Scottish Power - Smart meter

sarah_id1

They keep following on to get one installed. It sounds all good but whats the catch?

One post said it has cost albeit its recovered bit by bit(for few years) in monthly bill not noticed much. But on asked Scottish Power said there is none.

How about switching!

System

sarah_id1 wrote: »

They keep following on to get one installed. It sounds all good but whats the catch?

One post said it has cost albeit its recovered bit by bit(for few years) in monthly bill not noticed much. But on asked Scottish Power said there is none.

How about switching!

Scottish Power are telling porkies. There is no upfront cost to consumers; however, the roll out is costing us £12Bn which will be recovered in the form of higher bills. Provided you use the information on the IHD to turn off standby appliances then it is estimated that you could save £11 per year. The present generation of smart meters will revert to dumb meters on switching; however, a consultation was released late last year to come up with ways of upgrading these meters to the latest SMETS 2 configuration. SMETS2 meters will be the norm from the end of this year: these will remain smart when you switch.

From the U.K. Govt website:

Switching suppliers

Smart meters will ultimately make switching suppliers easier and quicker. It is important that smart metering devices work together (even if from different providers) and also that consumers can still use the meter on change of supplier. However, meters installed during the early roll out may lose some smart functionality depending on which energy supplier you switch to. This will be resolved for the vast majority of meters installed during the main rollout as more energy suppliers begin installing smart meters.

In most cases, if you switch during the early roll out the meter can still be used in ‘traditional’ mode if the new energy supplier cannot support the smart functionality at the stage of switching suppliers. The In Home Display (IHD) issued alongside the smart meter should still continue to operate and show you near real time information about your energy consumption.

Ofgem has introduced rules designed to help domestic consumers understand if the smart services they receive will be maintained when they switch supplier. The rules include a requirement that a supplier installing a smart meter must inform the customer that they may lose meter functionality on change of supplier.

PS There is an ITV investigation into U.K. smart meters at 7.30pm next Thursday (2nd February)

System

Lets balance out the rollout costs by the billions ? saved in energy theft, billing mess ups , prepayment meter forced installs, huge build up of debts which never ever get repaid all added to our bills in the form of higher prices.
Why OFGEM ordered the dippy bunch of suppliers to install smarts is a bigger mistake than that Northern Ireland fiasco where the subsidies on a green energy tariff where greater than the actual cost per kwh of the electricity.As in what happened in the whole of Europe, the DNO s installed them all sweeping down each street efficiently and cheaply doing all the houses one after the other. The suppliers duck and dive all over doing one smart install in one area then another 20 miles away and end up doing a few meters per day if they are lucky