The theory of them for me is great, I’m on a gas tracker tariff which changes daily and it varies between about 3p & 6p.

The electric is an off peak tariff for charging the EV overnight.

For the first couple of years the gas meter never connected, but the electric worked fine. Then the gas meter died and cut off our gas, tbf the meter was replaced the same day and we were reconnected.

Then Smart meter nirvana for a couple of months, both meters were happily sending their readings in. Until the middle of October when the electric meter stopped. So now I just have the gas working properly.

I’m not quite sure how it will work once they manage to reconnect it and what peak vs off peak readings it will send 🤷🏻‍♂️

Maybe if they’re only doing your meter but I’d imagine they will be doing a load in the same area.

Pretty sure it’s done by a 3rd party company who does the whole street in one go – pretty sure I’ve seen someone do all our gas meters (outside) in the last few years. All our leccy meters and inside (for our street) and I don’t ever recall it being read by anyone knocking on the door etc…

The older analogue meters are only good for 10 years IIRC, so they have to swap them out every 10 years regardless.

Mine’s been in since 1990. This year the gas pipes in the street and supply pipe to our meter were replaced. Kept the same meter though. I would assume if meters has a service life of 10 years that would have been the time to swap it.

And it is still accurate. My heating App has a function to measure boiler gas use. It matches the meter reading.

I would assume if meters has a service life of 10 years that would have been the time to swap it.

Gas meters are up to 25 years apparently.

10 is / was the standard for leccy.

I had BG install smart meters for us, our gas meter appears to have died. Not sending updates to BG, and neither of the buttons turn on the display. Contacted BG twice to try and get a rectification, but get told “they’ll ring me”.

Bit annoying as I’d like to keep an eye on gas usage…

Smart meters are pretty much essential if you:
Have an EV, so you can smart charge overnight
Have solar panels, so you can register export
Have a home battery, so you can charge or discharge overnight for energy price arbitrage.

The real time view of your consumption is nice, and so is the ability to get a daily reading, but their true function is enabling smarter home and smarter grids

If we weren’t rolling them out, the complainers would be complaining in 10 years’ time about how antiquated our infrastructure is.

Smart meters are an awful invasion of privacy that will lead to an awful system where the energy providers will use their knwoledge of your usage to do individual pricing.
IE whatever your peak time is they will make that really expensive. It will lead to misery. Only the rich will have the convenience of energy at their fingertips.
if you think that is paranoia or a conspiracy theory look at how poorer people with key meters are overcharged and how the energy companies have written and taken advantage of the pricing rules to do us all over.

Smart meters are an awful invasion of privacy that will lead to an awful system where the energy providers will use their knwoledge of your usage to do individual pricing.

Or allow people to vary their usage and smooth out the national grid.

We’re getting a 10 kWh battery installed this week which can charge and discharge from the grid, so we can charge when it’s cheaper and use the battery when the unit cost is higher….

Or allow people to vary their usage and smooth out the national grid.

We’re getting a 10 kWh battery installed this week which can charge and discharge from the grid, so we can charge when it’s cheaper and use the battery when the unit cost is higher….

I am sure that is wonderful for you and how nice of you to pay for energy infrastructure whilst the energy companies are busy optmising profits. I think you miss my point entirely. How is Mr 15k a year in a microflat going to afford any of that? Or any of the vast majority of british people who are on less than 20k a year?

molgrips
Full Member

If we weren’t rolling them out, the complainers would be complaining in 10 years’ time about how antiquated our infrastructure is.

Smart meters aren’t infrastructure.

I think you miss my point entirely. How is Mr 15k a year in a microflat going to afford any of that? Or any of the vast majority of british people who are on less than 20k a year?

He can’t, but he can choose to use the washing machine / tumble drier when the grid is under utilised and be rewarded for his efforts with cheaper electricity…..

They have already run trials of smart pricing inc paying users 68p per kWh to use electricity when the grid has too much generated capacity and not enough users.

He can’t, but he can choose to use the washing machine / tumble drier when the grid is under utilised and be rewarded for his efforts with cheaper electricity…..

Again you miss my point. we are talking about two different concepts. You are talking about smoothing out demand, but I am talking it will be individual pricing to screw individual users. Otherwise why would they need smart meters at all, they could just measure the local grid and offer a cheapepr price at the low use time. You don’t need smart meters to do that in any way. Translation, he won’t be able to afford to use his washing machine or heating or cooking when he needs it, as they will know his habits and screw him for them.

we are talking about two different concepts.

Yep, I’m talking about reality and you seem to be off on a paranoid delusion….

They’ve run trails of smart meters + smart tariffs and the result was people saved money and the grid was less stressed – it was a win win…

There’s zero evidence of smart tariffs being used to ‘screw everyone over’…

they could just measure the local grid and offer a cheapepr price at the low use time.

Houses would need a meter that records the time they use the energy so that they can be billed for the amount they used during that low use/cheap time…. Oh wait. That’s a smart meter!

Smart meters really are an insight into the asylum.

Personally I’m more concerned about the fact my inverters made by the Chinese.

Infact so is the smart meter more than likely.

