 zones. Great for the accountants so thes that they could see who is using watt.
    No, its awfull. We spend around an hour every month battling the supply company over readings, taking down readings, photographing readings as they refuse to believe we can read a 4 digit number .
    Then they send out a man in a van, and every time its a different man who cannot find us ( rural farm location ) who then needs escorting to the meter to write down the very same number that we have both written down and photograped.

    AAAAAaaRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

    igm
    Full Member

    SMETS1, SMETS2, fun in’it?

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Well it might help you save energy too.
    Do you know how much energy your fridge uses? Do you know how its performance changes as it ices up?

    Not much evidence that it does in practise, most people pay attention to the meter for a few weeks then just ignore it.

    One concern is that the smart meters contain a remote shutoff feature which could easily be be hacked (they’re also made in China), so quite likely the Chinese will end up being able to switch off all domestic users remotely – which would be a nice cyber warfare trick to have and would cause chaos with the National Grid. Could easily damage infrastructure if they shut down enough users simultaneously during a peak demand period.

    irc
    Full Member

    The question is the wrong way round. Rather than ask “what’s the catch?” ask what’s the benefits?

    More accurate bills. real time readout so you can see what different things use. Pretty minor benefits.

    If you had to pay the £400 cost of a smart meter up front rather than paying it over a few years added to your bills would you do it? How many years would it take, if ever, for a smart meter to save you £400?

    Studies suggest 3% savings or £33 a year for the consumer. Will the meters pay for themseleves before they are obselete. Are they as reliable as current meters. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it.

    https://www.theguardian.com/money/2016/oct/01/smart-meter-energy-saving-revolution-cut-bills-gas-electricity

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Studies suggest 3% savings or £33 a year for the consumer. Will the meters pay for themseleves before they are obselete. Are they as reliable as current meters. If it isn’t broke don’t fix it.

    Currently meters are replaced every 10 years as they aren’t expected to still be accurate after that, so they only have 10 years of life to pay back the £400 that will be added to our bills one way or another.

    I doubt they’ll ever break even (e.g. we already have reduced our consumption as low as we practically can).

    deadkenny
    Free Member

    My supplier says if I move to another supplier their meter goes back to them and probably wouldn’t be compatible with another supplier anyway. So each time you switch, that’s a new meter and that’s going on your/everyone’s bills.

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    We’ve had our about 3 weeks now, the hardest part has been educating the wife as to what the figures actually mean.
    We’ve also switched to a tariff that gives us free electric from 9 to 5 on Saturdays and she’s starting the get the hang of that, we used 29kw the first week 50 the second and 49 today but there’s still a bit more scope (she could bake me some nice cakes for a start). 😀
    It’s going to be a struggle to get VFM in the summer though.

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    My supplier says if I move to another supplier their meter goes back to them

    Really? that’s a fair bit of work replacing a gas and electricity meter, the chap took a couple of hours to fit ours, I doubt it would be cost effective to take them out again and anyway you can still read the meters manually.

    Dibbs
    Free Member

    Currently meters are replaced every 10 years

    Not necessarily until we had the smart meter fitted we had the same meter that was here when we moved in 33 years ago.

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