Smart meters.
- Thread starter kes
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gonzo
Well-Known Member
Smart metering helps most people to save money because they are made aware of their energy useage in real time. And they give the national grid more real time info to manage the system.
BTW, there are known issues with the Economy7 time readings. The ones on the little display box can be wrong. They are working to fix this. But those are just the times displayed to you. It doesn't affect the times/rates used for billing.
I held off smart meters till they offered the Gen2 units. And I had about 2 yreas of battles to get the gas meter side working. That was a bit of a comedy of errors. Hopefully most have better experiences.
And I found it a pain to try and give manual readings, as their online systems tend to just tell you that you save a smart meter and will not let you, when you try.
I've heard all the conspiricy/ludite stuff. As an engineer I don't buy into it.
But there are some risks that no-one seems to be talking about. From the symbols on the front it looks like most smart meters have a contactor inside. So the supplier can cut your power remotely. This shouldn't be an issue if you pay your bills. But if there were to be a glitch in their system, people could wrongly be cut off. And how long would that take to sort out whilst you try to carry on life.
Also, if the system got hacked, you could see huge numbers of houses cut off. (Knowing how the data is routed, it should be fixable, once found. But that is still going to take time.)
BTW, there are known issues with the Economy7 time readings. The ones on the little display box can be wrong. They are working to fix this. But those are just the times displayed to you. It doesn't affect the times/rates used for billing.
I held off smart meters till they offered the Gen2 units. And I had about 2 yreas of battles to get the gas meter side working. That was a bit of a comedy of errors. Hopefully most have better experiences.
And I found it a pain to try and give manual readings, as their online systems tend to just tell you that you save a smart meter and will not let you, when you try.
I've heard all the conspiricy/ludite stuff. As an engineer I don't buy into it.
But there are some risks that no-one seems to be talking about. From the symbols on the front it looks like most smart meters have a contactor inside. So the supplier can cut your power remotely. This shouldn't be an issue if you pay your bills. But if there were to be a glitch in their system, people could wrongly be cut off. And how long would that take to sort out whilst you try to carry on life.
Also, if the system got hacked, you could see huge numbers of houses cut off. (Knowing how the data is routed, it should be fixable, once found. But that is still going to take time.)
I had Smart meters (Gas & Electric) fitted about two years ago. I'm with Octopus on an Economy 7 tariff and wanted to take advantage of their more flexible tariff options, particularly with the pending arrival of an electric car. I also have solar panels and a home battery and really wanted to see how much electricity I was exporting to grid.
I have fifteen years worth of monthly meter readings and track my consumption religiously. Having the Smart meter's fitted made no difference to the quantity of energy I've been charged for. . . the meters are reading what they are supposed to read and the same as the old meters.
Now I can easily obtain 1/2 hourly consumption figures for gas & electric to track what's being used and when. I can also see how much electricity I'm exporting and so work out ways of using this better (dumping it to the immersion heater via a Solar iBoost).
The Smart Meter also gives me access Octopus's more Flexible tariffs - so for example the very cheap (7.5p/kwh) Go tariff for charging cars overnight.
More recently there is Saving Seasons, which promises a significant discount (maybe £100) if I can drop my consumption during peak hours.
So my experience with Smart Meters has been very positive so far. I'm not much one for conspiracy theories, more taking the approach that if I can't measure something, it's hard to manage it.
Triffid
I have fifteen years worth of monthly meter readings and track my consumption religiously. Having the Smart meter's fitted made no difference to the quantity of energy I've been charged for. . . the meters are reading what they are supposed to read and the same as the old meters.
Now I can easily obtain 1/2 hourly consumption figures for gas & electric to track what's being used and when. I can also see how much electricity I'm exporting and so work out ways of using this better (dumping it to the immersion heater via a Solar iBoost).
The Smart Meter also gives me access Octopus's more Flexible tariffs - so for example the very cheap (7.5p/kwh) Go tariff for charging cars overnight.
More recently there is Saving Seasons, which promises a significant discount (maybe £100) if I can drop my consumption during peak hours.
So my experience with Smart Meters has been very positive so far. I'm not much one for conspiracy theories, more taking the approach that if I can't measure something, it's hard to manage it.
