Smart Meters and Supply Transfer

Why does smart metering get so emotive. It's nice to have but not essential. I'd like it but I'm not upset that I don't have it and can't get it at the moment. I'll wait until they are available

I've got a meter and it measures my leccy consumption and I can read it myself and send the info in or let the supplier guess and come a read it when he's ready. I could do that with a smart meter that's reverted to dumb so it doesn't really matter what sort of meter I've got.

The fact that meters aren't yet compatible across the suppliers isn't really the catastrophe that some make out and it's not a barrier to swapping suppliers - lets get a sense of perspective.

I agree that the introduction of them and the infrastructure to support them is a total shambles and is probably going to cost twice as much as if it had been properly managed in the first place. Letting all the suppliers do their own thing for several years just to see who could do it better wasn't actually a very good idea.

Even the present system with a central database for dumb meters doesn't work all that well because people are involved and records don't get updated or corrected properly.

I can't see that the DCC will be significantly better because that will still rely on someone telling them that a new meter has been installed and needs to be activated and monitored. Unless of course it's been designed to self activate (which I doubt) and it will still have to work with the miriad of suppliers and billing systems that exist at the moment

I reckon it's still going to be quite a long time before it gets properly integrated with the suppliers who have all demonstated a dismal inability to sort out any upgrades or modifications to their own systems, let alone getting themselves connected and integrated into another network & database.