If any of what you are suggesting came to fruition…..you’d see folks bypassing the meter left right and center …..it’s actually stupendously easy to do if you were so inclined.

How is Mr 15k a year in a microflat going to afford any of that? Or any of the vast majority of british people who are on less than 20k a year?

I can’t help feeling you don’t really care about Mr 15k’s electricity bill and how he’ll pay it, he’s just a handy straw man…

Smart meters are an awful invasion of privacy that will lead to an awful system where the energy providers will use their knwoledge of your usage to do individual pricing

Perhaps I’m just incredibly naive but I can’t see a scenario where number 21 is forced to pay a higher night rate overnight due to having an EV, and number 22 is forced to pay a higher day rate due to home working and being in all day, and number 46 is just hung out to dry as they don’t have mains gas and therefore can will pay top dollar 24/7 for their electric heating.

Especially seeing as it’s a regulated market and there is competition and turnover of customers between energy companies…

I expect the articles about prepayment meters are due to people getting sucked in by the viral ‘don’t pay your bill’ trend and got caught out that going prepayment no longer required a warrant and physical meter change…I expect (if there aren’t already) rules to come in about providing a statutory notice period before you end up on prepayment.

PS Considering applying for a smart meter, although I’m expecting a minor battle soon as I now have a company EV van charging on my drive and they will want to put my direct debit up despite my employer paying the EV charging direct to my electricity account each month…apparently top ups aren’t taken in to account when calculating the direct debit…

I think I get what 5plusn8 is getting at, though not sure we are there yet.

Companies exist to make profit and that’s it. See also: Cambridge analytica/Facebook. Some piece of work will always be willing to go too far for a few extra bucks.

Wasnt there an a thing that in the 50’s, Ford realised that there was a deadly issue with a recently released car but they calculated that it would be cheaper to pay the estimated death lawsuits than recall and fix the problem?

The Edsel? Or was that the Pinto in the 70s?

Sorry squirrelking, I don’t remember.

In other news, I still have a lump on my thigh from 2018 from that ride we had!

Otherwise why would they need smart meters at all, they could just measure the local grid and offer a cheapepr price at the low use time. You don’t need smart meters to do that in any way.

As stated above, how would they measure who and by how much I/we/they took advantage of the offer of a “cheapepr” price at low use times? Oh, a smart meter maybe? Smart meters give a read / price every 30mins (octopus Agile tariff) so for a number of years now have been able to do exactly that. Day / night rate is old hat, I can have even better rates at 3pm, 8pm or 1am if I just make minor changes to usage. There’s even devices/software now that can cherry pick the very cheapest slots to charge your stuff or run your stuff, when the rates are even “cheapepr”. Sometimes they even pay you (ie minus prices at certain times were not uncommon in the good old days). TBH I’ve no problem with the tinfoil hat brigade, the rest of us might continue to benefit from cheap price slots for longer.

pandhandj
Free Member

Wasnt there an a thing that in the 50’s, Ford realised that there was a deadly issue with a recently released car but they calculated that it would be cheaper to pay the estimated death lawsuits than recall and fix the problem?

Sort of- they not only didn’t recall the pinto, they also chose not to fix the issue for future cars even though it’d have cost buttons. Not just because of lawsuits, they calculated the total cost including the $5.08 cost to retrofit every existing car and $2.35 per future car (they knew this exactly, because the canadian cars already had the fix). But they also spent more on lobbying to fight and then to delay safety standards than the recall would have cost. And because they delayed the fix, the recall was massively more expensive than it had to be.

But what it really came down to was that Henry Ford II was massively against safety regulations, and considered that it’d be a massive defeat to recall the car in the face of political and public pressure. He’d spoken about simply closing Ford down if the government interfered any more with how they built cars, and that it was an assault on customer freedom etc etc… and that auto safety was entirely the responsibility of the driver, especially post-crash safety. (he could be swayed on “cars shouldn’t cause crashes” but he was just an absolute zealot on “cars should protect you in a crash”, because what does it matter if a car explodes or not post crash, if the crash wasn’t the car’s fault? “if we have to close down some production because we don’t meet standards we’re in for real trouble in this country.” It’s doubly bizarre because in a lot of ways Ford II was a pretty forward looking, reasonable person but on this one thing he was absolutely mental.

And it almost worked- they managed to delay the regulatory change that’d finally cause the recall almost for the whole life of the Pinto. The industry and government collusion was incredible… It’s a pretty amazing story overall and way more interesting than the simplified version.

In other news, I still have a lump on my thigh from 2018 from that ride we had!

Holy crap was it that long ago?

Hope the new job worked out!

well, got gas/electric meters fitted this morning and I’m in the turning lights on/off phase to see the numbers change…

I had smart meters fitted about 6 months ago. They seems to send data to my provider OK but the in home display has never connected/worked. I’ve contacted them several times but just get “we are aware of the issue and working to get it resolved. Due to complexity we can’t offer a timescale”. Arseholes.

I’ve just logged a complaint and received a tracking number. Let’s see if that provides any motivation to fix the thing!

The BG ‘Contact us’ chat facility is useless!