Triffid
I believe that when a smart meter is installed it is tied to one company and almost impossible to switch for better tariffs, could be wrong, frequently am.
Money-off energy scheme launches to avoid blackouts
Households with smart meters could save up to £100 on bills if they cut peak-time use over winter.
www.bbc.co.uk
Cheers
Bruce
As with all "big brother" developments, there is nothing harmful about them initially, until suddenly there is.
Given as undisputed the facts that the smart programme is both extraordinarily expensive and has negligible projected upside in terms of saving energy or money, one can reasonably conclude there are only two alternative explanations (either or both may apply): either it is a bad policy of staggering stupidity and wastefulness, OR that a not explicitly admitted policy of using them for state-sanctioned manipulation of citizens is intended. There has been a lot of policy discussion surrounding the latter.
There are a few people who think that some barely significant initial incentives make them a good idea, and a lot of people who'll do anything anyone suggests to them.
Given as undisputed the facts that the smart programme is both extraordinarily expensive and has negligible projected upside in terms of saving energy or money, one can reasonably conclude there are only two alternative explanations (either or both may apply): either it is a bad policy of staggering stupidity and wastefulness, OR that a not explicitly admitted policy of using them for state-sanctioned manipulation of citizens is intended. There has been a lot of policy discussion surrounding the latter.
There are a few people who think that some barely significant initial incentives make them a good idea, and a lot of people who'll do anything anyone suggests to them.
What a terrible quality of journalism! Headline bears no established relation to the text which is riddled with faults. There's no explanation of how the £100 figure is derived. Absurd claims made are not scrutinised and it's just terribly sloppy.Money-off energy scheme launches to avoid blackouts
Households with smart meters could save up to £100 on bills if they cut peak-time use over winter.
Cheers
Bruce
I too was amazed at just how much deep freezes use. Since turning off one of mine it's saved around £1.75 a week. As a monitor to see what items are expensive on electricity they do a good job, I wouldn't be without mine
No. It is designed to not only measure your consumption but also has the capacity to control electricity supply remotely. Key words to research are Demand Side Response, HAN, SHAN, etc.
The premise is this: load-shedding will be a part of all our futures. In lieu of adequate provision of power many countries are deploying smart meters to selectively enforce load-shedding.
In a nutshell:
UK Electricity and Gas Smart Metering <---- this document states that DSR is "currently" performed only with consumer permission.
If you buy into the idea that it is impossible to provide enough energy for a nation through planning and investment, then DSR driven load-shedding may be a neccessary evil. In that paradigm, smart meters could protect the vulnerable. I.e. rather than blackouts of whole suburbs [as in South Africa], homes that need uninterupted supply could be exempted in a targetted fashion per this Swedish study:
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I thought the intention was to do away with meter readers, allow the Utility companies to charge you on a monthly basis rather than quarterly, and no doubt (I am assuming this is possible) they could disconnect you much easier if you didn't pay the bill.
In no way was it to help the customer, I recently got a letter from my supplier, which stated that the people with smart meters would be supplied with 100% renewable energy, so I am expecting the street to soon be dug up and new cables supplied to my neighbours who have smart meters so they can get the renewable energy, I will have to do with the dirty energy. Another big brother stunt in my opinion.
In no way was it to help the customer, I recently got a letter from my supplier, which stated that the people with smart meters would be supplied with 100% renewable energy, so I am expecting the street to soon be dug up and new cables supplied to my neighbours who have smart meters so they can get the renewable energy, I will have to do with the dirty energy. Another big brother stunt in my opinion.
The consumer pays for the electricity the smart meter uses, you can of course turn them off, unless you have agreed a set of readings like every 30 minutes, which would them be part of your contract, and you would need to read the small print to see what action they could take if you didn't fulfil your end of the agreement.
Nor me
Both electricity, and gas smartmeters do indeed have either a contactor, or a valve inside, with the potential to cut off your supply by remote control.
In the case of the electricity meters this is useful for several reasons, e.g. if it is to be operated as a prepayment meter. Or if, heaven help us, there were to be a need to introduce rolling blackouts (I was a child of the '70s and well remember all that, the three day week, candles and oil lamps at the ready). With almost universal smartmeter coverage by 2025, such things could be much better managed, so for example "priority customers" (I am one) could be spared being cut off for a while.
