to think Smart Meters are just an invasion of privacy?

[evrybuddy]

Just had a letter from NPower saying they want to install Smart Meters.

The basic premise seems to be they will collect all data on my gas and electric usage - and in exchange for that...

They will then tell me what my gas and electric usage is and when I'm using it!!!

And I can make of that what I will - and get up earlier and boil the kettle at a different time or get the kids up at 3 in the morning for cheap electric baths or whatever.... in other words I already live a way that suits me, at a gas and electric cost that suits me and I use gas and electric at times when I have to.

Okay, I understand that this may clear up the situation about the man living secretly in my loft and coming out when I go to work and watching TV infrot of the gas-fire all day...

Just what is the point of this huge endeavour?

Just more snooping or what?

Anybody rejected a meter?

Yeah, lets have a mini Nuclear power plant in each city, doesn't matter that we can never get rid of all the Nuclear waste but hey ho.

no, that's obvious bozo arty-farty thinking and greenie knee-jerk. Trouble is several governments believe it.

nuclear has its place (zero carbon, remember), same as windfarms do (off shore or close to existing power lines, and made in the UK if used in the UK) and solar. And tidal and hydro. But nuclear PRODUCES. Don't build them on a fault (although Fukushima was nowhere near as bad as you'd have them believe). But this is the UK, not the Pacific Rim.

you may think differently when the lights start going out in the next few winters.

Yes Nuclear waste is very arty-farty, where you planning on putting all the waste and do you mind if it comes to a town near you.

Smart meters do not help manage demand.

Google it - evidence from other countries shows no downward movement in energy consumption after smart meter installation.

Billions of pounds for what?

So you don't have an estimated bill?

That's the biggest USP/selling point the power companies have on this one!!!

Well, forgive me, but it doesn't keep me awake at night.

Still interested to know what the relationship between the utility companies and non-competitive pricing is...

It's a good way to allow rolling brown outs in the future.

There is talk of having "critical" plug sockets - freezer - recognised by the smart meter to allow the leccy company to restrict power in the event of a shortage.

Essentially they'll be able to turn off whole areas in times of high demand.

It already happens with business districts in Italy - who import a lot of energy from France, used to play havoc with our comms network at weekends.

One of my problems with the current plans for Smart Meters in the UK is that the brown-outs will be rationing by price.

The plan isn't to turn off everyone's electricity - just poor people's, using price-spikes as the mechanism.

If your family has a large disposable income, a SAHP and lives in a detached house, this will have very little effect on your life. If you struggle to make ends meet, are out all day and can't run the washing machine overnight because of the downstairs neighbours, it will have a massive impact.

Now maybe that's how we as a country want to ration a scarce national resource. But we need to discuss this openly.

And to do that, the utility companies need to be upfront about what Smart Meters are really for. (And indeed, what else they've packaged with them for their own convenience.)

Knew it wouldn't be long before Tianc appeared on here spouting nonsense about Time of Use Tariffs.

They are designed to help balance the grid by making it cheaper for people to use electricity at times when demand is low/supply is high.

This helps everyone and helps reduce costs in the long run.

It is not a way of rationing electricity.

There is an interesting experiment going on at the moment with this idea in Wadebridge: www.pv-magazine.com/news/details/beitrag/cornwall-experiments-with-sunshine-tariff-as-possible-alternative-for-uk-solar_100021583/#axzz3pZmvftlv

Would you care to explain what is "nonsense" in what I have said, *Merguez"?

Or are you just going to wave your hands and say "Any criticism of Smart Meters must be Nonsense!" very loudly?

"They are designed to help balance the grid by reducing the total amount of electricity used during peak time. They will do this by putting the price up during peak time so that some people cannot afford to use it. This will affect poorer people and those with fewer choices more."

There, fixed that for you.

But you're right that "rationing" is usually used to describe methods of sharing out scarce resources in as fair and socially responsible a means as possible. And using price to restrict access to a scarce essential resource rarely has any relation to fairness or good social outcomes.

"helps reduce costs in the long run."

Whose costs?

BTW, I've actually lived in countries with rolling brown-outs. I think trying to manage these cleverly is a good thing.

But there are a number of significant problems with what's currently proposed in the UK with Smart Meters (see thread linked above).

"We must do Something, this is Something, so let's do it" is NOT managing things cleverly!

The data issue is separate from the scarce resources issue.

Someone on a previous thread (possibly Merguez) argued that the utility companies wouldn't cause any issues with data because of fear of the impact on their business.

But yesterday we had the CEO of TalkTalk saying she didn't even know if customers' financial data was encrypted, and talking about "with hindsight"!

