AIBU to think smart meters don't make any difference?

[Lochroy]

I'm being stalked by my electricity supplier to have a smart meter fitted. I don't want another gadget to have to find a home for in the house! I'm careful with usage (as I am with water, conscious to recycle as much as possible and so on). I don't know anyone with one for whom it's actually made any difference.

There have been many threads on this in the past but in a nutshell, there is no benefit to the consumer.

My mother has one and I am always surprised at how little energy she uses even when I’m on my laptop working all day. (Lockdown there)I can’t have one in my flat back home as the meter cupboard is to far for a signal,

Some people like knowing. It's a gadget.

I have one, the main benefit for me is not having to empty the cupboard under the sink every month to get a reading from the gas meter.

I was obsessed with it to begin with and used to have little competitions with myself to use less money than I had the day before.

I have one. It has no major benefits to the consumer other than showing you if you have something thats draining your power and how much you are spending. However, it does tell the energy companies how much people are using to they can tailor the amount of energy they put out to certain areas. Its beneficial more to the energy companies than the consumer.

No more meter readings

I have one. No difference to me atall.

We're not having one either.

Lol at being stalked - me too. Apparently it's a condition of my contract (didn't notice that when I signed up). Contract runs out next month and it's one of the things I am looking at when pricing a new one.

The whole free installation and mass marketing stint wasn’t designed to help the consumers. It does not help energy saving. It was designed to collect much needed accurate data for the utility companies and giving them greater control over the end users.

There is also the huge disadvantage of obscured reading from smart meters as some of them are incompatible with modern energy saving devices.
This can create a false reading costing you thousands, the onus is on you to prove the reading was inaccurate to the utility company. An utter utter pain and hugely stressful.

No benefits, lots of headaches.

Don’t you get cheaper electricity and gas if you have one

It hasn't saved me money but It saves me from going down to the damp, spider dwelling cellar to retrieve the meter readings.

More accurate data on usage of a lot of people will help with the bigger picture - so we get an accurate picture of power demand in different areas at different times.

So that has implications for our energy system and how we develop it - so that's good for managing energy demand - and our fight against climate change. That's good for people.

OTOH - how much energy is needed to make and install all these meters?

I like mine. It's made me very aware how expensive my electric heaters are to run (rented flat) so I turn them on for an hour max now. My electricity bills dropped from £129 a month to £33 a month.

I have one. It has two parts. The bit on the meter sends the readings to the energy company. The bit that tells me how much you are using is not compulsory. Ours has been unplugged for about 6 months and I only remembered the other day. So if you don’t want that bit you can just stick it in a drawer and not worry about it.

We have also been stalked to have one of these. We regularly received letters telling us it was a legal requirement. Except, at the moment, it isn't. As I understand it, the requirement is for the supplier to offer smart meters , not for the consumer to accept one. I don't want one because apart from issues already mentioned, it appears that if you change supplier, they go dumb. And the current offer is that consumers are only entitled to one smart meter, not one per supplier. Apparently the 2gen meters should be able to transfer across suppliers, but companies are still fitting gen 1 meters as otherwise they will have to bear the cost of them.
Also, I read recently that some energy suppliers have recently applied for some sort of variarion in the regulations, which would give them the power to reduce, or even cut, supply to individual homes via the smart meters, at times when the national grid is under pressure. Not sure exactly how this would work, but could be a bugger in a few years time when folk attempt to charge their electric vehicles overnight only to find out in the morning that their supply was reduced and vehicles are not charged.

I’ve been avoiding having one, don’t like the idea of my supply being remotely controlled in case of power shortages.
I’m not impressed by the way companies DD for way more than you use anyway. I cancelled my DD a year ago and I’m still using the excess to pay the bills. They had over £1000 of my cash sitting in their account.
I found the easiest way to cut down bills was to stop using the timer on the boiler and to turn on the heating when I was actually getting chilly.

Don’t you get cheaper electricity and gas if you have one

Only because they’re so good that companies have to bribe customers with the promise of discounts in return for allowing installation.

My friend had one installed by British Gas and they didn’t connect the wiring properly. It almost burnt the house down!

@sanityisamyth

I like mine. It's made me very aware how expensive my electric heaters are to run (rented flat) so I turn them on for an hour max now. My electricity bills dropped from £129 a month to £33 a month.

Wow.

But yes - electric heaters are very expensive to run.

A 2000 watt heater will cost 2 units per hour to run - so maybe 30p and hour?

Which can add up.

I hope you are warm at the moment though!

@HomerRoberts well it’s because they are more beneficial for the power companies than they are for us. The benefit to us is no more meter readings. The benefit to them is huge. They save lots of money. So then they offer us the additional benefit of cheaper tariffs.

I’m not having one. I’m happy to do my own meter readings.

I cancelled my DD a year ago and I’m still using the excess to pay the bills. They had over £1000 of my cash sitting in their account.

That’s ridiculous though! I’m in Holland and we have a DD system, but you can adjust the amount up or down whenever you like via your online account. The account is settled up annually and you get either a bill or a refund. The idea is to spread your energy costs across the whole year and avoid big winter fuel bills.

I was also pestered into getting one, so they came out this week. When doing their visual safety check of my gas appliances he said I had carbon monoxide spillage from my boiler. He cut the supply to my boiler off and happily fitted my new smart meter leaving me a leaflet about getting a new boiler and without heating or hot water I had to call a trained gas engineer (he said he was only trained in meters so not entirely sure why he had authority to cut my supply) Engineer came out to check it all and it was fine, no issues at all. He said I was the third person that week who had their supply cut from various energy suppliers after deeming their gas appliances as unsafe (all fine once checked by qualified engineer) I wish I had never agreed to have one as I had to pay for the engineer to come out to tell me it was fine. I understand he was doing his job and wouldn't want to be left with an unsafe appliance but according to the engineer it's something he is seeing more and more.

I’ve been threatened with having m6 supply disconnected if I don’t get one as my current meter is at the end of its life. Except I’ve had meter fitters here three times and they have all had a go at fitting a smart meter (two in one case) then out the old meter back as they can

Sorry. Can’t get a signal. They’ve also all confirmed that my existing meter is fine and well within life.

The whole thing is a racket.