This, ATM is a remote scenario. Everything is being done to stop "the lights going out" for domestic users, should wide area blackouts happen, in some places, anarchy might soon enough happen, looting being the least of it. Business users will have negotiated their own arrangements, either, rarely, be on uninterruptible arrangements, or more likely something else, where they can choose to reduce their demand rather than pay a premium to keep on running at full power at times of limited supply. It would also be be death to the prospects of whichever government was in power at the time that it was necessary to declare such a national emergency.
For domestic gas supply this is a more remote scenario. Gas cannot be cut off somewhere back in the mains pipework, once done it then takes a lot of work to bleed all that through to eliminate e.g any air, or water, that may have got in. However a smart gas meter can cut off an individual premises with little risk. As for example a prepayment meter, even the old "coin in the slot" sort of thing that I used to have in a bedsit.
Which is why I am still dithering about having a gas smartmeter installed, yet, almost certainly incorrectly. My trad. gas meter will keep on supplying me. Once near-universally in place, gas smartmeters could allow variable pricing, even complete cut-off. But I don't see that happening, anytime soon, except to an individual user who has persistently not paid their bills.
The difference is that electricity cannot yet be stored on any useful scale, apart from in e.g. pumped hydro storage, to do peak lopping.
Gas, and water, however can.
An existential threat. I hope. The Data Communications Company DCC who look after this are supposed to be on top of this. And doubtless engaged with other government agencies who are also supposed to know the bigger picture.
That was in the early days of SMETS1. When each company had proprietary methods of using them. This has all changed with SMETS2. Basically if you have/had a SMETS1, if you changed supplier it probably would not work with the new supplier (incompatible systems) so reverted to become just an ordinary dumb meter that you have to read yourself.
There is an ongoing programme to try to bring old SMETS1 meters into the DCC system but there are many technical obstacles still.
Fundamentally there has never been any obstacle to changing suppliers with one of these, just that the meter would probably go dumb, So back to where you were with a trad. meter, submitting your own readings.
There are three types of switching between peak and off peak. Either a clockwork thing that just works, as I used to have, connected to a dumb meter with dual displays.. Or a radio controlled device a Radio Tele Switch. Or nowadays smartmeters submitting 30 minute data.
The Radio Tele Switch was never much good, and is to be turned off next year. From the Ofgem open letter that I linked to earlier:
Currently the technology which operates the Radio Tele Switch meters (RTS) is scheduled
to be switched off in March 2023. We are aware many suppliers already have a suitable
meter in place for these customers, however we are also aware of some wider issues. We
fully expect all of industry to be proactively working towards solutions to any potential
barriers so that consumers are not left exposed to any potential detriment.
One of the real reasons behind going to smart meters is for the guberment to tax you when charging your car!
They will be losing a huge amount of revenue as people go EV. They will want it back.
To save the planet of course
This is a completely different conversation. For those of us fortunate to have a driveway/off road parking, and the funds to buy a pure EV so could charge overnight from from low rate domestic 'leccy, at 5% VAT rather than 20% as the public chargers have to pay for theirs, it works for now. A kickstarter if you like. for early adopters.
But converging with the cost of simply running a fossil fuel powered vehicle.
E.g. consider a modest EV, might do four miles per kWh of charge. Compare with a similar fossil powered modest vehicle, might do 50 mpg.
Plugged into an ordinary 13A socket, that's 3kW. Do the numbers and that can deliver 'leccy sufficient to drive it at 12 miles per hour of charge. Over seven hours, overnight, maybe 84 miles. About a half charge, 21 kWh for a typical modest small EV's battery capacity. Two nights charge, no use otherwise, and they are moderately filled up. Costing me maybe £5.
This is how I juice my visitors cars, from a 13A socket, to give them an overnight top up to run around a bit for the next day. If they need more, then they can find a public fast charger nearby and pay the going rate for that. I do not have an EV myself
If I put in a standard 7 kW home charger, say a PodPoint of course I could fill them up more fully overnight, same cost per mile. That would take maybe 30A from my mains supply, hence why I was pleased to have it uprated when my smartmeter was put in, by asking nicely. The PodPoints can back off their current draw if the household supply is becoming overloaded, but having a bit more headroom is always good..
