Smart meter

[loverose]

I do not want one fitted!!! Why on earth am I being bombarded with letters and calls trying to book my appointment to have one?

I don't see the benefit to it and would appreciate if someone can prove me wrong as to why they're so great

We had the call from our supplier. She told me we had to have our meter changed as it was an old one. I told her it wasn't, it was changed five years ago. Oh she said, who did that? Can you guess what I answered...?

I'm resisting until I have to do it and, as I told the persistent woman, if she hasn't even got a record of them installing a new meter, I am certainly not signing up to a smart meter.

The trouble with encouraging off peak usage is that most electrical things are either things that you actively use at the time - e.g. computer, tv etc. Or things like washing machine, tumble dryer, phone charger etc which can be operated at anytime, however really should be supervised due to fire risk so you don't want to use them overnight when there isn't as much demand for electricity.

The smart grid is intended to be a very complex system, with some bits talking to each other by WiFi, other bits by mobile phone.

I can't remember the details just now.

Fun Fact: my telecoms engineering friend told me that telecoms techies were properly at the power companies' casual decision to use the mobile phone network as their inhouse comms network.

The phone networks simply didn't have the capacity for all the extra data the power companies were planning to send around (I think this would be once half-hourly price signalling came in).

That was a few years ago, so it's possible that situation has now changed.

I bloody hope it has.

If it hasn't... well, you know how difficult it is getting through when everyone sends New Year messages at the same time... Um, that. All the time. Which will be nice.

I don’t think anyone who hasn’t been on card meters can ever understand the pain and torment they cause you, vs the possible future use of smart meters... no contest

Or things like washing machine, tumble dryer, phone charger etc which can be operated at anytime, however really should be supervised due to fire risk so you don't want to use them overnight

Indeed. Will you tell Ofgem, or shall I?

The whole smart grids concept is predicated on using these appliances in the night.

I would rather share my supply with everyone fairly, with some outages rather than have some people in poverty at home all the time with barely any gas and electric.

PookieDo, agreed. I've been on a prepayment meter and had it run out. It's not fun.

I agree with lots of what you say. Unfortunately, smart meters as currently planned don't solve those problems – and may make them worse.

Smart meters don't give people more money with which to afford electricity, and in the longrun won't reduce how much people are paying for electricity.

Another underlying premise of smart meters is that the mechanism for sharing out short-supplies of electricity will be price, rather than say kWh usage per person/household.

When there are power shortages, the rich can carry on without noticing – can even turn on the hot tub and the air conditioner during the shortage. It's a line in their bank statement at the end of the month, if they bother to look.

Meanwhile the poor will have their washing machines switched off. It will be poor people's own "choice", of course...

There are many things that give me the rage about smart meters, but the underhand introduction of targeted power cuts so the nobs don't have to notice is well up there.

I don't think anyone is arguing that prepayment meters are a good idea either. Unfortunately it will be those people on low incomes who are most tempted to save a few pounds and run tumble dryers and washing machines overnight so risk fire. When you factor in that those in flats are more likely to use dryers etc it compounds the issue.

I’d rather not have a smart meter but when it comes to changing tariff the ones without smart meters are more expensive.

Does anyone know away around this?

It makes it more likely people can get off the pre payment meters though, or move to a more practical method of online top ups at least. The machines in the shops hardly ever work properly

People on economy 7 are already living that life of tarriffs! And people on prepayment are already totally disadvantaged by ridiculous unit rates and can’t shop around for competitive prices at all. It may actually make it BETTER for those customers, but the more well off people don’t want to be passed the prices. They still want to be able to go on Quidco once a year for a better deal and not be disadvantaged in any way. Pre payment customers go without electricity and gas all the time, god forbid some of us might not be able to run a tumble dryer on a Tuesday

No offense Pookiedo but being on a prepayment meter is not affected by the rich. This is a conscious choice the companies and the government made to not allow people to change their meter easily from prepayment.

There is no need for a smart meter when all they had to do was get rid of prepayment meters, to all those who wanted it gone. My mum has one and loves it. Some hate it and the tariffs are crap but those people should have been allowed to change easily to a normal non smart meter and the high tariff should have been banned.

I don't quite get why you are mixing up the two issues. Government and energy companies could have sorted the issue, of prepayment being more expensive, easily a long time ago but they do not care.

Smart meters will make it far worse. Full stop.

Prepayments meters should be the same tariffs, that's a separate issue along with so many tariffs and economy 7 and this new so called price cap.

But people not thinking longterm and jumping on the smart meter band wagon will affect us all negatively. We all should have been campaigning to get rid of rubbish prepayment tariffs.

We have a smart meter. No issues at all with it. I like being able to check how much we are using, and it does make me very aware.

No issues with them being read remotely either. It ends the estimated billing chaos.

Landline telephone meters were always kept at the exchange and read there, so why not electricity meters?

You are being bombarded because the energy company has targets. They are waaay behind with them because they overestimated how much people would want one. They are having one last shot at persuading customers before they lose a lot of money as a company.

