Is it really illegal to refuse to have a smart meter?

[ALongHardWinter]

This is what a friend of a friend told me yesterday. Is it true? My electric company have been sending me letters every few months for the last couple of years urging me to have one installed. So far I've dug my heels in,mainly due to all the horror stories I've heard about them - not working initially,or working initially then suddenly not working. I know at least 6 people who've had them installed that have had problems. Now I get told this!

What exactly do you think a smart meter is going to do?

@Thatladdo It may be. But the trouble is the utility companies have lied to and bullied so many people, and used such underhand tactics that no-one believes a word they say any more.

They have only themselves to blame.

Crikey that is scary, this was in the news earlier in the year about vulnerable people having people break into the house or use bailiffs instead of sorting out issues properly, bloody awful!
I am with Octopus and don't see the 'excellent service' as constantly touted on radio ads, they hassled me about getting a smart meter and despite telling them time and time again I didn't want one they keep contacting me: the 'customer service' bloke told me he could do nothing about the emails, despite them being generated by Octopus!
No and no again: I am perfectly capable of turning off things not in use. As @MrsDanversGlidesAgain it's in someone's interest, not mine!

It’s defo not a legal requirement but if your meter needs replacing they probably won’t have anything other than smart meters in stock. Ours has been fine, our electrics are slightly unusual however so we needed to have a “proper electrician” (quote the first installer!) to put it in! We still haven’t got the gas meter switched as the distance between gas and electric meters is too far for the standard meters to communicate. The smart meter for electric has definitely saved us money and helped settle a year long dispute with Octopus re being overcharged.

I did a thread about smart meters back in 2011, explaining why the utility companies and government want them.

Long story short, it's because they want to do surge pricing in the evenings when you're trying to cook the dinner and get laundry done. It will hit households where there's no one in during the day much harder than those of retirees or with a SAHP.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/other_subjects/1327330-Anyone-having-a-gas-leccy-meter-replaced-with-a-Smart-Meter-Something-you-need-to-know

Unfortunately, smart grids have a hugely increased number of security vulnerabilities, compared to older critical infrastructure.

At the time I wrote the thread, the question was "But who would want to hack a nation's power grid?"

We now have an answer to that: both China and Russia have hacked power grids. It's now very obvious that being able to attack power grids in countries it wishes to invade or harass is a gift to Russia.

https://www.wired.com/story/china-redfly-power-grid-cyberattack-asia/#:~:text=Today%2C%20researchers%20on%20the%20Threat,to%20name%20which%20country%20was

https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN1871W8/

No. I have been bombarded with emails and phone calls for years. They tried to fit one several years ago, but due to where we live there was no signal and the original meter was reinstalled. The calls/emails continued, I asked them to stop bothering me and haven't heard anything since.

Here's what CAB advise. https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/consumer/energy/energy-supply/your-energy-meter/getting-a-smart-meter-installed/

I don’t get why some people are so anti smart meter.
I don’t use the customer screen thing as I didn’t bother to get it connected but my smart meter sends a reading every half hour so my usage is accurate and I only pay for what I use.

With the old meters you have to manually send the reading and there is room for error. You risk paying more than necessary.

As I said in an earlier post, the reasons I don’t want one are:-

1. problems - there are cases of them being wrong, leading to crazy bills
2. I’m not interested in the minute details of my electricity usage, I use what I need
3. I don’t want to interrupt my day to schedule a visit and make tea/smalltalk with a fitter
4. I don’t want to clear a space for a meter
5. I just can’t be bothered as I see no advantages

I object on principal to the adverts which tell you to 'have a smart meter it will save you money'.......... total lie, its taking electricity to run, the only thing that will save you money is switching things off and not using as much electric!
They are purely for the benefit of the fuel companies not the householder.

I keep getting letters saying my meters certification is running out and i need a smart meter (Ovo), i ignore them.
I can read my meter perfectly fine and would rather give them a reading once a month!

I think your friend is referring to the energy act 2023, which lays out new powers in smart meter installation.

Our smart meters are great. They ended years of energy providers repeatedly charging us massive amounts due to estimated bills. Why wouldn’t you want one?

As I used to work for them there are safety issues at stake. The meters had to be read 3 out of 4 quarters because they needed a visual inspection as part of reading them, making sure the tails are not tampered with etc. In rural areas it is 2 out of 4 quarters, it also helped with accuracy of estimated bills. Prepayment meters changed from card meters where you punched in a paper card to smartcard meters where the customer had a reusable plastic card or key and they relayed a lot of information back to the supplier including if the meter thought it was being tampered with.

You don't own the meter, the electricty company does and if you refuse access they get a warrant, break in, change the meter and your locks (because they were drilled out) and you are charged for it. As a company we were not allowed to allow customers to build debt, it was seen as a duty of care. You wouldn't be allowed to leave a supermarket with £90 of food if you had only paid £75 for it, same for electricity. Imagine doing that weekly, the debt rises. Also who the hell do you think pays for all the debt? It is you, the customer who pays, they just increase the tarif prices for everyone to cover losses just like a lot of other businesses.

