Smart meters - what is the catch?

From the SpeakEV forum (from someone who actually works in the energy supply sector)

I'm working on Smart. It's going quite well. The rollout just seems to be taking a while but bear in mind there's over 20 million meters need to be replaced. There's a few hundred thousand in at the moment, but none meet the new standard which will mean all suppliers can get readings from any other suppliers meters. The first phase is coming to an end which was really a learning curve on what tech to use, (GPRS, wifi and broadband, SMS, packet radio etc). What works in the west midlands doesn't work in remote scotland. And how do you deal with gas meters which don't have an electric supply. As an example - once the full roll out starts next year, the company I'm working for expects to be sticking in 8,000 new meters a day. That's a pretty serious project by anyones standards!

The answer on variable time pricing - well maybe. It' gives more flexibility on tariffs. For now the key focus is getting consumers more control and visibility over their energy use and letting them see how they use energy via the In Home Display (IHD). A lot of 1st gen smart meters don't even have that - just the ability to collect half hourly reads and send them back to be viewed on a portal.

A lot of the savings are expected to come from properly being able to account for the settlements process which is underway in a Project called P272 however that's really for larger energy customers but I expect the process will be similar for smaller customers in the long run. All the settlements are done via a fudge... no one knows if for example 90% of nPowers customers are on holiday today and not using any electric, whilst all SSEs customers have decided to have a barbeque and stuck 40 litres of beer in the fridge that needs cooling. What they do know is the daily demand profile and split it up over the consumer units in the period.

Being able to charge individual customers for consumption at a specific time will certainly help smooth energy usage but at this stage I don't think its going to be forced on people. More likely it will work like E7 - in that if you decide that getting cheaper electric outside the super peak and then even cheaper electric off peak will fit your life style usage then you can opt for the tariff.

Demand reduction tariffs are definitely possible - you could be charged for peak kW in use at a time, not just kWh consumed. No reasons why residential customers should understand running the kettle, microwave and oven and 4 rings on the hob whilst someone is taking an electric shower, all at the same time between 4pm and 8pm is adding to generating capacity requirement. Especially as we now have the capacity market for paying for availability of suppler even if it's not used.... which was a failure of the old market pricing leading to a few too many power-stations closing.

The trouble is OFGEM just forced all the suppliers to spend millions reducing their tariff offerings to 5 to simplify the market, and now they are having an about turn saying there needs to be more competition.

victor2 wrote: »

I think it is inevitable that the suppliers move towards a much more controlled supply of energy to the market. Long gone are the days where we took electricity for granted and the cost was not really a consideration. I remember my gran being the first one in her street to get a colour TV, having already been one of the few with a washing machine. I don't remember her ever telling people to switch off lights or save electricity, and she was always one for watching the pennies...

We live in exciting technological times which is why, as an oldie, I embrace everything new that comes along. Smart meters are only part of the solution: the other part of the solution is smart storage. One might argue that Dinorwig pumped storage (1984) was the first-generation solution to doing something with unwanted electricity. The latest solution which will be trialled next year is at this link:

https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fm5bat.de%2F&edit-text=

Building started this week. BMW has also announced that it plans to re-cycle EV Li-on batteries into grid storage.