Smart meter

[{SAS}TB]

Wow got busy in here all of a sudden

 

[dlockers]

There are no benefits to the consumer. The benefits are for the supplier. Why do you think they're selling them at you? Companies don't sell things at you for your benefit.

"smart" is a marketing lie. There's nothing smart about choosing a device which is a potential security problem and which acquires information about you for the benefit of other people, which is what "smart" devices are for. It's a very good marketing lie. Who doesn't want to be smart?

There is a government target/mandated scheme to roll out smart meters for the greater benefit of society. Suppliers have an incentive to hit this target; that is how the world works. It is basic mathematics. Dynamic and/or smart tariffing is one benefit for suppliers, in that they can better persuade people to dynamically consume over supply to the grid - a huge problem for the environment, and an obvious source of wastage that can be plugged by devices that don't need to be sipping juice at the time of spikes in demand (e.g. electric cars). For the greater good, it delivers much more robust data to optimise the grid.

Conversely to your point, having a smart meter has no downside other than 4 hours outage and then you get on with your life. Everything else is a conspiracy theory.

 

[200sols]

Why do you think they're selling them at you? Companies don't sell things at you for your benefit.

Because they are being forced to by government. They have quotas to hit so they give it the hard sell.

 

[flea.rider]

signed up to a cheap rate 9 months ago .. now there telling me i have to have a smart meter installed .. thats fine i said i'll just change suppliers .. ok they said you don't need a smart meter and we will keep you on the same rate for another yr ..
i know what i spend £82 a month combined .. this has never really changed

 

[LeeUK]

Not for everyone

Some people won’t give a monkeys - they’ll live their life the way they want to and that’s that. They don’t want something telling them they’re using a lot of energy.

Some people though, like you and me, would use it to lower our usage by checking which activities use more energy than expected

I don't need a display to tell me what uses more electricity and what uses less.

 

[LeeUK]

That's not entirely true, my smart meter allows me to have a cheap tariff from 1230-430 to charge my EV.

I don't have an EV.

 

[bloodiedathame]

I don't have an EV.

Unlucky.

 

[LeeUK]

Unlucky.

Do you own it outright?

 

[bloodiedathame]

Do you own it outright?

Yup, but it's nothing fancy, 24kWh 2015 Leaf.

 

[LabR@t]

I wouldn't be so sure about that. Unless you aready do your best to lower your bill or don't care how much your bill is because your rolling in money it will make you conscious of how much energy you are consuming.

I do have one and you are not missing out on much but it can be quite eye opening for those who live in a house with quite a few bedrooms.

I have 4 kids i do all i can to lower my usage can't see how if can possibly help. It takes 2 mins to upload readings which pops up monthly in my calendar.

Don't see the benefits whatsoever.

Downsides,

Timed tarrifs, selective outages.for starters

 

[LabR@t]

No, that's a cheaper rate at night. Smart meters allow billing down to the hour, so at some point you're gonna get different rates in different hours all through the day. Most expensive being peak times (evening, weekends) when you want to use the most, naturally. If you have a dumb meter you don't have this problem.

Bingo

 

[Journey]

I can tell some people in here wouldn't measure highly on my 'smart' meter.

My beautiful amazing SMETS2 meter allows me to have a fully adjustable tarrif, with pricing based on half hourly intervals, both import and export. Synced up with the car charger, and soon the solar, battery, heat pump and water tank makes it an indispensable part, without it then the whole thing would be much less impressive.

 

[montymint]

Bingo

Yes but certainly to get around that none smart tariffs will just be inflated at all times.

 

[TheFew]

I've not been offered a smart meter for around 2 years. Prior to that I was pestered on a regular basis, and they always gave up when they saw I have solar panels. Apparently the meters could not handle the interaction with the panels. Has that changed now?

 

[Journey]

I've not been offered a smart meter for around 2 years. Prior to that I was pestered on a regular basis, and they always gave up when they saw I have solar panels. Apparently the meters could not handle the interaction with the panels. Has that changed now?

Yes, SMETS2 made that work correctly across all providers.

