AIBU for considering returning my smart meter?

[HampshireSun]

I've had a smart meter for about 6 months now but I spent yesterday watching the monitor of my energy use go from green to red regularly. when I'm simply just sitting here on my phone or laptop (neither are plugged in). I wasn't using any electricity. And then I saw an article in The Telegraph that energy companies will be given readings every 30-mins from the smart meter which will enable them to charge you more at your peak hours! I feel like the whole thing is a scam!

AIBU and just overthinking the whole thing?

They won’t let you return it and go back to an ordinary one (though no doubt they didn’t make that clear when they sold the idea of it to you). These meters are much more for their benefit than yours.

There are many scare stories about surge pricing and the ability to see what’s being consumed at any time

This has been in place for many years on major commercial accounts, and it is how energy is provided across the electric grid and gas networks.
Your ‘supplier’ gets charged the rate right now this minute for the demand of their customers. At peak times it costs more and when demand is low it costs less - but you pay a set price (perhaps a day & night rate)

A major commercial supplier could be paying variable rates per kWh, and also the highest commercial consumers at peak times pay a surcharge.

The generating power stations are watching the overall drain and need to kick in more capacity just in time for everyone to put the kettle on, or drop generation when everyone switches off and goes to bed
Your smart meters dial is a smaller scale than that - if you see the needle in the red then you’re not being charged a higher rate, but you’re using more. You then have the option to postpone and put the washing machine on a timer to run later etc

A company isn’t interested in charging you a higher price because you’ve put the kettle on - they just want their system capacity to survive that. A factory tgg HD at keeps production running into the evening during coronation street will be the one who pays the penalty down the line

(There’s more details on this online about electricity TRIADs which are the highest 3 peaks incurred on the grid during winter)

Octopus is currently doing a pilot with some customers sort of with surge pricing but the way they’re running it is if you get your usage below a certain amount for certain hours, you get your electricity free for that period. www.ft.com/content/07c7575f-49a2-441f-b8fa-bd1eafef0f94

@Tommika very detailed and useful post, thank you!

The smart meter I had turned red if you used more energy than usual at that time of day. It regularly flicked to red when I turned the kettle on or if the fridge kicked in over the weekend because I was out of my flat so much during the week that basically anything set off the 'you're using more energy than usual' light.

I've moved house and we didn't install smart meters before building the new kitchen. There's no way I'm ripping the kitchen out now!

Why would you need to rip the kitchen out to fit a smart meter @TeddyBeans? They just fitted something onto the front of my existing meters, and you must have access to yours to take readings anyway.

My gas meter is stuck really awkwardly in a corner that's now encapsulated by cupboards. There's no easy way to access it without removing at least one of the cupboards and that's not something we're interested in doing when the kitchen has only just finished being installed

We cut a hole in the side of one of the cupboards so we can poke a phone through to take a picture of the display as the previous owners did but that's it

So you can’t access it at all? That sounds like a terrible idea. If you don’t submit readings they can charge you what they like as estimated bills and you can’t prove otherwise.

Oh, I see. In which case they would probably say you can cut a bigger hole and have one installed. I can’t see them letting people get away without them in 10 or so years.

@TeddyBeans

My gas meter is stuck really awkwardly in a corner that's now encapsulated by cupboards. There's no easy way to access it without removing at least one of the cupboards and that's not something we're interested in doing when the kitchen has only just finished being installed

If there's a leak the meter will need to be accessed to reach the on/off lever. Same with it theres a fault on your boiler that needs the gas switched off. Then there's the yearly inspection. And they use a battery that requires changing every 5 - 10 years. As pp mentioned, really bad idea to have them hard to access.

@SpaghettiArmsMurderer we don't expect to be here for 10 years

@Canigooutyet oh interesting I didn't know they ran on batteries! Will let the other half deal with that one! There's an access hole but it's only about 10cm diameter

It will be the inrush current of something with a motor in, like the fridge or freezer.

@TeddyBeans its worth making sure you can get your hand in to turn off the gas in case of an emergency.

Gas meters should also be in a ventilated space, is there an air brick or something in the cupboard?