Smart meter - yay or nay?

[FuckingHateRats]

We're with Bulb.

Currently pay £229 DD every month (four bed semi with shit windows). Sitting with £475 credit at the min.

Bulb are keen to install a smart meter.

Those who have one, would you recommend it? Will it make my payments go up or down?

So really useful for affluent middle class home owners who have their own home battery and electric vehicle. And who don't already have Economy 7 type tarriffs for this purpose.

What about the other 98% of the population?

Who gets the interest on the "savings" account?

I got them installed about 3 weeks ago. It has changed my behaviour, as I can already see which lights are using most electricity so I'm gradually changing everything over to LED (the big lights already were, but not all the wall lights, spot lights and lamps) and limiting usage in the meantime.
Eg I have an uplighter. It costs 5p an hour! By autumn this will likely be 10p an hour. It is usually on all evening, so in winter say 5 hours. 50p a day, £15 a month. Just for one light.

It will only reduce your bills if you reduce your usage but it gives you the tools to know what to reduce for the biggest impact.

I'm not getting one. Too many tales of errors that take ages to sort out. I read my meter on the same day of each month ( reminder on phone) ... I think the main people who benefit from Smart meters are the energy companies

Bill raised, refund auto-sent. I've argued with them about it and they've told me it's tough, it's just how they do it!

Oops. Forgot the image!

That opinion is no more useful than others presuming they are provided by the utility companies for nefarious reasons.

They allow the consumer to see, in real time, what their consumption is and can help nudge behaviour. I'll bet many people don't realise how much a kettle uses until they see the bar on the meter shoot up. They can then make an informed decision to use a flask to reduce how often they use the kettle for example. We are surprised about how much it costs to run a sink of water to wash the pots! We also can use ours to tell when the solar panels we have are at their optimum.

Yes, I'm sure they are used to inform peak/off peak times and rates so obviously the companies get something out of them.

My point is, that's it more balanced.

The utterly negligible interest is mine, clearly. But I'd rather they used the equal monthly payment system in the way it was designed for. 🤷‍♀️

Ours is pointless. I wanted to see usage as we use loads of electricity and can't work out why.
However the monitor doesn't connect to the meter unless you are stood next to it so we can't use it.
I was fine just sending the readings and adjusting the DD myself.
It was just an annoying day wasted waiting for them to come and fit it. I suppose at least they're no longer hounding me to get one.

We had one seven years ago that never worked. The energy company we’re with now insisted upon it. DH has been monitoring usage and it has certainly made us more aware. We also discovered something in use overnight and have been able to adjust that. It’s early days, but the awareness of consumption is the big thing.

To you its negligible but multiply by a multi million customer base and its a significant money maker for the companies which is why they try to force it.

Early models had multiple problems with inaccurate reporting and being unable to switch between companies.

There are still callibration/misreporting problems and you have to prove the company is at fault when an issue arises or pay for fuel you haven't used.

If you have a variable mobile signal in your house then forget it or prepare for billing hell.

The vast datasets captured by companies on each household's behaviour is substantial. Its a significant money spinner for them but also has potential for misuse. Its not an accident that most smart meters are installed by force on tariff change rather than sought out by customers.

It willl enables companies to force differential pricing to a granular degree rather than the current situation where you can elect to have an economy 7 type tariff. It is technically possible to charge differentially by devices if the energy companies or a future government chose.

The question is always who benefits? The benefits are still overwhelmingly with the companies. The main disadvantages have been to the most disadvantaged households.

I don't need a screen to tell me a light bulb uses more energy than a kettle. In fact the energy companies used to send out charts to customers showing cost/usage per hour of different devices. They no longer seem to do this

If you have solar panels do not get a smart meter fitted under any circumstances.

The way it's going you will have to have one at some point sadly.

I'd advise you to get your own 'smart' meter fitted to help you monitor your energy consumption.

The difficulty with the smart meters fitted by the electric companies is only for solar panel owners.

At the moment solar panel owners are paid for every KW hour they produce. Not for every kw hour they export.

Once the smart meter detects that you've used what you produce you won't be getting paid anymore.

At the moment I earn £1,600 tax free in a year in solar power tariff. If I get a smart meter fitted that drops to £500. So it's not in my interests to get an official one fitted.

I do have one but It's a privately fitted smart meter so I can track my usage minute by minute if needed. This means we still have a man come to read our meter.

You get a discounted rate for paying this way. If you cancel and pay for what you use, they're allowed to charge more.

How do you know any meter is accurate? It’s possible for any type to have faults. Smart meters are generally reliable

Ask for it.

All utility companies are obliged to pay you back if you ask for it.

I use to change supply at the beginning of every spring so never needed to. Now I'm going to ask for any credit back at the beginning of March.

How have the suppliers benefitted at the expense of the customers? Surely it’s better for customers to get a more accurate idea of usage which can help them budget.

Because they are 100% for the energy company’s benefit, not ours.

Both my meters are a pain in the arse to get to, my smart meters mean that I don't have to move the contents of a cupboard or a piece of furniture to read them. I love them for that alone. I don't use the countertop display - I know how much things use to run.

Some customers didn't report accurate regular readings so were using more energy than they were paying for for years.

There have been threads on MN and other forums about people getting shock bills when they finally gave a meter reading.

There is much less to go wrong in the old style meters. Few parts, no dependency on a reliable mobile signal and there are not multiple layers of software and firmware involved, any one of which can contribute to misreporting of usage.

So yes older meters can go wrong but it tends to be less common and much easier to prove when it happens.

Since when and for how long though? It’s normal to be in credit in the summer.

i would not get one as someone else said when you get something for "free" it is not normally for your benefit, I see it being used to charge peak tariffs which will vary person to oprson so your peak tariiff rate will be when you use the most, it will not necessarily be the same as Fred next doors peak rate
we generally give away our data far too easily my meter readings are accurate as I upload them each month on the 15th
all energy companies are obliged to pay back any credit that is over a month's DD ie they don't have to pay back £2.33 credit but if your DD is £75 and your credit is £100 they have to return it on request

@MsPincher
How have the suppliers benefitted at the expense of the customers? Surely it’s better for customers to get a more accurate idea of usage which can help them budget

My point is you don't need a smart meter - info on usage patterns for different types of devices used to be issued by the energy companies to help customers manage use. Some of the info was a bit trite but it was practical.

The value of the data sets captured is absolutely huge - it tells companies not just about energy usage but the type of devices customers have, individual households movements and make up - information of immense value for marketing and sales and manufacturers when they sell it onward. With the wrong sort of government it can be put to many other uses. As with all smart devices it enables a surveillance society and we don't discuss this enough.

I'd like to see a lot more open and honest discussion about the pros and cons of the current and future levels of data capture. We should be talking about where that balance of benefits should apply to individuals, companies and government and how privacy management will be handled.

Smart meters are a government initiative it it is not something energy companies just decided to do

Interesting - is that an old offer and does it match standard interest rates overall? Judging by this thread alone EDF seem to be managing this inconsistently.

We pay based on readings by direct debit so don't build up banks of credit. One of the reasons for this is because they offered no benefit in return for banking large amounts of my money. I was told at the time that it was all "far too complicated to implement at individual level" 😃