I want my smart meter removing, who do i speak to?

bewart1 · 14 March 2012 at 9:37PM

So how is a metal cage going to help?, what are your findings on metal cages?, is that comment helpful?

Oh I get it being funny again.. lol

can I just make a couple of points here as I am trying to make a balanced and valid point without being shot down by industry insiders who do not have the consumer

1. I am not talking about EMF I am talking about RF radiation (which these meters are supposed to pump out in high volume), but thanks for the info.

2. if meter reading are high (RF readings) in my living space ( I mean what is classed as harmful ) then meter is going, anyone disagree?

Again if readings prove un-harmful, I aint got a problem with the thing.. OK

One last question, maybe the insiders will be able to answer this one

What is the primary purpose of these meters?
by that i mean why are we introducing smart ones?

If the answer is to get accurate readings, then my next question to you is this

Why don't they just pump out a reading one a week back to the Utility Company, or even one a month?

I mean you never expected a reading from me every 45 seconds before so why now?

bewart1 · 14 March 2012 at 9:59PM

DECC confirms talks with Dept of Health over smart meter risks

by Natalie Evans. Published Tue 25 Jan 2011 19:50, Last updated: 2011-01-25
Smart meters are at centre of growing health scare

Officials from the UK's Department of Energy and Climate Change have confirmed “discussions” with their counterparts at the Health Department over safety concerns regarding the mass installation of smart meters.

Energy chiefs say talks will continue with the Department of Health as worries grow over research linking smart meter technology and an increased risk of cancer.

The news follows a warning that indoor electromagnetic fields and radio waves emitted by smart meters pose a growing health risk.

The risk of cancer has been linked to intense or prolonged exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and radio frequencies (RFs).

Worries persist about the potential for mobile phones to cause brain tumours.

Terrylw1 · 14 March 2012 at 10:04PM

utility_csa wrote: »

Wrong.

Any mpan over Profile Class 5 (&00) are mandatory to have smart meters by 2014.

thought you would know that as you are an IT consultant for the big six.

D0313 flow has been introduced for a while..

Also, amazing how any Half Hourly customer can change their supplier at will and still other DC/DR can read the same smart meter.

Also to the OP. if the meter is really annoying you, rather than having it removed encase the meter in a steel cage, will do almost the same as having the meter replaced for a dumb meter.

In Spiro's defence, the thread is about a domestic. Business smart metering is way further on.

Suppliers are still trialling for domestics and from my experience, its very messy with problems with billing or the fact they can't get them to, issues with MOP, missing MDD etc. There's a whole load to sort out yet, a significant issue being what meters will be seamless transfers because there arre many types of timeswitch arrangement and i doubt MDD will be fully used hence bringing ofgem in over tariff withdrawal.

Last September they were still discussing which technology to use. There was discussions aroung the Bgas strategy as they are racing ahead again like they did with microgen...which caused those customers problems when switching.

Terrylw1 · 14 March 2012 at 10:07PM

Just a small note to the OP...if you do go for a cage as suggested, just make sure they can read, replace, fit anything try need to otherwise they may report it as a blocked meter. Its just hassle you don't need since its their property. Utility_CSA I'm sure can advise on that since he/she is working for a meter operator.

bewart1 · 14 March 2012 at 10:41PM

Just a small note:

Please READ BELOW and answer my questions:

1. I am not talking about EMF I am talking about RF radiation (which these meters are supposed to pump out in high volume), but thanks for the info.

2. if meter reading are high (RF readings) in my living space ( I mean what is classed as harmful ) then meter is going, anyone disagree?

Again if readings prove un-harmful, I aint got a problem with the thing.. OK

One last question, maybe the insiders will be able to answer this one

What is the primary purpose of these meters?
by that i mean why are we introducing smart ones?

If the answer is to get accurate readings, then my next question to you is this

Why don't they just pump out a reading one a week back to the Utility Company, or even one a month?

I mean you never expected a reading from me every 45 seconds before so why now?