As for the solid walls and no room if they want to fit a meter they will move it on their dime. Meters are moved all the time but usually because the customer wants it relocated so they pay.

The meter is for the benefit of the supplier there is the added benefit to the customer if they wish to monitor and possibly reduce their consumption. I think it also makes it more obvious to think about the energy everyone is using. Octopus are raved about, I love them and I like their approach to renewable energy. With more people at home with wfh and being able to put the washing machine on etc I think there has been a shift in domestic consumption usage. Plus we are all using more energy with charging tablets, phones, laptops, home computers, more tvs rather than just one in the lounge, it is just the sheer number of devices each household has these days.

From memory, Meters have a lifespan of 15 to 25 years before they need to be re-certified at a meter test station, depending on their make and model. I’m holding out as long as I can with my old fashioned 2-rate meter.

Of course it's not illegal. I've been asked for years from 3 different suppliers if I wanted a smart meter, I have always refused. British Gas kept ringing me up and I refused every time, Bulb asked me once and I said no and I'll always say no, they never asked again. Octopus has never asked me directly, it just comes up on my account dashboard but I ignore it.
I read my meters every month and submit the readings so I know exactly how much my fuel costs are, I don't need a smart meter to tell me it uses electricity when I boil the kettle or use the washing machine and I don't think it's necessary for fuel suppliers to know my daily usage habits. I will refuse to have one till I'm absolutely forced to.

can someone tell me if this is correct please? If an energy supplier/government decided to ration energy they would be able to do that much more easily to those on a smart meter than those who don’t have one?

Good question, @Monkeyfloor .

It's not a yes / no answer though, as it's more about whether smart meters are the dominant system or not, and whether you're rich or poor.

In a system without smart meters, energy rationing is usually done through "brown-outs": rolling power cuts which affect whole districts at set times. So every one gets a chance to charge their phones, do their cooking, cool their freezer back down, etc.

In a system where most households had smart meters, rationing would be done by surge-pricing: temporarily increasing the price until sufficient people switched off most of their lights/heating/appliances, bringing down the total load.

Of course as with all systems where scarce resources are allocated purely by money, Lord & Lady Moneybags would still have their outdoor swimming pool being heated, while Mr & Ms At-Their-Gates would be sitting round a candle bundled up in their coats.

So if you're rich, you're likely to be a winner under smart meters: everyone else will turn off their appliances so you can keep yours on.

Smart meters and surge-pricing also have political advantages. Brown-outs are an actual Thing; they can be pointed to as an obvious failure by government to provide critical national infrastructure.

Whereas pricing power out of the reach of ordinary folk is merely a failure by poor people to be rich and virtuous. Politicians would wax lyrical that feckless parents were choosing beer and gel nails over keeping their children warm and fed. We could write the headlines now...

I had some pushy cow turn up at my front door saying I would HAVE to have a smart meter at some point and insisted on knowing why I didn't want one - she was still blabbering away when I shut the door

We came home one day to a letter through our door saying they had replaced our water meter with a smart one. That was unexpected.

But we have had all ours replaced now mainly so we could access cheaper electric rates through Octopus. We haven't really had any problems and the second generation ones (which we have had) seem to work better.

Our metre is 3 years old. They write to us and phone to say it will stop working soon…. It sends in daily readings I think! Surely they last longer than 3 years?

@MumblesParty you don’t need to make space for a meter though. The meter is on your electric box.

the customer unit doesn’t have to be installed either.

I e had one for a couple of years now

Many advantages for us,one being we can keep an eye on our useage especially with teens in the house

Another being it sends automatic updates readings so I don't have to do battle every quarter with trying to log in and give readings before they make their own up

Another one being I don't pay a massive fix all year meaning they never have hundreds of pounds of my money in their account.

I pay upto the penny each month and yes i know it's higher in winter than summer but it still evens out and means my moneys with me not them

Another thing they are doing is the opt in scheme where by a few days a week they will email you with an hour slot on a particular day to try and use less than you normally would in that hour.
It's normally between 5 and 6 so il do a slow cooker meal that day and tell the kids not to have the shower running in between that time or the washing machine and dryer.

In one month I've saved £15 which might not sound like much but that's two days of electricity for us

No idea why so many are tin foil hat about smart meters! We’ve got both gas and elec smart meters fitted and had no issues with them. Octopus have lowered our monthly bill by £60 as they have accurate readings so at the moment we’re perfectly happy with them.

Your friend of a friend is probably confused.
It is a legal requirement that all electricity companies offer smart meters to their customers.
It is not a legal requirement for those customers to accept them.
That said, more and more tariffs will be available that are only possible with a smart meter (geared to encouraging off peak use etc), so it will gradually become more of a 'luxury' not to have one.