The Great Smart Meter Con

Andy_WSM

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

its a lot of money and you and I are paying for it !

Call me cynical, but if the energy companies suddenly saved £100million tomorrow it would NOT get passed back to consumers, but would increase profits for the shareholders.

Any savings smart meters bring the energy companies won't benefit us. At all.

Refer to this years drop in wholesale prices and lack of drop in consumer prices for evidence of this greed in action.

antrobus

Richie-from-the-Boro wrote: »

....The case has not been made for the consumer benefits and most of the assumptions used to prove consumer benefit are very very fragile. This is the proper report that the BBC & gingerbob skipped over.

Isn't it extraordinarily disloyal for Margaret Hodge to be so critical of smart meters? She does realise whose idea they were? (Someone called Ed Miliband I believe. )

[Deleted User]

None of these reports on smart meters mention the costs of energy theft. The politicians all seem unaware of whats happening out there in the "real " world. Using a place like Dundas Rd in Sheffield as a yardstick.. BG RPU checked only 20 houses ( after a gas meter explosion ) and seven out of the twenty houses were fiddling either the gas or electric. Pretty soon, the way things are going the generators will be recieving money from 50% of the consumers who will be paying for the other 50% thieving it.
I dont work in Sheffield much but there s hundreds of streets like Dundas Rd. In my home town of Doncaster I can name at least 35 streets where we find multiple houses on the free energy bonanza. I dont think the politicians and suppliers are aware of the scale of whats happening in the UK, its much bigger than they think and its happening in every large city. Smarts are badly needed now, no refusals allowed, mandatory.
Smarts are bound to cut the costs of generation and gas supply, prepays will be cheaper cutting out the middleman and making prepay tariffs much cheaper in the long run through card/keys being obsolete.Prepay meters will be much cheaper to manage, no constant expensive trips for meter readers to visit adding emergency credits and dealing with faulty keys/cards. That alone will bring down the costs of prepay management along with the higher tariffs

MeterMan

Another reason as to why the savings are currently at a lower than estimated rate is that, majority of smart installs are installed for the older generation, these folks are already quite energy savvy because they have spent all their lives learning to save money around the house. So how can these people save much more money without living in the dark and cold?

Also for the younger generation of people who get smart meters, such as young families with gadgets and TVs in every room. These guys are busy at work when we the smart meter installers are working, so we are less likely to get into their properties. Of the few young families that do take time off work in order for us to fit them, most don't have the time to educate themselves in how to save money. I have been in many houses where the IHD is a novelty and would only be used for a week or so before being turned off and thrown in a cupboard.

ChilliKwok

sacsquacco - please can you explain how smart meters are supposed to reduce instances of meter fiddling? If someone is bypassing the meter manually (eg. by taping off upstream or sharing feeds between two propeties) then they will still be able to do this with a smart meter. Meter fiddling is illegal - so why not just prosecute offenders? Why must normal law-abiding bill payers stump up for a national roll out of 'smart' meters? It has nothing to do with reducing theft. It's all about energy rationing via variable pricing - forcing people to use energy only when the wind blows or the sun shines rather than using it when *they* need it. Forcing people to pay more for an inferior service. Basically DECC has become infested by environmental activists and green vested interests who see it as their job to limit and ration energy usage. DECC needs to be shut down and the eco-loons kicked out ASAP.

penrhyn

Watch out there is an Eco Fascist about.

Cardew

ChilliKwok wrote: »

sacsquacco - please can you explain how smart meters are supposed to reduce instances of meter fiddling? If someone is bypassing the meter manually (eg. by taping off upstream or sharing feeds between two propeties) then they will still be able to do this with a smart meter. .

The Smart meters can be monitored remotely and it will be easy to see the 'real time' consumption of a property.


If an occupied property on a winter's evening is using little gas/electricity, they are candidates for investigation.


As you say though, anyone caught should be prosecuted by Police for stealing.

GingerBob_3

Cardew wrote: »

The Smart meters can be monitored remotely and it will be easy to see the 'real time' consumption of a property.


If an occupied property on a winter's evening is using little gas/electricity, they are candidates for investigation.


As you say though, anyone caught should be prosecuted by Police for stealing.

And that, in itself, is a massive reason for not getting one. Remember, they are NOT compulsory, so unless you're a meter train-spotter who enthuses over managing your energy usage to the n'th degree, the "smart" meters are best left alone.

And how will Big Brother at the leccy/gas office know whether a property is occupied?

Cardew

GingerBob wrote: »

And that, in itself, is a massive reason for not getting one. Remember, they are NOT compulsory, so unless you're a meter train-spotter who enthuses over managing your energy usage to the n'th degree, the "smart" meters are best left alone.

And how will Big Brother at the leccy/gas office know whether a property is occupied?

This is what sacsquacco wrote:

Smarts are badly needed now, no refusals allowed, mandatory.
Smarts are bound to cut the costs of generation and gas supply, prepays will be cheaper cutting out the middleman and making prepay tariffs much cheaper in the long run through card/keys being obsolete. Prepay meters will be much cheaper to manage, no constant expensive trips for meter readers to visit adding emergency credits and dealing with faulty keys/cards. That alone will bring down the costs of prepay management along with the higher tariffs

The question posed was 'how would they reduce instances of meter fiddling?' not a discussion on the merits of 'big brother' watching.

They will be a good aid to detecting the low life who believe that stealing and passing the cost on to other consumers is perfectly acceptable.

GingerBob_3

Cardew wrote: »

This is what sacsquacco wrote:



The question posed was 'how would they reduce instances of meter fiddling?' not a discussion on the merits of 'big brother' watching.

They will be a good aid to detecting the low life who believe that stealing and passing the cost on to other consumers is perfectly acceptable.

They will only detect someone tampering with the meter. They won't detect meter bypassing, which I'm guessing is the major cause of loss.