To ask why the hell energy companies keep desperately trying to push SMART METERS?

[Peekaboo3]

Just that.

Why?

Hell will freeze over before I have them.

My energy provider has sent me a letter saying ...

'We are now ready to install your smart meters. Just one phone call, and we will install the meters at your convenience yada yada.'

With the way they've worded it, it sounds almost like you have no choice.

We do have a choice of course. And my choice is no.

It is NOT compulsory. So they can piss off bugging me.

But WHY do they keep pushing these bloody things?

WHY?

So now I have a Smart meter, though it is now dumb, suppliers won't bother me about having another one. That is probably why Eon didn't seem to care that their smart meter had turned dumb as they had fulfilled their obligation to offer one.

Derbyshire
Definitely: the roll out began without a standard system. Some companies pushed first for their system. The others didn't agree.

This is what infuriates me and shows the companies are to blame for the fact people are refusing these metres. I believe that the companies who didn’t agree initially to a standard system, did it as they thought it would mean people wouldn’t want the hassle of swapping meters and would just stick with the first company who provided them with one. It took the Regulator to intervene and demand one standard system.

That behaviour is absolutely disgraceful.

The reason the companies want to minutely assess your usage is in order to change it, in real time.

The example someone gave above of someone on a low income switching off their fridge when they turn the hob on is WHAT THE UTILITY COMPANIES & GOVT WANT.

There'll be technology to do this, for those that can afford it: "smart" sockets or fridges which turn themselves off when the house's consumption per minute gets too high. And nominally turn themselves back on when the consumption drops. No one seems to have discussed what happens if it doesn't drop all night.

Because one of the significant things here is that it will be consumption in ££s that's used as the off-trigger, not KWhr usage. The price will go up during peak periods, and the fridge or washing machine will switch off because it's costing more, not using more.

Unlike countries which manage electricity shortages with rolling brown-outs affecting whole districts in turn, or like coupons during WWII when no matter how rich you were, you couldn't buy up all the ham in the butcher, the UK's smart meter system plans to use purely money to ration the scarce resource.

So it will hit the less well off disproportionately, while having almost no effect on people who don't need to worry how to pay the bills.

What I also haven't seen discussed (maybe that's just me missing it), is how long pricing "peaks" will stay in place. If the wind drops, will the peak be all day? Three days? Will the fridge or washing machine still be off 12 hours later? 12 hrs later? How often will this happen?

I've worked for Blank Energy for 18 years - I've seen a lot of changes. When smart metering first came out I wasn't fussed at all but I've come round to the benefits.

Btw just because I can see your current readings in an instant doesn't mean I do unless I need to. Nobody is sitting monitoring what you're using.

We've got one. Sits in the cupboard, never use the 'smart' capacity, functions exactly like the old meter except I don't have to bother giving meter reading anymore. Which I like.

We already had a smart water meter which saved us a lot of money but TBH the electricity was never going to do the same, so it wasn't a big deal to us to change.

At no point did we see it as some giant government/EU conspiracy.

See - personally I have never found it difficult to read the meter and then out my readings online.

The adverts seem to be trying to persuade people that:

a) Meter reading is a faff
b) You can get power under control
c) You can see how much power you use and use less

It must be scary to see how much power is costing you - and it might make you use less power. I bet people who have pay as you use meters that you top up already have that feeling.

My current gas meter has around 17 years left of its lifespan. They can replace it when it needs replacing.

Otherwise it is not exactly "green" is it? Replacing perfectly good equipment before it reaches the end of it's life.

kalapattar

Excellent, and you can continue to use that happily until the meter legally is at the end of its life, then a new meter will have to be installed.
If at that point you still don't want one, then a Smart meter will be fitted, with the smart functionality disabled and you can continue to read it yourself etc. (at some point soon, old style meters will no longer be produced)

As i said before, honestly, the motivation isn't necessarily for YOU to save usage. Its about control of the whole energy network.

Are gas meters harder to swap as BG couldn't offer me a smart meter even if I wanted one but Electric ones seem to be easily installed, I have never been pushed for a gas smart meter.

Its about control of the whole energy network.

Yep. Energy company wants to be able to switch off appliances in your home at a time of its choosing so it doesn't have to produce enough energy to run them. In a nutshell.

LizzieSiddal

I agree completely, but again, as its government mandated then they really should have set up an intermediary right at the beginning as the major players were never ever going to be able to agree.

BeyondThePage

Definitely it will sit there happily until it needs replacing - the thing most people aren't aware of is that every meter in every home has a cost attached to its life-span.

Energy suppliers do not own your meter, they 'rent' it. If a meter has 17 years left to run, and the supplier remove it, then they have to in effect pay up the rest of the financial obligation for that meter. Just like trying to leave a phone contract early.
This means the oldest, and out of contract meters tend to be targeted for upgrade first as its less costly. (some meters have a life span of 5 years, some 25 etc etc)

This control seems a few years away though, they can't even make my dumb meter smart at the moment

You can get power under control

Yeah. You already have your power under your control.

This is the energy company being disingenuous: it's the electricity company that will get your power usage under it's control.

Which of course means taking some control away from you.

Tianc

Absolutely not possible. Even if customers owe thousands of pounds, legislation strictly forbids remotely isolating supply. This is founded in safety as remotely there would be no way of knowing what is currently switched on/being depended on.