@LondonJax

SSE tried that with me when I changed to them 2 years ago from British Gas. I told them I had my meter changed by British Gas 5 years ago. They then tried a different way of forcing me to have a smart meter. I then asked her if it was compulsory and she said no so I said ok I will wait until the whole country has one (which will be never) and then I will change me meter - have a nice day and don't call me again.

I talk to people in Australia and they are having nothing but problems with smart meters.

stopsmartmeters.com.au/

Theres a large amount of untruths on this thread.

One of the big reasons for installing smart meters is to introduce "Time Of Use" pricing, ie much higher prices in peak times like the evenings.

This isnt true. The energy companies have been tasked with reducing energy use is peak periods because the grids eventually wont cope.

It will be cheaper to use electric later in the evening and early morning. Like I have a wash on now.

Smart meters do not use wifi. They use mobile networks and any telecoms engineer that is shocked that energy companies just decides to use the mobile network doesnt know what he is talking about. British gas for example have a contract and pay Vodafone. They didnt just jump on and use it.

Also pay as you go customers are nor disadvantaged now. Prices are set by the enegery ombudsman and set to provide the energy companies with a very tiny profit.

I have one. I dont think they are great or useless. It's good to top up on my phone. That's about it. And u suppose it's good to see exactly what I am using in real time. Has made me stop having baths on an evening if ds is, I have a shower instead. You can see the difference. I use my electric oven differently, dont let it spend ages warming up etc.

I am a bit 'meh' about them in general. And that's having worked in the energy industry, specifically with Smart meters for a while.

Mine never just switches off. Alot of first generation ones did, fitted somewhere the Vodafone signal was poor.

I also think people need to remember this smart switch was actually driven by the government with threats of fines if deadlines weren't met. Energy companies have invested millions in it, and pretty much since a year in government having been umming and ahhhing about wether they might drop the deadline.

Given that Capita is in charge of the DCC network, no thanks. I avoid anything to do with Capita wherever possible.

I’m not mixing up the 2 at all

No one jumped on any bandwagon to get rid of prepayment meters because it isn’t happening to them. The people stuck with them don’t have a strong voice.

Now the wealthy can be affected by something to do with their energy, of course there is outrage and uproar

People on prepayment meters should get smart meters, they will help them as they can top up online. They also can see what is draining their meter and adjust accordingly, they are the people they can help budget more easily

Prepayment meters are still disadvantaging - the unit prices ARE still more, and customers have no access to the better, cheaper energy plans at all. There is a price cap now (only came in in 2017) but this went on for years pushing people into poverty. They also are not a priority to change over - conventional customers are. So whilst they bombard you, they are ignoring people who do want to change. I had to ask, have a credit check (the meter was there when I moved in) and they also can ask for £200 deposit

If you want to read a review of the fuel poverty gap and smart meters (I have) then look on the CSE website

Why I am posting on here is that I don’t want these kind of threads to put off people who would hugely benefit from a smart meter and move away from fuel poverty

There should be a campaign to get rid of prepayment meters. Not to get those on prepayment to get smart meters.

Those on prepayment meters should have been switched to standard meters decades ago and been offered the same tariff decades ago.

But the energy companies liked keeping the prices high and do not give a fuck about fuel poverty. The government did nothing for a long time to address this issue and then they did but it was still crap and nothing much changed.

There is a lot more crap that can happen with smart meters so let's see how the poor start to suffer with them down the line.

We should not be telling anyone to get a smart meter, the population is being fucked over yet again and allowing themselves to sleep walk into what will be a worse situation.

They aren’t going to stop prepayment meters because of debt recovery. They are the only way to manage that effectively, and they are not pointless in that respect. When I moved in to my house the previous occupiers had £6,000 debt to British Gas on the meter. But that doesn’t mean people should be penalised and trapped on the meters forever, without any choices

Well, there's certainly a lot wrong in your post, Tilltheendoftheline. Starting with your assertion that what I wrote isn't true.

You wrote: The energy companies have been tasked with reducing energy use is peak periods because the grids eventually wont cope.

Correct.

They plan to do this by surging the price during the peak. As I said.

Smart meters do not use wifi

But the smart grid does. As I said, it's intended to be a very complex system.

This 2010 Ofgem document gives a brief idea of what the Home Area Network (HAN) and Wide Area Network (WAN) were planned to look like. Some of the communications in the diagram on p11 are by mobile phone, some are by WiFi and some may be by Zigbee. I've also heard more recent muttering about using power line communication (PLC) within the HAN, but I don't know state of play on that.

www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/63618/han-workshop-19-nov-ember-han-basicspdf

Quick guide to smart washing machines which use WiFi. The article doesn't mention switching by the power company, just switching by you, the appliance owner, but this is the sort of tech that is planned to be integrated with the price signalling: www.which.co.uk/reviews/washing-machines/article/smart-washing-machines-explained

There are different possible set-ups, but if I remember correctly, in the proposed UK system the smart meter does not send a signal directly to the washing machine.