 

[TheFew]

Thanks - sounds suitably space age. Will have to ask People's Energy what they can do!

 

[Angilion]

There is a government target/mandated scheme to roll out smart meters for the greater benefit of society. Suppliers have an incentive to hit this target; that is how the world works. It is basic mathematics. Dynamic and/or smart tariffing is one benefit for suppliers, in that they can better persuade people to dynamically consume over supply to the grid - a huge problem for the environment, and an obvious source of wastage that can be plugged by devices that don't need to be sipping juice at the time of spikes in demand (e.g. electric cars). For the greater good, it delivers much more robust data to optimise the grid.

Conversely to your point, having a smart meter has no downside other than 4 hours outage and then you get on with your life. Everything else is a conspiracy theory.

You're the only person mentioning a conspiracy. Either you don't know what the word means or you're knowingly using it incorrectly for the purposes of ad hominem. A conspiracy requires secrecy or at least an attempt at secrecy. That's a defining feature of a conspiracy. Nothing I said is in any way secret. There is no conspiracy. Other than in your words and maybe in your head.

 

[dlockers]

You're the only person mentioning a conspiracy. Either you don't know what the word means or you're knowingly using it incorrectly for the purposes of ad hominem. A conspiracy requires secrecy or at least an attempt at secrecy. That's a defining feature of a conspiracy. Nothing I said is in any way secret. There is no conspiracy. Other than in your words and maybe in your head.

Ah "ad hominem", next you'll be exclaiming strawman. Clearly been in the school of OCUK arguments far too long. Do you have a response to the content of what I said?

 

[stuman]

I have 4 kids i do all i can to lower my usage can't see how if can possibly help. It takes 2 mins to upload readings which pops up monthly in my calendar.

Don't see the benefits whatsoever.

Downsides,

Timed tarrifs, selective outages.for starters

timed tariffs are not a downside if you make the right choice. You think they’ll be more expensive? Or the electric companies will price out people on flat rate?

having 4 kids, lots of washing, tumble drying and dishwashing? Well if you set them all to go on at cheap times you could reduce the cost by 60% and those items in a normal contribute 80% of your usage.

it saves you time (not a lot) and helps towards the greener future we need.

 

[BigBoy]

There is a government target/mandated scheme to roll out smart meters for the greater benefit of society. Suppliers have an incentive to hit this target; that is how the world works. It is basic mathematics.

Yes there is a government mandated target of 86% of homes to have a smart meter by 2025 (it was previously 2020), its never been for the benefit of society, it was part of a G20 (iirc) agreement to prove carbon footprint and with the aim to show reduction. Suppliers only "Incentive" so to speak is to not be fined at set intervals between 2016 and 2025 there is no bonus pay out for them.

Dynamic and/or smart tariffing is one benefit for suppliers, in that they can better persuade people to dynamically consume over supply to the grid - a huge problem for the environment, and an obvious source of wastage that can be plugged by devices that don't need to be sipping juice at the time of spikes in demand (e.g. electric cars). For the greater good, it delivers much more robust data to optimise the grid.

Some of your point is valid, dynamic/smart tariffs benefit both parties not just the supplier. The aim is to educate people regarding wastage rather than say don't do this do that, if you care to look into it more fully the government will soon be providing support for home battery systems (i.e Tesla PowerWall to name one such system). Currently the grid is over saturated with power especially so in decent weather periods as less people are using power during the day but more is produced and put back into the grid via Solar PV both commercial systems and residential.


I work in the industry, I fitted meter for the last 5 years worked my way through the SMETS1 days and into the SMETS2 times of interconnectivity. There is no spy in your meter, it does not listen to you, it cannot be remotely shut down (this is illegal), the only data extracted from the meter is your readings at the time specified by the agreement you made with the company installing the meter.

Your supplier may fit the meter but they have no say over the data extraction, this is done be a government org called the DCC they handle the data, all your supplier does is request reading using a 160 digit PROPERTY identification number. No customer details are passed to the meter or the DCC.

Please if anyone has any sensible questions feel free to tag me in them and I will get back to you asap, but you know working, sleeping, kids n stuff.....