This is somewhere the regulator actually has done excellent work, I'd m reading the Smart Metering Industry Code Of Practice (SMICOP)
This sets out the principles suppliers must adhere to, with prime focus on customer safety, and energy efficiency.

It's not a conspiracy, it is fact. Too many people, not enough resources. And that is planet wide.

Rationing better than none at all.

I agree completely, but again, as its government mandated then they really should have set up an intermediary right at the beginning as the major players were never ever going to be able to agree

So why didn’t the companies go back to the govt and say “We can’t agree, we need you to intervene” that’s what grown up people would do, whereas they blindly carried on pushing a product that they knew would be obsolete.

They need to take responsibility for this mess.

Genuinely enjoyed this conversation all, please don't take my words as gospel, as with any subject - do your own research and balance all sides of the discussion... and never ever believe what you read in the daily fucking mail :-)

Alas i have to go now, a shopping trip with the kids on the cards! Maybe ill pop up on the next one to throw my tuppence in!

Have a safe and warm snow day everyone!

DerbyshireDad, I'm not talking about isolating the supply.

I'm talking about "trickle disconnection," ie using the smart meter to severely limiting supply without actually turning it off.

This does not require presence of a utility company engineer, any more than it requires the presence of a utility company engineer when a prepay meter runs out or comes back on after payment.

The utility companies were very enthusiastic about trickle disconnection – I've covered it briefly in my thread that I linked.

A PP on this thread seemed to say trickle disconnection had now been banned by the regulator. I've asked for more details of that, and whether the physical capability will still be there even if not currently supported by regulation.

By the way, "trickle disconnection" gets its name from the water industry, where providers reduce water supply to a household by inserting a blocker in the pipe, allowing through only a tiny trickle of water which can be slowly collected in a bucket all day.

Thus meeting any statutory or humanitarian requirements not to cut off water supplies, while still sanctioning the household.

And it's lovely to wax lyrical about Ofgem's lovely principals, or say that utility companies "don't actually want to piss our customers off".

Very nice. On personal level, I even believe it.

But this is how utility companies actually behave:

2016
Scottish Power billing fiasco: here are some of the firm's unbelievable blunders www.telegraph.co.uk/bills-and-utilities/gas-electric/scottish-power-billing-fiasco-here-are-some-of-the-firms-unbelie/

2013
Scottish Power to pay customers £8.5m after Ofgem probe www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-24620304

2013
SSE fined record £10.5m by Ofgem www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22011717

2012
EDF agrees to pay £4.5m misleading sales 'fine' www.theguardian.com/money/2012/mar/09/edf-pay-misleading-sales-fine

2009
EDF pays £2m penalty for poor customer service www.theguardian.com/business/2009/jul/24/edf-fined-connection-failures-ofgem

Agree with everything derbyshiredad says.
Or, alternatively, I've just been "brainwashed" by the electricity company who want to interfere with my cup of tea....
Because balancing the grid was easy when generation was done by a small number of power stations, and nothing has changed in the last 50 years to make the system more complicated. Just tell the power station to crank it up a bit during the prime time ad breaks like back in the day!

We have one voluntarily. Doesn't bother me . Very useful to see what you're using (unnecessarily) which has led to us turning things off when not needed, not that we were particularly wasteful anyway but still. I don't see the objections myself

Btw another interesting feature of gridwatch is the interconnectors - as I type this we are importing electricity from France and Holland, and sometimes we will export to them (and Ireland and NI). Demand varies hugely, supply also varies (especially renewables) and often the supply is at the "wrong" time. Increasing the output of most power generators takes time and forward planning - you can't just chuck a few rods of uranium in the boiler for eg. It's a very complex picture. Being connected with the grids of other countries is VERY useful in balancing supply/demand.

But of course we are leaving the IEM, so this is likely to become less efficient and more expensive for consumers....

The thing that got me was that the expect you to stay in and wait for them. They dont offer evening slots and the was a year wait for a weekend appointment. I'm not giving up a day of my precious holiday to accomodate them! Especially when it's a rental house!

@APJTaylor

it avoids the faff of reading it and results in accurate bills.

Well to be fair, reading my meter 3 times a year and giving my supplier the readings, DOES take 3 and a half minutes of my year.

SO yeah, maybe I will change my mind and get a smart meter after all....

That will free up all that time in my year then to, ....oh maybe boil an egg!

1..... I am being sarcastic.

2..... Traditional meters ALSO give accurate readings.

@kalapattar

The adverts seem to be trying to persuade people that

a) Meter reading is a faff
b) You can get power under control
c) You can see how much power you use and use less

Well EXACTLY. It's a load of utter shite. All this can be done with regular traditional meters. There are some seriously brainwashed and naive people on this thread.

I shall not be getting a smart meter EVER, despite 3 and a half minutes of my life being wasted EVERY YEAR on reading the meters and giving it to my energy supplier!

Keep on peddling all the hyperbole and guff about how much better smart meters supposedly are. You're wasting your time, because I know they don't improve anyone's life or save them any time. Indeed, I have heard a LOAD of stories of people having nothing but trouble with them.

I just wish that my energy supplier would quit trying to palm them off onto me with shitty spam letters saying 'we are ready to install your smart meters.'

NO. I don't WANT them. So fuck off.