In 2015! After previous breaches of their own service!

TalkTalk will probably cease to exist because of this.

The RBS/Natwest software crash of a few years ago will have done them no good either. That one is believed to have been caused by management skimping on paying for IT.

So it's not even the question of whether companies CAN'T run mega IT-systems reliably and securely (and it may be actually impossible); it's the evidence that they DON'T.

The reasons are multi-layered, but the one thing you can say with confidence is that we will continue to see software muck-ups and successful attacks on very large businesses which should have known better.

YANBU I do not want and will not take a "smart" metre of any kind. I don't want people being able to have the exact specifics of when and what I'm using its just creepy and quite unhealthy for them to want to know so much.

I find it bizarre that people will think someone might spend the time to hack into your meter to work out when you're not their.
If they had that level of hacking skills they really wouldn't be focus and on hacking into individual houses.
And you can work out when someone is in or out by, you know, seeing whether there's a car on the drive, lights are on. Or maybe adding them on Facebook where everyone happily posts their holiday selfies.

People moan about energy prices, and then when a great new technical innovation comes along which will help reduce costs for everyone they get all suspicious and say I'm not having any of that, no-one has a right to know exactly how much electricity I use at which time of day. As if they are somehow spying on you individually ...

What makes you say smart meters will reduce costs for everyone?

Estimated costs of the new meters is £11 billion plus+++ to be added to your bill!

Are you going to adjust your usage enough to compensate you for that?

Over what period of time will it repay the installation/manufacturing costs?

Consumers will only ever save money if they change their consumption behaviour - and they could do that now at no cost!!!

Evidence from other countries shows people don't change their behaviour.

There's no evidence to suggest people are wasting gas and electric out of not knowing what it costs or that they are actually using it!

Any vaunted savings are based on supposition and speculation and generally treating people as dumbasses who aren't already behaving in a way to save money on their bills.

I have had a smart meter for 5 years (I was part of a trial) and it has certainly helped me to reduce my consumption - by understanding what I was using and when. It just makes you more aware, and I am generally a thrifty, energy-conscious type of person. I've probably saved 5 to 10 %.
But that does depend on people bothering to use them properly.

Energy companies will also no longer have to pay meter readers to visit your house.

We already pay for the costs of meters through our bills anyway.

Ofgem have allowed them to pass the cost of these directly on to consumers with bigger bills. All these adverts about free smart metres are lies.

Its just a messy ill thought out system that is already doomed and will cost us all hundreds in our bills.

Can you get them taken out if you move somewhere that had them installed?

@ Merguez - I'm like you then - thrifty and money conscious and very aware of my energy consumption which is why I don't want to chip in £eleven billion pounds plus for electricity meters that I already have - do you see - saying we pay already for meters in our bills is not a defense to the argument - it doesn't make sense.

For example, the cost of a future military campaign in the middle east could be £200 billion - but saying we already pay for military campaigns doesn't make that cost vanish. It's £200 billion extra! More tax - higher bills.

What pittance they save on meter readers will be a drop in the ocean of the cost of new meters.

The alternative is get people to submit their readings online if you want to put people out of work.

Bt energy companies have been trying for years to get people to submit readings online and they just don't do it.

Anyway, the smart meter has worked well for me.

For others it may not I guess. But I think that in say, 5 years time, people will be amazed that we did without them.

A bit like mobile phones, internet, etc, all of which weren't around when I was young.

there isn't that much nuclear waste. There are ways to deal with it. And yes, because I am not ignorant you can put the waste treatment plant next door if you want, ditto the nuclear reactor.

I live in a town with a relatively high radon level. That gives me and everyone else there a much higher dose than I would get from a reactor. I don't see a particularly high incidence of people with two heads.

mind the greenwash.

There isn't that much nuclear waste

I have an app which lets me read my meter and get an accurate bill. Not sure how a smart meter will improve that.

Also I am on economy 7. For those who dont know this is a totally shit heating system whereby hot water and storage heaters are heated at night when it is cheaper rate and then used during the day. Storage heaters are crap so you end up using additional heating in the evening at expensive rate. It is also not possible to run washing machines/dryers at night hecause this is dangerous and noisy. You cook when you nees to, not at 3 am when the leccy is cheaper. People live as they must so will end up paying more just to cover intallation costs. I will be refusing mine!

I'm watching this thread with interest. I think smart meters would be useful to keep track of my energy usage automatically without having meter readings. However MIL is very against them and thinks it's some kind of conspiracy but she's a bit like that generally.

Damsel, you can get yourself a clip-on or plug-in monitor from Amazon right now.

You can download your data to your own computer if you fancy doing more sophisticated tracking and analysis.