Husband wants to get a smart meter leccy: yay or nay?

[Surgeryscardeycat]

I thought I heard they are a bad idea?

Facebook group -

Refuse Smart Meters

@PutOnYourRedShoesAndLetsDance are you sure about that? Are you confusing smart meters with pre-payment meters?

For those mentioning being obsessed with the in-house device that shows usage - just unplug it and put it in a cupboard (as I have done)! The main purpose of the smart meter is to send monthly usage readings direct to your supplier, thus avoiding estimated readings and/or requiring you to submit monthly readings.

We have one and it has been problematic, we get half price Sundays and it gives half hourly readings, I can see these on the website but doesn't take readings for the bill. BG don't seem to be able to fix this though this is probably a BG failing rather than the meter. I have told them several times but am still getting bills with no electric kWh charged for. The gas meter is not smart and I won't be having one while the electric isn't working properly

We have one. I was dead against it for ages, until our old meter blew and we had no choice. Got about 2 months of free gas/electric while we argued over it tho.

Its been fine and we generally ignore it. We are on pre-payment meters by choice and its handy that we can top it up online rather than going to the shop.

Are you taking about the display gadget? He doesn't go into the meter cupboard all day does he?

I've had 2 and neither reliably send readings. It's a pita. Been overcharged by £100's and they just take it out dd. God it's wearing.

I mean, the appropriate place for the in home display is unplugged and out of sight. With Octopus, the mini can be worth having though as you can see real time use in the app.

I’m on Tracker rather than Agile now (elderly mum needs feeding peak time and my car doesn’t need changing very often) but I still think back fondly to the day last summer that Octopus paid me £1.75 to charge my car!

Fortunately we are being undercharged rather than over but I still have wasted time contacting them, three times so far, I would just like a correct bill though I believe any energy not charged after a year they can't charge for because of back billing rules. Mine is sending readings as we get the peak save discounts and I can see the daily electric amounts. I have sent several manual readings as well but they seem to be ignored.

I find it interesting that energy companies can give cheaper tariffs if you get one of these things. Don't have one and pay more. Something wrong there imo.

They wouldn't admit at first that smart meters are 2 way. You send readings, they can turn you into prepay without ever needing access to your house. No energy provider should have that power.

@artant

This is what I'm wondering about, in last 2 years we've got rid of old appliances eg gas oven old lights, sold fridge, we use air fryer and so on.

We were not affected much by that huge price hike, we were on direct debit with octopus.

We pay about 20 more a month which isn't bad?. I've not stopped using the dryer occasionally either.

In all honesty, it's made zero difference to my life.

It's not really made meter reading easier or harder - because I still check it once a month. It's not made a difference to billing. Or to how I use energy.

Nothing at all has changed for me.

Sorry if that doesn't help!

If you’re with Octopus on the Flexible tariff you’d probably reduce your bills by switching to Agile or Tracker (whichever one works better for you). The Octopus Compare app is useful as a way of seeing how much you’d save (only for electricity).

Our bills went up massively because I look after my very elderly mother and that means lots of lights on and the heating on most of the year. It’s made a difference.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/mar/26/smart-meter-rollout-number-faulty-machines-leaps-great-britain?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It’s a nay from me. I cba explaining why but do ask yourself why they’re* pushing this so aggressively?

*energy companies/central government

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/dec/06/why-cant-british-gas-install-a-smart-meter-that-works?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

So they don't have to send actual people to houses, it's cheaper to not do that.

No that’s not the reason I was referring to.

I’m suspicious of them too.
And wary about over charging instances.
It’s easier for them to convert to pre pay.

And I presume they’ll have to do “maintenance” and upgrades. Cba with that.

Dynamic pricing?

I was keen enough to get one. It repeatedly tripped all the fuses in the fuse box thing (a modern one with the switches less than 5 years old). They returned same day and said it was likely because they had installed it in the porch where the old meter was so we will need to rethink and have it put elsewhere or the fuse thing moved (not a small job!)

Meantime they reinstalled our old meter, but didn't update the system to reflect the change in meter number back to the first one. So it looked on their system like we owed the £23,000 or so. Which should have been easily fixable, but within a few weeks our energy company went bust.

Luckily we had photos evidence of all of this as well as of the meter the day the company went bust. But it took 9 months of constant phoning and emailing to get it sorted, plus loads of estimated bills for tens of thousands if pounds for the year to come. It was so stressful.

Never again!

I got one, I love it, I can see how much I've used each day, how much I have on it and it's easy to top up on my phone, so no bills.