Smart meter - pros and cons

[namefornow88]

I'm a landlord and one of my tenants have asked if they can arrange for a smart meter to be installed. Obviously this is a permanent change to the property as I'm pretty sure utility companies won't remove them once installed. I'm just trying to think through all the pros and cons before I agree. We can't have a smart meter in our own home as there's no mobile phone signal so I don't have much experience with them

I think the pros are fairly obvious: tenants can track their usage etc

Cons - I think some utility companies won't let you switch to them if you have a smart meter, is this still the case? As this could obviously be detrimental to future tenants. Anything else I'm missing?

What are people's overall views on smart meters? If anyone isn't keen I'd be interested to hear your reasons

My initial reaction was to agree to it but want to do my due diligence and make sure I've considered all angles as obviously these tenants could leave anytime (they've been there just over a year, have a 2 year fixed contract and I don't currently know what their plans are for the end of the 2 years and whether they want to stay or go)

I don't think that you can actually object to your tenants getting one without a good reason.

Second generation smart meters have fewer disadvantages than the older ones so there shouldn't be any issues with changing supplier. They also don't rely on a mobile signal so you could probably get one too if you want. I find them really helpful for tracking energy usage and it's also allowed us to access better tariffs - we currently pay well under the energy cap for both gas and electricity.

Cons. I think some people think companies are monitoring them, and will be switched off remotely in the event they cannot pay their bill. Some underhand shenanigans went on when prices spiked initially that caused a lot of news headlines around companies getting bulk switch off orders in the courts, and not actually calling potentially vulnerable customers. I think that has largely gone away now that the PR was so horrific for them.

Pros: in home monitoring display unit. I can tell you what my 30 degree wash costs versus 60. I can put one ring on for five minutes and see how much it costs. Putting the kettle on then making super noodles on the hob costs me 7p, l learned this week.

You can't take advantage of the best rates if you don't have one.

You also can't get free stuff. Octopus run energy saving sessions in winter. They email you a day or a few hours before, say 5.30pm: use less energy between 5.30pm and 6.30pm and we will give you free money. My last one earned me £2.30.

And I agree with PP. I am not actually sure it is legal to refuse permission to have a smart meter installed. Forget what their lease says, unscrupulous agents write in LL pleasing stuff to placate them, a lot of them aren't enforceable. Look at what the actual law says. Fastest place to find it might be Landlord Zone.

I was advised it wasn't legal to refuse my tenants installing them.

Cons: one tenant had one installed and they didn't connect everything properly afterwards. I told the tenant it was her responsibility to sort this out as she had arranged the smart meter, not me, and I have no contract with the utility company she uses or authority to contact them on her behalf. One year later she still hasn't managed to sort it, so I know it'll fall to me when she leaves.

Thanks for all your comments. I believe I can refuse permission as they have to leave the property as they took it on, and they can't reverse the smart meter

Regardless, I'm happy for them to do it but wanted to check if I was missing any negatives before I agreed

Like I said, what's written in the lease does not override law.

This is one of three sources I found within minutes.

https://www.cia-landlords.co.uk/advice/can-a-landlord-refuse-a-smart-meter/

One con for me has been I can't get it the monitoring display unit working! The engineer who installed it never got it working, and months later no-one else has been able to either.

@Diymesss had that in a former house with e.On. They had to install a new meter, with a new monitoring device, which is specific to only one meter. According to the installation guy, a bunch of their meters are rubbish.

New house, new supplier, pre existing meter, no problem.

Does you energy supplier not have an app/website where you get usage @Diymesss ?

@Reallybadidea having held out on a smart meter at home (don't on principal like the fact that they can switch off the supply in event of poverty or a dispute) I'm now looking at my £3k+ bill and thinking of switching for economy's sake. Can you tell me how much you're saving on the lower tarriff, roughly?

sorry for slight sidetrack

Cons
I wouldn’t like my electricity supply being turned off at someone else’s whim. They cost money to run. There is a risk of damage at changeover. It takes an hour so I’d have to take time off work. Yet more info on you can be “shared” without your control on who it’s shared with.

@Callisto1 they have a website but it only shows me the overall smart meter usage for a long time period (like a few weeks) - not very useful!

@Diymesss, not sure who you're with but with EDF you can change how often the smart meter submits readings (mine does every 30 min). Maybe your energy company has something similar? It's not live data though, which is a shame.

I'm not sure how much we're saving per annum because we only moved in a year ago and have upgraded insulation since then, but my current gas price is 5.73p per kWh vs the current cap of (iirc) 6.89p. It has gone up and I expect it to do so further as the weather has got colder but it's been as low as around 4p. This is on the octopus gas tracker tariff.

Electricity is more complicated because we have solar and batteries which allows us to choose to import electricity when it is cheapest - sometimes we even get paid for taking electricity off the grid. The price varies every 30 minutes and from about 3-7pm the price is above the cap but otherwise it's almost always well below it. This is on the octopus Agile tariff.

We pay £150 a month for 5 bed detached and I think that's probably more than we need to (but of course solar helps)

I can switch onto the capped rate at any time but I think I can't go back onto the flexible tariffs for 90 days.

Happy to share my referral tariff which gives us both £50 credit but that's not why I posted and obviously no pressure 🙂

Fearing that they can switch off your supply if you rack up a bill is no reason to not have one.

Hypothetically, if things got that bad they can (after correct process, letters, warnings, court order etc) just force entry to your property and fit pre-payment meters anyway.

If I was in the position of being forced onto a pre-payment plan I'd far rather they could remotely flip a switch than have to physically visit to do it.

@Reallybadidea good point - though as a pp me ruined I’m a bit resistant to more data sharing.
@SpringingJoy thank you very much for all that detail - I imagine I have to get the smart meter installed before I can switch to octopus but I’ll dm you for the code if I do - think I’m going to go for it. Thanks again!

Gah mentioned not me ruined.