Smart Meter Pros & Cons?

sdavies13

Hi all,

Took today off as leave so could get the meter inspected and the guy was in and out in just over a minute so to avoid wasting leave in future was wondering what the pro's and con's are of smart meters.

Anyone got any advice or insights they might like to share please?

Doing a search brings up loads of stuff about providing greater transparency on usage, saving money, etc, but nothing seemed to come up about any con's. Surely it isn't all ponies and rainbows?

Could someone not hack the transmissions and thus discover when the house is likely occupied or not or shut the supply down? Who pays any extra charges associated with these meters? (must be higher running costs as well as upfront capital costs)

Thanks.

Norman_Castle

The £12 billion (current estimate) cost paid by consumers for something very few people want or need is a con..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10613535/Energy-giants-call-for-review-of-smart-meter-roll-out-to-save-consumers-1.8bn.html

"In one trial in London it found that just 15pc of people wanted a smart meters."

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays

Norman_Castle wrote: »

The £12 billion (current estimate) cost paid by consumers for something very few people want or need is a con..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/10613535/Energy-giants-call-for-review-of-smart-meter-roll-out-to-save-consumers-1.8bn.html

"In one trial in London it found that just 15pc of people wanted a smart meters."

Christ, the luddite community abounds. Fine. Whack on an extra 50 quid a year for those who insist on having a 1960's meter that needs to be read by G4S (who allegedly have a worse reputation than energy firms!) You'd soon see who is really opposed to smart metering.

spiro

What nobody knows yet is how much of the smart meter functionality suppliers will use. As an example suppliers could eliminate lots of debt by sending you a bill and if you don't pay on time the automatically switch your meter to PPM to recover the money.

Norman_Castle

Bluebirdman_of_Alcathays wrote: »

Christ, the luddite community abounds. Fine. Whack on an extra 50 quid a year for those who insist on having a 1960's meter that needs to be read by G4S (who allegedly have a worse reputation than energy firms!) You'd soon see who is really opposed to smart metering.

Will bills be reduced by £50 per year once smart meters are installed?. Luddite?. If I spend £70 - £120 on new technology I'd prefer to choose what to spend it on. I'm indifferent about smart meters being fitted. I object to consumers being forced to pay for something very few want, need or understand.
Give consumers the choice of having these installed at their expense. You'd soon see who welcomes smart metering.

Bark01

Since when did the majority of the British public have any idea what was good for them? Trusting the red tops is never a god way of forming opinion.

The main driver to introduce Smart meters is to increase the accuracy of bills and reduce bad debt, both of these measures go hand in hand and will reduce bills. You only need to read a few post on here to know that a lot of people get into debt because they don’t provide regular readings to their supplier so when an accurate read is given they suddenly find they owe money.

The cost of bad debt written off each year outweighs the cost or the Smart meter roll out. Also what’s the problem of being switched onto prepayment? I think most tariffs will go the way of pre payment once Smart meters are the norm. Prepayment under Smart will be in home Prepayment meaning it will be done online or over the phone rather than going to a shop, you won’t need a key.

Prepayment tariffs are currently few and far between due to the third party infrastructure that sits between suppliers and consumers, this infrastructure places a physical limit on the amount of tariffs that can be in the market at any given time. When Smart meters come into use the suppliers can bypass the third parties reducing costs and removing the limits on tariffs available so there will be a proliferation of prepayment tariffs.

Also G4S don’t read meters, your local MOP does.

Haarlem

Bark01 wrote: »

The main driver to introduce Smart meters is to increase the accuracy of bills and reduce bad debt, both of these measures go hand in hand and will reduce bills. You only need to read a few post on here to know that a lot of people get into debt because they don’t provide regular readings to their supplier so when an accurate read is given they suddenly find they owe money.

The main driver for the the introduction of Smart Meters is from the industry to enable time of day tariffs to be rolled out in the domestic market.

Accurate bills is a secondary reason for smart meters.

GingerBob_3

Con 1: loads of people (and I mean loads) will have access to information which can be used to determine when there's no one at home.

Con 2: Your supply can be disconnected remotely - and don't tell me this would never happen. Can you imagine the likes of nPower never making a mistake in this respect?

walkon

I would advise against installing smart meters for privacy/security reasons. Smart meters will affected your health and won't save you any money but cost you more.

I guarantee that, once they have smart meters established, Government will use them as a way of charging you more if you use too much energy or, peak off peak charges.

Don’t fall for the dirty tricks like British Gas offer, with free weekend electricity.
It’s a con to get you to except smart meters.

So there are no pros to having smart meters.
See this website for more and help stop smart meters. http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

Carrot007

Bark01 wrote: »

Also G4S don’t read meters, your local MOP does.

Sorry to be picky but this bit annoys me!

Your appointed MOP (which may or may not be "local" depending on what you mean by the term) maintains the meters and will read it when (if) it vists. It however does not do general meter reading.

That is the job of the appointed DC (data collector) who sends out the DR (data retriever).

Furthermore G4S do both MOP and DC/DR work so may well be the one reading your meter!

Now back on topic.

Yes there are many downsides to smart-metering. However the up sides certainly out-weigh them.

However it will in no way remove the need for the 2 yearly visual inspection, so expect to be taking time off still!

lstar337

walkon wrote: »

Smart meters will affected your health and won't save you any money but cost you more.

Show me some evidence for this please, or retract your scaremongering.