Which in my case on my straightforward tariff would be 9.21p/kWh. If I had to give it a boost in daytime it would however be 53.38p/kwh.
At 9.21p, I reckon that's about 0.23p/mile. Excellent. At 53.38p it would be 13.38p/mile
Unleaded petrol, average price today £1.64/litre, in a 50 mpg vehicle, works out to be about 15p/mile. Not a lot of difference.
Fuel duty rates, BTW, are currently 52.95p/litre for petrol, and 62.67p/litre for diesel. Yes, that might be a lot of revenue to lose once EV penetration becomes a thing. That tax/duty BTW goes into the exchequer so comes back to everyone, one way or another.
My mates, three of them, with Teslas, are beginning to realise that, when they run them around long distance and power them up from Tesla superchargers, it is nowadays costing them much the same, or more than their previous petrol powered things. I suspect much the same for other people with more modest transport, depending on public charging points, at the rates that nowadays apply when plugging in to them. Probably because they are not in the minority of us who have a driveway and can charge them up at home, overnight.
Ultimately road pricing has to come. The technology is established, e.g. black boxes insisted on by insurance companies for young drivers, GPS and surveillance as to where they are, how fast they are driving, is that appropriate, etc.
I would welcome that, if it obsoleted road tax, which is nowadays a burden for me, running a car, a campervan, and three large motorbikes. I can only use one at a time, yet must pay for all five, or SORN the ones not being used as I do at the moment. Might also make people think about whether that journey is really necessary, or could be done by walking, cycling, or even an electric bike. OK I am far from typical.
I agree. With my new electricity smartmeter, on 30 minute reporting, I can now access all that sort of data from my "Energy Hub" Even just the in home display shows any export.
Also thinking ahead to maybe putting in grid tied solar. Already doing the calculations, EDF are part of the Smart Export Guarantee and export tariff. My meter is compatible, as is the home display.
Smart Export Guarantee
For me, I would be paid 5.6p/kWh exported, as an existing customer. New entrants however would only get 1.5p/kWh. So I am all right, jack.
At 5.6p there would be little reason for me to install a battery bank, nor divert it to e.g. topping up hot water during the day. Basically I would be selling it to them during daytime at 5.6p, when I don't have much use for it all, then buying it back again at night for (on my simple standard variable tariff) at 9.21p. On the face of it, not great, but in fact rather good. For me, with my circumstances. No hugely expensive battery bank, no gadget to divert surplus to my hot water cylinder, I prefer to keep things simple and easily managed.
My simple standard variable economy 7 tariff costs me 9.21p/kWh. For seven hours. Midnight to 07:00 I'm not sure where you got that 7.5p Octopus Go figure from, seems old. It is currently 12p/kWh for only four hours, 00:30 to 04:30. Octopus Energy
Thy also have an Intelligent Octopus offer for six hours, but, just checked, for me that would still be 10p/kWh. Plus I would need to have their Ohme charger fitted rather than something else. And pay a higher standing charge than I do at the moment.
Octopus are very clever, lots of interesting ideas and complexity, but I have looked into them in detail, and for me the numbers simply do not stack up, compared with what I am on. For me, maybe not for others.
Fantastic green idea . 25 million or more perfectly serviceable meters ripped out and scrapped the same amount of new meters produced using plastics and electronics with the huge amount of energy and materials required then shipping transport and installation costs . Yes green and free for the customer benefit. Obviously. Duh .
Just make a note of daily usage and write it on a bit of paper - I do that daily now
I’ll not allow a smart meter to be fitted as it provides me with nothing I require
I don’t allow any private energy company access to my accounts anyway so smart meters are an irrelevance
If it becomes a requirement in the future I’ll look at going off grid
I’ll not allow a smart meter to be fitted as it provides me with nothing I require
I don’t allow any private energy company access to my accounts anyway so smart meters are an irrelevance
If it becomes a requirement in the future I’ll look at going off grid
gonzo
Well-Known Member
I am looking at these agile/night rate tarrifs.