IIRC, an approximate version would be: the smart meter sends a signal about how much power you're using right now to the Data Communications Co (DCC); as scaryteacher says, Capita have now been given the contract for this. The DCC sends that data to the power company and to a power company app or third-party app. The power company sends what the price rate is right now to the same app. Depending on what the price is and how much power you're using, the app then sends a signal to your home network, which sends a signal to your smart washing machine or smart socket to switch off or on.

That was off the top of my head, from memory, I haven't checked recent plans, and the plans have always been convoluted, so beware I may not have described the currently planned set-up exactly correctly. But you get the drift.

Each of those comms methods and nodes has its own security issues, of course, and there are significant interoperability challenges. There are also major risks associated with software updates. As consumers, we will find it much less robust than what we have now. Because right now I press a button on the front of my washing machine and it starts washing.

British gas for example have a contract and pay Vodafone. They didnt just jump on and use it.

Correct.

Of course the energy companies have contracts – where were they going to get the SIMs if they didn't?

However, what a salesperson is prepared to sell, and what the system can deliver are not the same thing! The telecoms industry is notorious for this – as anyone who's ever paid for fast broadband and sat watching their film buffering knows only too well!

My senior engineer friend specialised in networks, including systems for remote industrial monitoring devices to report data via the mobile phone network. They had a (tediously!) good grasp of capacity and coverage, and their reaction to the full smart grid plan was “the UK doesn't have the network capacity”.

However, this was a few years ago when I wrote my original thread.

As I say, that situation could have changed – this was an issue that could be fixed, albeit expensively. The other issues with smart meters and the smart grid are more fundamental.

PookieDo, I absolutely agree with you that people should make an informed choice about what will be best for them, in their situation.

Some people will decide that, on balance, a smart meter is what they want.

That's why I tried to make my original thread as informative as possible, and set out the full picture not just the phase one PR.

Link again, in case anyone's interested.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/other_subjects/1327330-Anyone-having-a-gas-leccy-meter-replaced-with-a-Smart-Meter-Something-you-need-to-know

I used to work for an energy advice charity, totally independent and we had many clinets who had issues with smartmeters - we advocated for them with all suppliers.

1. They are not compulsory - they are a choice. We had a lot of people often from deprived areas telling us they had door to door salespeole pressuring them to sign up for one - "its the law" NO IT IS NOT.

1. They are based on first generation (or a very few now) second generation mobile phone technology -0 I'm guessing youe current mobile is 4G or 5G. So their communications are way behind the times.

1. We had a lot of issues with some power companies switching people from credit (billing) meters to pay as you go if they got into difficulties - bypassing industry agreed timeframe and processes, agaisnt the law and Ofgen Guidelines.

1. If you have a missed metering appointment the power company must reimburse you £30 per missed call. You may need to remind them of this, but it is enshrined in Ofgem rulings.

1. If your smartmeter is set to "ping" your readings every 30 mins it can be useful to see how much electricity you are using. I had a client who swore she never used as much electric as she was being charged, but it was possible to see a peak at a specific time and she realised that was when she used her washing machine and tumble drier. These are the two biggest electric usage items in your home. Line dry if you can.

1. They can be hacked - if the MOD and the Pentagon, and the Iranian nuclear program can be hacked YOU can be hacked. Do you trust the power company sub contractors who could be anywhere with your details?

1. It has been said that with smartmeters the power company can switch your billing tariff without your say so. Theoretically it could charge by postcode, blackouts could be set and the consumer would be powerless to do anything. Theortically an extra charge coudl be made for power use at peak times - there are no plans yet for this but if you belive the "Climate Emergency" it is physically possible. There are a lot of conspiracy theories about smart meters - true or not?

1. They are free - of course they are freaking free. Well, no, you pay for them through your tarrif - Aint nothing free. Or, if a product is free, then you are the product.

BTW, I must apologise that I didn't get as far as giving the detailed description of "trickle disconnection" on that thread.

"Trickle disconnection" is a term from the water industry and is what it sounds like.

The utility companies are in many cases prevented by regulations from completely disconnecting some/all customers, or have to jump through legal hoops to do so.

Prepayment meters are a way to circumvent these regs: the customer "chooses" to be disconnected by not putting money in. However, then there are regs to prevent power companies installing prepayment meters for vulnerable customers, so from the companies' point of view, they're back where they started.

A water company's "trickle disconnection" means putting a partial blocker in the pipe so the customer doesn't get full service but still receives a trickle of water for cooking and hygiene needs. (I've lived in countries where this is common.)

An electricity company couldn't easily do that with the old technology. But individually programmable smart meters, that can be reprogrammed without even gaining access to the premises, offer an opportunity. The power companies have been eagerly discussing how they could limit the amount of energy delivered per day, or the power usage at any given time, to a customer they believe owes them money.

It's obviously completely legitimate for a company not to want to provide services without getting paid for them.

It's just the power companies don't have the best track record of managing customer records, keeping track of readings, or even just staying within the law. They DO have a track record of abusing their position. So while on paper I can see a good argument for trickle disconnection, in practice I expect it will be oh-so-inadvertently misused, particularly when customers dispute bonkers bills.