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Smart Meters ?


observer

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Are they or are they going to be compulsory ?    My limited understanding of them, is that they can tell you in £&p, how much energy your using at any particular time. If that's the case, how does it save energy, other than for the user to switch off and freeze. thus saving money but dying of hypothermia ? !      :wacko:

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I don't know if your with British gas Obs but i went with the small print on the bill & signed up with Sainsbury's energy (BGs partner company) .I am paying £83 / month for gas & electric & self read my meter as requested on line. It is working for me for the time being.

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As far as I'm aware it isn't compulsory as yet, which is probably as well because they haven't ironed out the faults yet. BG wanted to fit a smart meter to my brother's house in Wallasey but when they came to do it they found that the mobile phone coverage at his address wasn't good enough :D.

I'm not going to volunteer for something which, potentially, gives the power company control over my household appliances. Big Brother isn't far away. Yes Corbynistas, I am looking at you :ph34r:.

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We are with British Gas and I kept refusing their offer to have one installed so now they don't ring to ask me anymore.  Maybe that's more to do with the number of questions I kept asking them though and my very long detailed whinge of how someone I know had bills almost 3 times the cost of what theirs usually were after having their smart meter installed and how it took many phone calls and many months for the supplier to finally see sense and admit that yes 'maybe' something was wrong.  Not good when your monthly bill payments are taken by direct debit and the money is in their pocket until they finally decide to re-imburse.  I wont bore you all with the ins and outs of it all though :lol:

That was not my only reason for refusing one though.....I just don't like the fact that some company can remotely collect and monitor my usage data every minute of every day.
What if I;m on holiday....would they know based on the fact that I was suddenly not using any gas or electric.  What if the people looking at the live usage were dodgy......my mind is going into paranoid overdrive again now :lol:

Some interesting info about them on the Ofgen website though including how you can request that your supplier turns off the ’smart’ functionality so your usage data and information isn’t automatically sent to them.  How would you know if it was still being sent or not though?

https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/consumers/household-gas-and-electricity-guide/understand-smart-prepayment-and-other-energy-meters/smart-meters-your-rights

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Not something i have been offered yet as such. few hints on the e-bills but no calls. Not had anybody round to read my meter for quite a while. they seem to trust my readings that i send them.

Never really trusted those meters since SSE had a few glitches that was charging some people £33,000 per day. (about twice what the queen uses at Bucks house  apparently)

Have had a few enticing emails suggesting i switch to a lower fixed term tariff. so if price goes up mine stays the same, a good thing (but if price goes down mine stays the same.)

To be honest my electric bills run out around the same each quarter especially since i switched to LED lighting throughout. the strip lights were the most expensive at £17.00 per but much brighter, instant light ,no flickering and flashing like the old tubes and just a matter of swapping the ballast and putting the tubes in so no need to change the fitting.

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There is a government sponsored specification (SMETS2) and when that is fully supported meters will need to be installed to that standard. Since meters are required to be replaced periodically they will put you under increasing pressure to replace meters with smart ones. Meters have to be replaced to guarantee they measure accurately but the older smart meters (SMETS1) do not support communications to the Data Communications company set up by licence to read meters. So SMETS1 meters can be a barrier to changing suppliers whilst SMETS2 meters are designed to guarantee compatibility between suppliers because every one must use the DCC and are able to use the same meter. All the meters are supposed to be changed by 2020(!) and SMETS2 meters are supposed to be rolled out from late this year.

I will not countenance a smart meter prior to SMETS2. Whilst changing tariff, supplier and pre/post payment are made easier so ultimately is demand based charging where you pay different rates for each half hour of the day. I don't recall that they can turn appliances off but later I expect devices will be able to check the tariff rates and choose not to operate  when they are too high. Whilst this could be done via the smart meter (the specification allows non metering applications) it can just the use Internet. Welcome to Green hell!

Expect to pay more eventually if you insist on having a smart meter not connected to the DCC when the meters being rolled out are all SMETS2. Such meters really will be more expensive to run since someone will need to attend just your house every time they change tariff, which they could do overly often!

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The point is not the saving or even the cost of meter reading which is less that a pound a year last time I heard. It is to reduce the cost for those on prepayment meters!

With smart meters they can not only change tariff under remote control but also between pre and post payment. That means that post payment customers do not have to have a special meter fitted and pay for the privilege. Since there is no extra cost for changing to post-payment there is no justification in charging such customers a higher price per kilowatt because there is no marginal cost to justify it. You will realise that since the money involved often flows from the state to utility shareholders there is a benefit for the state in getting all customers to pay for reducing the burden on the state. Those on low wages also benefit of course but the cost of the meters has to be borne by all consumers and is not negligible.

That this was a key concern was evident when the coalition government  insisted that the SMETS specification included a gas valve for turning off supply in the pre-payment case. I can think of no other benefit other than the variable tariffs being used to apply demand management. Demand Management being a euphemism for putting up peak electricity prices to the point where people stop using it and go cold ( and possibly die) rather than upsetting the Green Gods by building more power stations that don't only work in lucky weather!

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SMETS specification included a gas valve for turning off supply

That sounds a touch dangerous. if the valve started intermittent action due to a fault then any gas appliance still running could be pumping gas into the house and cause an explosion.  Although all modern gas appliances have to have a thermal cut off to prevent such a thing happening don't they?

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