Terrylw1 · 14 March 2012 at 10:52PM

Billing accuracy is a massive problem in the industry, so 2 ways this makes a big change.

1 - customers bills are accurate to the supplier
2 - the suppliers bills to the customer match up to payments to the distributor. This all helps with future forecasting of energy needs.

Do I think it will stop you seeing estimated bills, probably not, there are bound o be reasons why their billing will fall down and the revert back to estimates, but at least the catch up will be quick.

Smart has other abilities such ad remote disconnection, change of tenancy, the ability to eliminate Deemed change of supplier reads which can't be resolved as the industry practices prevent suppliers doing it and other applications like the ability to change your tariff to a firm reading or switch your time switch settings. I suppose the same could apply to the change between credit and prepayment. Some of this has been around before in the form of Smart power metering of the Actaris KBD meters, the latter are still in use.

Another question from me as I'm not an engineer. What about teleswitch metering? That's been around a long time and the signla is sent nightly to update the switching settings. How does that relate to all this?

utility_csa · 14 March 2012 at 11:21PM

bewart1 wrote: »

So how is a metal cage going to help?, what are your findings on metal cages?, is that comment helpful?

Oh I get it being funny again.. lol

can I just make a couple of points here as I am trying to make a balanced and valid point without being shot down by industry insiders who do not have the consumer

1. I am not talking about EMF I am talking about RF radiation (which these meters are supposed to pump out in high volume), but thanks for the info.

2. if meter reading are high (RF readings) in my living space ( I mean what is classed as harmful ) then meter is going, anyone disagree?

Again if readings prove un-harmful, I aint got a problem with the thing.. OK

One last question, maybe the insiders will be able to answer this one

What is the primary purpose of these meters?
by that i mean why are we introducing smart ones?

If the answer is to get accurate readings, then my next question to you is this

Why don't they just pump out a reading one a week back to the Utility Company, or even one a month?

I mean you never expected a reading from me every 45 seconds before so why now?

I think you'll find i neither try to be funny or a idiot on this forum, check my posts. everything i do is to try and help people or enlighten users of the forums on electric / gas / smart metering.

Half your posts are in my previous threads.

Im response to a "cage"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage

Some of our meter installs are in room like this, often in substations, powerstations, metal cladded rooms.

the meter hardly will work in areas such as these, how do we get around these either; aerials with long cables ( shame about line loss ) installing a bt line which plugs into a modem. or a nice long cat5 cable with the modem and aerial outside of the interference. Putting a cage or metal box will in 90% of the times cause the meter to not be able to communicate or will just cause such bad signal it wont even be worth our time to try and communicate with.

can almost guarantee to you, you supplier does not care if your smart meter is communicating especially if its First utility your with.

In regards to your readings once every 45 seconds. no not going to happen the amount of data to be collected would be stupid for no gain. domestic its done once every 24 hours, weekly or monthly ( depends on supplier or datacollector ).

Lowest you can set it to is once every minute on very accurate meters that have no place in residential properties.

Terrylw1 · 15 March 2012 at 12:05AM

Ah, a Faraday cage.

What about access issues since that a complete surround isn't it? Only reason I ask is some suppliers are looking at things like meter blocked to see if they should be treated in the same way as refusal to enter. The OP might just need to get the NHHMOP access details updated.

utility_csa · 15 March 2012 at 12:28AM

Terrylw1 wrote: »

Ah, a Faraday cage.

What about access issues since that a complete surround isn't it? Only reason I ask is some suppliers are looking at things like meter blocked to see if they should be treated in the same way as refusal to enter. The OP might just need to get the NHHMOP access details updated.

You'd only need to have it screwed over, no issue if its not a permanent fixture.

When i worked in gas, often came across meters that have been built into brick walls with no access to the ECV...

spiro · 15 March 2012 at 8:40AM

The other prupose of smart meters is that they will show customer how much energy they are using, in £s, at any time which is believe will result in people becoming more aware of what they use and how much it costs and will therefore result in lower consumption. The added benefit of remote reading is a 'Brucie bonus'.