I have a DIY PV install and have just added some batteries. So the option of charging at night and running over the day from batteries is interesting. and I'd certainly hack the white goods about to trigger them at night.
Apparently on the agile ones it is possible to be paid to present a load to the grid. I could manage that.
Would love an EV too, but new cars are still to expensive for me at the mo.
I have a DIY PV install and have just added some batteries. So the option of charging at night and running over the day from batteries is interesting. and I'd certainly hack the white goods about to trigger them at night.
Apparently on the agile ones it is possible to be paid to present a load to the grid. I could manage that.
Would love an EV too, but new cars are still to expensive for me at the mo.
They use b****r all. Just enough to run the communications. Imagine a simple mobile phone sending a text message every 30 minutes. And occasionally receiving some (actually that's not the way they work at all) Which is not measured on your bill, it is taken from the supply before your consumption is measured. Sure the in home display takes a tiny bit, unmeasurable I'd suggest. You can always unplug it if you are that paranoid.
Incorrect.
Plus you cant "turn them off" or "pull out the SIM" as suggested. They mostly have embedded eSIMS anyway so short of desoldering it from the PCB it isn't going to work. Besides they are the property of the supplier, don't even think of tampering with one.
You could possibly wrap the meter in tinfoil, that could actually work, and whilst at it wrap your head in tinfoil too.
This FUD about the reporting period, 30 minutes, once/day, even once/month is just nonsense. Besides I, at least, with my supplier, can change the reporting period whenever I want, though why I would not want 30 minute readings I cannot imagine.
Nonsense.
Yes there are suppliers who will promise some mythical zero carbon supply, usually at a premium price. Not possible, except by smoke and mirrors, or buying "Carbon Credits", much the same as buying a Papal Indulgence for your sins.
E.g. company, lets call them Squid, promises all power supplied will be zero carbon, and furthermore no nasty nuclear, ever, cross my heart ...
Reality. Squid may have taken forward contracts with e.g. some wind and solar suppliers, even made some investments in some, overall intended to provide for their anticipated customers requirements. But, day by day, hour by hour, all the leccy is pooled into the grid, we all get the same mix down the same cables. Afterwards, or before, the companies divvy up the mix, and their payments amongst themselves. E.g. Squid might say to someone who who generates all nuclear in GB, we used x amount of yours, would you like to swap that with the surplus that we had contracted for wind and solar last week ? No, OK how about 70:30 in your favour ? Um, no, there was a surplus of wind last week, the wind generators were being paid not to deliver any more and the gas and coal turned right down. Aah, you've got us there. How about we promise to plant some trees somewhere oneday to offset the gas and coal that was still running ? Well you would have to talk to the others about that, we are nuclear and as you know provide about 20% of all electricity Nearly zero carbon. Make some other arrangements.
We also observe that you have been buying power from Drax. That is not zero carbon, nor even carbon neutral, not remotely. How are you planning to somehow offset that ? Shuffling of feet.
You don't actually generate anything yourself, but are a broker with an ingenious financial mode, the most sophisticated IT (which they sell to other suppliers who aren't as competent themselves) and a great publicity operation. Now, maybe you can cherry pick genuine zero carbon, even non-nuclear stuff, on average for your customers, but all the rest is used by people who are not your customers, it all adds up to exactly the same. Nice meeting you.
This of course is an entirely imagined scenario, the reality is far more complicated. Probably almost all of EDF's nuclear, steady and predictable, will have been contracted to other suppliers well in advance, who don't have quibbles about using it. Hedged if you like.
I presume this is satire. However I do agree that touting "zero carbon" or "renewable", or "green" contracts is largely a marketing ploy to extract the gullible from their money.
The UKs electricity energy mix is I suppose communal for all of us. It all comes down the same grid, all mixed together in the same proportions. The only differentiator is who your supplier pays for it (on average). A few make a big deal about the green eco-ness of who they pay for it. The others just get on with the job of keeping the lights on, using the national mix, minus the "green" content that has been diverted to some suppliers' customers by financial, not technical, cleverness. For every "green" contract there must be an opposite "dirty" one, though of course the "dirty" ones are not advertised as such.
