Smart meters.

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kes

Well-Known Member
I have been advised to get a smart meter for electric supply but as part of the questionnaire about installation - when which day/time etc - it asks for confirmation that the electric supply company can access my meter for readings at half hour intervals. This I find bizarre. I can access the readings at any time but why would they want to except to determine peak usage periods so that a graduated tarrif can be introduced to make greater profits. Anyone know any different/what are you doing ?
Thanks
 
I think this may be a GDPR thing
By requesting access to your meter, they don't mean physical access, rather it would mean them connecting to your smart meter via it's internet connection to see how much energy is being used.
Energy suppliers are, by law, required to inform their customers that they can have a smart meter fitted and many take the approach of making it appear mandatory that customer must have a smart meter fitted.
That is not correct
Whilst the energy supplier is legally required to inform their customers that a smart meter can be fitted, and to arrange fitting if the customer wants a meter, the customer is not legally required to have a smart meter.

Cheers

Bruce
 
kes said:
advised to get a smart meter for electric supply
Click to expand...

When the initial smart meter pitch was made, they claimed it would save the consumer money. That, clearly, was a lie. The tariff is the tariff however often the rate of consumption is metered.

Then they shifted the campaign to state that smart meters help the national grid...somehow.

The first pitch appealed to frugality/self-interest, the second introduced guilt if failing to participate in something that would help the greater good. [now where else have these SPI-B citizen-grooming lines been used recently...??]

One of the other major issues is that the govt/industry did not agree a smart meter standard at the outset. So were you to replace your existing meter which all energy companies can refererence with a "smart" one supplied by provider "A", a year down the road you may find that switching to provider "B" is problematic as their system does not dovetail with A's meter.
 
Smart meters are there not for your benefit but for the electricity companies profit. As you say KES they are there to allow future "peak period" premium rate charging for electricty such that electricity used between 0600 to 1000 and 1600 to 2000 will cost you more. In just the same way that on the railways "peak period" travel tickets cost more. As said very well by another "smart people don't fit smart meters". With more and more working from home in future years this will cost the consumer more.
 
Smart meters also rely on a mobile phone signal. If you can't use the Internet on your phone where the meter is fitted it's not likely to work very well. You then end up in disputes over usage. Some people love them...others don't.
 
kes said:
I have been advised to get a smart meter for electric supply but as part of the questionnaire about installation - when which day/time etc - it asks for confirmation that the electric supply company can access my meter for readings at half hour intervals. This I find bizarre. I can access the readings at any time but why would they want to except to determine peak usage periods so that a graduated tarrif can be introduced to make greater profits. Anyone know any different/what are you doing ?
Thanks
Click to expand...

Cannabis Farmers hate smart meters because you can't tamper with them, long gone are the days of "The Black Box"
 
We got one installed because it was free.
Did we save money, not really as we turn everything off at the wall when not using it aside from the router, so in terms of energy wastage we couldn’t get much greener.
What it did allow us to do though was see when on a particular day we’d spanked loads of energy we could then moderate it, this essentially happened when the prices rose.
By the time we moved house the smart reader was off 99% of the time as we knew what we were using, since moving we haven’t bothered to get a new one installed.
 
As above avoid them for as long as possible.

I also resent the fact that energy companies can charge you higher rate for energy you use to what they pay you for energy you produce via solar or hydro. Surely a unit is a unit.
 
We have one quite concerning initially our usage was minimal now what was one days usage is now 3 ,also not that smart when we get emails to give them readings ,the satellite or what ever must be on meal break .The only advantage to me is looking at the monthly bill before it drops on the mat .
 
I considered one, but, I'm on Economy 7
And my night storage heaters are digitally controlled, so I have to input the day/night timings.
I asked Octopus energy about this, after many, many emails, they said 'its 00.30-07.30
However, that's if you do go ahead with the smart meter, my meter switched 23.00-00.00 off peak, then 01.00-07.00
Would they accept my information? Like hell, they said thats not possible, I offered them to come to my house at those times, they politely refused, but wouldn't accept it and suggested I go ahead with the smart meter, I don't think so!
 
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