BTW,

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I had a smart meter fitted this morning. I deeply regret doing so now as I’m typing this from the high dependency unit of the local hospital. I’m also in quarantine. If only Cougar had posted about the bad cat aids yesterday things might have turned out differently.

That’s a bit narrow minded, Octopus Go tariff and Octopus Agile tariff are completely reliant on smart meter and potentially can save the user hundreds. Certainly I worked out Go tariff would save me around £400pa over a traditional tariff / method. Agile tariff is currently a bit of an unknown, but in theory when it’s say sunny / windy you could even be paid to use electricity

The smart meter bit isn’t making it cheaper. It’s just the tariffs are subsidised on the basis of having a smart meter, for now. Relying on smart meters for adaptive billing shouldn’t make a difference. Okay you may not get the up front estimated bill and refund cycle, but overall you’ve paid the same.

These have to be paid for at some point. There’s no actual saving to customers long term, only savings to the energy company in not having to employ people to read meters.

Doesn’t make a difference to energy supply as the data goes to billing companies who have nothing to do with the energy network (and for all the fluff from green energy companies about using windmills and stuff, your energy probably doesn’t come from anything fluffy and green, unless you actually live near a wind farm. These are billing companies, not energy companies).

Saving money bit is based on people looking at the meter display, trusting what it said (known to be inaccurate at times) and turning things off. Or you can just turn things off you’re not using and maybe look at a regular meter to see the effect, or get an energy monitor you attach to the mains if you like.

And yes… cat aids is my main concern. They get radiation from the meters, develop cat aids and then bite me.

I don’t have a smart metre, yet, I can’t honestly remember the last time someone came to read the metres, I’m guessing about 4 years. So, who would I be putting out of a job?

They’ve come round to read mine every 6 months in last few years. They used to be mostly estimated. Probably because I don’t bother myself (though I check what they’ve read) and ignore the hundreds of calls bugging me about smart meters (12 times in the last two days).

The smart meter bit isn’t making it cheaper

Have you even bothered understanding those two tariffs I mentioned. They don’t work without a smart meter, you can’t have them without a smart meter. One of them requires a meter reading every half hour, the other at least twice a day. One of them I know would save me £400pa that’s the smart meter making it cheaper right there and no one is going to come round and read my meter at 00.30am and 04.30am every day.

Saving money bit is based on people looking at the meter display, trusting what it said (known to be inaccurate at times) and turning things off. Or you can just turn things off you’re not using and maybe look at a regular meter to see the effect, or get an energy monitor you attach to the mains if you like.

Or you can find a cheaper tariff to save money, some of these tariffs require smart meters to give the supplier very regular meter readings to save you money.

Maybe I’m too optimistic but being able to switch suppliers multiple times a day should in theory bring more competition and lower prices. OK, it does rely on accurate billing systems which utility companies don’t have a good track record for and I guess collusion within the industry could mean there not being much of a difference between suppliers at different times of the day. Hoping my SMETS 1 meter gets put onto DCC soon to as otherwise it’s even more pointless.

Doesn’t make a difference to energy supply as the data goes to billing companies who have nothing to do with the energy network (and for all the fluff from green energy companies about using windmills and stuff, your energy probably doesn’t come from anything fluffy and green, unless you actually live near a wind farm. These are billing companies, not energy companies).

Yeaaaa, but no.

The energy companies have to buy the energy they sell to you from producers. So a ‘green’ energy company will only buy from renewable or greener sources depending on the wording of their promises. Whereas edf/n power/British gas/manweb will be buying whatever’s cheapest like coal, gas etc.

Arguing that isn’t true because the electrons all get mixed up in the grid is like arguing you’re living off the proceeds of international child pornography sales and dead baby Robin’s because the bank no longer has a safe in the basement with your name on it and just stores all those numbers as electrons on a computer.

@TINAS – Isn’t the power grid designed to work using large generating stations? Therefore wouldn’t adding electricity from renewable sources away from these big inputs be like urinating in a river, it does add some but not enough make any difference?