Overall it makes absolutely no difference to me where my electricity comes from, nor to the country. Though, being an EDF customer, I'm pretty sure the majority of mine is nuclear. The key thing is that the direction of travel, in the right direction, is directed and regulated, which would not happen if left to the totally free market. Otherwise we'd still mostly be burning coal at the moment, which is cheapest it seems at times, at spot prices.
Actually we did burn coal on Tuesday and Wednesday last week, at our full remaining capacity. And a little not-so secret is that that the plans to have decommissioned our last remaining coal plants have been halted, mothballed ones being recommissioned, and (almost all imported) coal being stockpiled once again, in anticipation of possible need over the Winter.
Just looked at Grid Carbon app. on my phone. At this moment 43% from gas, 32% from wind. 13% nuclear. Overall 192g CO2/kWh. Think about that
This is also what is charging up our EVs (apart from the rare few who say have their own solar to do that). Zero carbon at the" tailpipe" yes.
We are far away from zero carbon, that is impossible. If you want to see details and trends over previous days/weeks/months and year, take a look at G. B. National Grid status
E.g. this week, here is how it was mostly generated: You can see clearly how dependent we are on gas to ramp up and down to keep the grid stable, whilst nuclear chugs along steadily providing baseload, and the wind is what it is.
And here is how solar, hydro, pumped storage and biomass contributed. Solar is actually quite useful now, even in Autumn, when the sun goes down the pumped storage is turned on to fill in the gap, having been being recharged earlier in the day, from whatever, the two complement each other.
Back to smartmeters. I, personally like them nowadays, glad that I at last got one fitted and hope to personally benefit from the information that it can give me. Already I have learned a lot of detailed stuff about how my things work. Yes, I thought I knew it all, turn stuff off when not using it, don't use inefficient appliances, etc. But it is far more interesting than that. I'd say that now is maybe the right time to engage with the programme, which is coming soon enough anyway for everyone. Almost half of us already have them already.
An interesting idea. Depending on the capacity of your battery bank. Wouldn't yet make sense if buying a commercial battery. E.g. a Tesla Power Wall 2 costs maybe £10,000 -£12,000 with a capacity of 14kWh when new. Regularly flatten that all the way and lifetime will be degraded more rapidly than if say used for 7kWh per day.
Even optimistically, on my tariff, charge up 14kWh at night (9.2p rate) then use it during the day at would otherwise be 54p, ignoring inefficiencies in charging/discharging, That could save me £6.27 per day. Time to break even on say £11,000 capital cost of battery, 4.8 years. Ignoring what you could have been doing with that money otherwise. That is break-even. No saving until after that, assuming the battery is still fit for several more years.
Agile Octopus is/was an interesting idea for big boys who understand the risk of buying power related to wholesale spot prices, and with the technology to take advantage. seemed to work for some, before everything changed.
I don't think anyone ever got paid to burn surplus power, the lowest it got down to was 2p, but at times it rose as high as £1 per kWh, capped by Octopus, though at times spot prices can rise to several times more than that.
To make best use of it you would have to be logging on every day to see what the hourly pricing was to be for the next day and adjust your usage around that. Hardly something for normal consumers.
Reviving an old thread rather than starting a new one !
Got 2 properties with Eon and have been contacted today on both to say that both meters ( 2 separate accounts ) are now at the end of their life and need to he replaced and they will arrange a technician.... sounds like a back door smart meter install !
Got 2 properties with Eon and have been contacted today on both to say that both meters ( 2 separate accounts ) are now at the end of their life and need to he replaced and they will arrange a technician.... sounds like a back door smart meter install !
I tipped them nuts to a SM asking can they provide where in the legislation it says I have to have one...
Long silence then ok Tim many thanks.
andy R204
Well-Known Member
That's exactly what it is.Can a "dumb" meter not be fitted by a qualified electrician?
They have to meet Goverment( loose term) targets by 2030 Net Zero Bollix otherwise energy companies will be fined.
Remember it's SMART for them not for you.
That's the route I'll be looking to take when I get the "offer" of a recording device for my home.
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