Smart Meters are now Optional

2010

The Government had promised that every household would have a smart meter by 2019 in a £12 billion programme to stop gas and electricity bills being estimated.
Officials are devising plans to allow people to reject the smart meters, which communicate remotely from households to energy companies.
The move is a victory for campaign groups and backbench MPs, who raised concerns with ministers that the devices emit electromagnetic radiation 24 hours a day and cannot be turned off.
Privacy campaigners were worried that half-hourly data on energy usage collected by smart meters could give clues about people’s way of life, such as when someone is on holiday, at work or asleep. Sources in the Department for Energy and Climate Change said the proposal was shelved to avoid the programme getting “bogged down” in lengthy legal disputes.
There has been a public outcry recently about the potential health effects of smart meters in the US and Canada.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/financialservices/utilities/Business-energy/9053100/Smart-meters-for-energy-to-be-voluntary.html

[Deleted User]

thats good news for us meter readers, i did read last november that there was a chance ( albeit slim) that the government may pull the plug on the whole project.This is from Dept of Energy and Climate Change Moira Wallace spokesperson i believe. I work for British Gas who have already installed 400,000 of them.Today I read a couple of meters where British Gas were asking people to have them installed on trial and paying them £100 for the privilege,personally I d grab at that,if only for the brilliant and accurate monitor which comes with them

2010

If people have got any sense they won`t touch smart meters with a bargepole.
If BG are really paying people to have them installed, shouldn`t that alone ring alarm bells about their future intentions about using the information they glean from the meters.

HappyMJ

2010 wrote: »

If people have got any sense they won`t touch smart meters with a bargepole.
If BG are really paying people to have them installed, shouldn`t that alone ring alarm bells about their future intentions about using the information they glean from the meters.

Why wouldn't they? They promise accurate billing on a half hourly basis.

deanos

Hmmm wonder if smart water meters emit this signal they are on about, although they only send the reading when they are woken up by the meter reader

whitelabel

sacsquacco wrote: »

thats good news for us meter readers, i did read last november that there was a chance ( albeit slim) that the government may pull the plug on the whole project.This is from Dept of Energy and Climate Change Moira Wallace spokesperson i believe. I work for British Gas who have already installed 400,000 of them.Today I read a couple of meters where British Gas were asking people to have them installed on trial and paying them £100 for the privilege,personally I d grab at that,if only for the brilliant and accurate monitor which comes with them

really ?
BG contacted my parents as they were doing their customers in the area and installed my parents electric and gas metres free of charge last year.. and they got the monitor

bills have dropped right down too

[Deleted User]

hi whitelabel, yes thats the normal way BG have been doing it for the last 2 years, turn up and put them in, no this was a BG contracter who were going to pay the custs £100 to fit them and i think do some energy monitoring i presume for their £100.sinister? i found it a bit odd.2 people had the letters,neighbours too,this is something new to me

meggsy

Pleased to hear it as we didn't want one anyway, we'll continue to give monthly meter reads.

whitelabel

sacsquacco wrote: »

hi whitelabel, yes thats the normal way BG have been doing it for the last 2 years, turn up and put them in, no this was a BG contracter who were going to pay the custs £100 to fit them and i think do some energy monitoring i presume for their £100.sinister? i found it a bit odd.2 people had the letters,neighbours too,this is something new to me

oh mis read that they were being asked to pay £100 for them

so get £100 paid to them is certainly more appealing depending who had access to the data and what used for.

utility_csa

sacsquacco wrote: »

thats good news for us meter readers, i did read last november that there was a chance ( albeit slim) that the government may pull the plug on the whole project.This is from Dept of Energy and Climate Change Moira Wallace spokesperson i believe. I work for British Gas who have already installed 400,000 of them.Today I read a couple of meters where British Gas were asking people to have them installed on trial and paying them £100 for the privilege,personally I d grab at that,if only for the brilliant and accurate monitor which comes with them

I believe the payment of £100 is for their carbon network trials.

If smart meters were dangerous half my office would be dead, most of us have them wired up next to our desk and "on" 24/7.

I think its good residential is cancelled, whole load of ballache for little gains.

Once again people moaning about the recording of data and who has access to it, Only the Data collector, Meter operator and Supplier has access to it. Supplier doesnt even have access to this unless they request the DC/Mop to do this.

The meters are more secure than people think.

Still every Industry & Commercial property who has a maximum demand register still requires a smart meter by 2014, this is where the £££ is coming from with smart meters.

[Deleted User]

I support smart meters generally, even though its going to be the loss of our jobs,at least for reading domestic properties.I ve noticed a rise myself in meter tampering and bypassing mostly in electic prepays and smarts promise to end the free energy gravy train rife in certain area s. I did see an electric smart meter on sale on ebay last year, prob pilfered from a vacant property.so the internal chips etc could be identified. The Daily Mail ran a basically anti smart meter story last month and maybe if the media turned against them the government would bow to public pressure and cancel the whole project