I read this is why the Germans are suffering grid instability and the UK may face the same because the power network is not designed to work like this. I am not sure of the correct language to articulate what I mean, so for lack of better wording it causes ‘voids’ in power which them overloads transformers etc as they try to draw power from elsewhere in the network to fill these ‘voids’

Smart meters DO save money in the long run. Energy companies have to buy your usage in advance from the producers, so naturally if they have a more accurate picture of what you use (due to smart meters) instead of relying on estimates, they can use that to buy only the energy you’ll probably use – no more, no less.

Smart meters also save money by reducing the propensity to contact for people calling up complaining about their bills. Why do people complain about their bills? Because they NEVER give meter readings themselves, always rely on the readers who barely come round.

If you don’t want a smart meter, that’s fine. Just make sure you give actual meter readings to your supplier every single month, preferably the day before your latest statement is due. If you don’t want a smart meter and don’t want to give your supplier readings every month, you don’t get to complain about inaccurate bills I’m afraid. Yes, SOMETIMES there are errors in billing, but the vast, VAST majority of issues with energy companies that aren’t due to switching, are due to people relying on estimated readings.

Also to add, yeah smart meters save money, but it doesn’t mean they will then pass the money back to you through cheaper bills.

@TINAS – Isn’t the power grid designed to work using large generating stations? Therefore wouldn’t adding electricity from renewable sources away from these big inputs be like urinating in a river, it does add some but not enough make any difference?

The grid was designed around large power stations, but tagging on lots of small generators still works fine, your neighbours solar panel energy probably only gets used by a few local houses, but still gets used and means they draw less from the main grid.

NB There are problems syncing frequency from lots of small suppliers, but fundamentally it all gets used in the end.

@TINAS – Isn’t the power grid designed to work using large generating stations? Therefore wouldn’t adding electricity from renewable sources away from these big inputs be like urinating in a river, it does add some but not enough make any difference?

Worth noting that there has been an awful lot of pissing in this particular river. Coal fired electricity generation has dropped from 30% in 2014, to 5.4% in 2018 (and wasn’t a fluke, it’s dropped steadily the 4 years in between).

To continue with the word of the day, this sort of thing pisses me off from an environmental standpoint. Sure there are some reasons why smart meters are bad, but most of the guff spouted is on an intellectual par with an LBC phone in. The planet is getting rapidly more and more effed and someone on another thread said they had an outside hot water tap for hoseing their bike off, this is why people need smart meters! They might not be pissing hot water up the outside wall of their house, but there’s probably a lot of devices and filament lamps plugged in that have just been forgotten about.

Have you even bothered understanding those two tariffs I mentioned. They don’t work without a smart meter, you can’t have them without a smart meter. One of them requires a meter reading every half hour, the other at least twice a day. One of them I know would save me £400pa that’s the smart meter making it cheaper right there and no one is going to come round and read my meter at 00.30am and 04.30am every day.

The smart meter itself is just allowing for peak/off-peak charging. We had that with Economy 7 and don’t require smart meters for it.

Variable ones like Octopus Agile are peak/off-peak in a more granular way plus some claim of savings based on the wholesale rate variability, but monthly / quarterly billing would average that out anyway. Also, energy companies often quote savings based on estimates of what a regular billing would take up front for energy you haven’t used yet but ignores that it will adjust itself with actual use and you may get a refund. Though it is a rubbish way of billing anyway, but you don’t need a smart meter to scrap upfront billing.

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2018/02/an-energy-firm-claims-its-new-tariff-may-pay-you-to-use-electricity—but-beware-the-hype-

Just insist that you get a second generation meter (SMETS-2) and you’ll be fine. Got mine fitted in May and no issues whatsoever – 45minutes and the job was done. Data is helpful.

All of the major suppliers are exposed to colossal fines if they don’t achieve set thresholds for installs of smart-meters. Hence their insistence / conditions of requiring an install.

Ultimately they need fitting – it’s a big govt agenda item. If you’re reluctant to take one then you’re off their books so they’ll avoid a fine (for your account at least).