Ovo Smart Meter (Smart Gateway)

Sterlingtimes

I have waited a year for Ovo's cloud-based Smart Gateway to work. Yesterday, it suddenly kicked into action. It provides useful, high granularity data for both electricity and gas. This is a huge advance on the In Home Device toys. It is a shame that it doesn't capture the export numbers.

Electricity Day Example


Electricity Week Example


Electricity Month Example


Electricity Year Example

System

Do most consumers actually want this amount of information? I read my meters once a week and use a 99p app to get all the information that I need to manage my energy accounts. I would rather the £12Bn smart metering cost was spent of something more useful.

I'll start the car....

zeupater

Hengus wrote: »

Do most consumers actually want this amount of information? I read my meters once a week and use a 99p app to get all the information that I need to manage my energy accounts. I would rather the £12Bn smart metering cost was spent of something more useful.

I'll start the car....

Hi

I'm fully with you on that one, some of us already have the ability to collect more energy related data that that already. This leaves a pretty simple question ... would you readily pay £500 for a basic (although accurate) energy monitor and the 'luxury' of not having to take a couple of minutes to read your meters a few times a year? ...

Just seems to be a load of over-expensive technologically outdated nonsense to me. In the time that the EU, the government & industry has been pondering this project things elsewhere, such as microgeneration and storage, simply continue to move on .... this Norwegian Blue may still be nailed to the perch by Government & the industry, but I know a dead parrot when I see one, and despite desparate claims that it's resting, stunned or even pining for the fjords, it's simply missed the market .... this technology really is an ex-parrot!.

HTH
Z

bsod

the meters get replaced every 20 years anyway, £400/20 = £20pa

the ihd costs £9 retail

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PIPIT-TOUCHSCREEN-HOME-ENERGY-DISPLAY/dp/B00N55YLDY

the meter reader and the coal man no longer need paying

zeupater

bsod wrote: »

the meters get replaced every 20 years anyway, £400/20 = £20pa

the ihd costs £9 retail

https://www.amazon.co.uk/PIPIT-TOUCHSCREEN-HOME-ENERGY-DISPLAY/dp/B00N55YLDY

the meter reader and the coal man no longer need paying

Hi

Apart from having a legal responsibility to safety inspect meters every two years combined with many already submitting readings & managing accounts on-line and that the operational specification is for a "functional requirement for a 15 year life under normal operating conditions (metrology,communications and valve operations whereapplicable) without the need to change a meter battery", which reasonably means a 15 year normal life expectation, coupled with the meters themselves likely costing between £15 & £50 ... I agree ...

Considering that meters are currently replaced on a regular basis (10-15 years?), the new meters aren't substantially more expensive than current 'dumb' meters and there'll be both personnel and administrational savings to the energy sector - why exactly are we looking down the barrel of paying an additional £12billion instead of seeing tangible tariff reductions already ? .... so, where's the difference going?, where's my saving ? ....

HTH
Z

bsod

12 billion is the cost of replacing meters and supplying ihd's over several years, it makes a nice headline figure for naysayers and newspapers to bang on about, the cost of the existing system is rarely mentioned in the copy and paste 'look at this headline so we can increase advertising revenue' media world

prices are reducing, kwh's haven't been this cheap for years. Consumption is down to the customer and the ever improving technology like led lighting, monitoring it is far easier with an ihd, app, or graph than a pen and paper and meterbox key.

jimjames

bsod wrote: »

the meters get replaced every 20 years anyway, £400/20 = £20pa

I'd question that claim. We've been in our house nearly 20 years and meter has not been changed. In fact the meter looks to be at least 40-50 years old at least.

zeupater

bsod wrote: »

12 billion makes a nice headline figure for naysayers and newspapers to bang on about, the cost of the existing system is rarely mentioned in the copy and paste media world

prices are reducing, consumption is down to the customer and the ever improving technology like led lighting

Hi

Agree, but consider that £12billion works out at just under £500/household and the industry is being allowed to amortise the project cost into our tariffs in order to recover their additional costs ...... the issue is, what are the additional costs? ... the industry already has a mandated on-going meter replacement/recalibration program, the cost of which is already including in our bills, so why not replace all meters with Smart-meters within the existing replacement schedule ? ... this has an additional benefit in that it confines the roll-out program within the existing engineering resource availability, whereas artificially creating an installation demand-peak to roll out the program results both in the need to buy-in additional temporary labour resource thus unnecessarily increasing project costs and, even worse, by creating the artificial peak now, it'll return as a peak at whatever the replacement/recalibration frequency is, requiring additional resource at each reitteration - we'll be paying for this incompetent project-planning lunacy again & again, for decades ...

I'm not a nay-sayer and pay little regard to sensationalist newspaper headlines - it's just that I've controlled many very large, extremely expensive technology projects over a considerable number of years and therefore have a decent understanding of both technology and the relationship between equipment, resource, timescale and cost .....

As you rightly mention "consumption is down to the customer and the ever improving technology like led lighting" ... which opens up the question as to where all of the 'free' £20 energy monitors which the industry were handing out a a few years back have gone, moreover, how sucessful their 'roll-out' was and why there's any reasonable expectation that a £500 version of the same would be any more successful at changing household usage habits and that the remore monitor wouldn't end-up in a kitchen drawer too ? ..... LED TVs and lightbulbs have had, and will continue to have, a huge impact on reducing energy consumption .... how much of this shall we predict will be associated with the Smart-meter project in order to massage project saving and environmental impact ? ... some, most - or all ?? .... whichever, it'll almost certainly be overstated ...

HTH
Z

bsod

rollout deadline is down to the eu, deadlines focus the mind (normally - not deciding the spec years ago is farcical)

the ihd display doesn't cost £500, see the amazon link, £9 retail price, probably a third of that to make. The owl style clamp on the cable meters that some people bought weren't accurate or any use for gas, but may have pointed people in the right direction if they were so inclined.

The forced handing out of (now unused and poisonous) cfl's at great cost to the public is more of an issue

Whether it ends up in a drawer or not depends on the consumer, judging by the number of people on this site, scrimping is a way of life for many, so they should be able to get £9 of (material or entertainment) value out of the ihd's information if they wanted to - the op's fridge/freezer/router/fishtank or something else seems to be chewing away at 230 watts overnight, that's about £220pa to chip away at

jimjames wrote: »

We've been in our house nearly 20 years and meter has not been changed.

you shouldn't have long to wait then, contact your supplier

Sterlingtimes

Hengus wrote: »

Do most consumers actually want this amount of information?

Some of us just like measurement and control. By the age of 10 I was already interested in electronic construction and had my first multimeter. I also had an altimeter to take on holiday, a distance meter for my camera and a light meter.

By the age of 19 I was working in a radio design laboratory surrounded by test equipment and getting paid for measurement.

Now I'm measuring blood pressure, blood glucose, power generation and consumption, water pressure, swimming laps ... and I work for a company that sells automation and control systems. Of course, I check my pension investment prices daily and everything is recorded.

Indeed, many consumers do not want this, but the obsessive measurers do!

Now who would ever flock together on website to shares their daily Os?

zeupater

bsod wrote: »

... the ihd display doesn't cost £500, see the amazon link, £9 retail price, probably a third of that to make...

Hi

Agree, however £12billion divided by 24million households equals £500/household ..... my issue is that the ability for the industry to recover the project cost in addition to what is currently being charged for the normal ongoing meter replacement ... additionally, as you rightly say, the cost of the technology isn't that great, especially in the volumes involved ... additionally, the poor structure of the roll-out project results in unnecessary cost ... additionally, this cost is a repeating issue ....

HTH
Z