Any companies that guarantee a smart meter yet?

blizeH

Hi,

My house has a very unusual setup where, despite being detached, I need to go into next doors garden to check my electricity and gas readings. This was a problem last week when I had a voice message from British Gas saying that I absolutely had to submit a reading within 3 days, but my neighbours were on holiday and their gate was locked!

So I need a smart meter. British Gas assure me they've added me to the priority list and if an engineer is in my area he will fit one, but they gave absolutely no time frame for this and when I asked if it could still take years, the lady just said "possibly" and that was it.

So I was wondering, are there any companies or tariffs that guarantee the almost immediate fitting of a smart meter?

Thanks!

JSR

First Utility. Although there's no guarantee other suppliers will use the 'smartness' if you decide to leave.

eurmalian

Utilita as well. Again, if you want to leave them the smart meter usually has to be removed.

spiro

Just to be clear, none of the suppliers are currently installing 'smart' meters what they are installing are 'trial' meters as DECC (government) have yet to define the standard for smart meters that will be installed nationally. Therefore most if not all of the meters are supplier specific and in effect become a 'dumb' meter when you change supplier.

blizeH

Many thanks, First Utility looks quite decent and the extra charge for having the smart meter is well worth it for me - would be curious how their back end system looks compared to British Gas? Must say I am impressed with the way their site compares your useage to previous years, or even comparing to the average for similar households in your area

Shame that I couldn't just switch back to them then, as that was my initial plan, d'oh!

tweets

I have a smart meter installed . I have it for both gas and electric with EON. So far so good. They were free and took just over an hour to install.

martinthebandit

Why would anyone, apart from someone in the OP's position, want a smart meter? Seems to me the supplier gets all the benefits and the consumer gets all the risks.

spiro

martinthebandit wrote: »

the consumer gets all the risks.

Whats risks do the consumer get?

martinthebandit

spiro wrote: »

Whats risks do the consumer get?

It hands control to anyone with web access for a start. The ones currently being trialed have already had their security compromised.

The utilities will start introducing variable pricing. Sooner or later they are going to want, and be able, to charge you far more for energy use at peak times.

It enables the utilities to turn your supply off too easily.

It enables far more private and personnal information about you to be harvested and sold.

I cannot see any benefits to the consumer that outweigh those.

eurmalian

Anyone on Prepayment should want smart. The ability to top up over the phone or internet. Top ups in shops going on the meter instantly. If something goes wrong with the top up mechanism the supplier can press a button and turn it credit until it's fixed. There are plenty of benefits there...

martinthebandit

eurmalian wrote: »

Anyone on Prepayment should want smart. The ability to top up over the phone or internet. Top ups in shops going on the meter instantly. If something goes wrong with the top up mechanism the supplier can press a button and turn it credit until it's fixed. There are plenty of benefits there...

Yep, until some 12 year old script kiddie decides it would be fun to turn off someones electricity.

Or the UK arrests an alleged member of some online hacking group and the rest of them turn vengeful

Etc, etc