Have just been offered a smart meter - should I accept?

System

I think you should apologise for that remark..implying that I smoke cannabis or grow the stuff is disgusting behaviour and it is slanderous..I made a comment about some followers of Stopsmartmeter.org uk being keen on cannabis growing, which they certainly are..Being able to bypass electricity at will with no one knowing for sure what they are up to is why we have a cannabis grower in every street nowadays.Smart meters will stop all this..I did not imply or say that everyone who "follows "Stopsmartmeter guff is a cannabis grower..Apology needed PDQ matey

EachPenny

House_Martin wrote: »

I think you should apologise for that remark..implying that I smoke cannabis or grow the stuff is disgusting behaviour and it is slanderous..

I'm confused, which post are you referring to House Martin?

House_Martin wrote: »

Smart meters will stop all this.

No they won't. I'm not going to help criminals by explaining why, but there are some very simple techniques any cannabis farmer would know about which could be used to extract electricity regardless of meter type and be undetectable until after the farmers are long gone with no evidence left to be able to convict them.

It is a bit like claiming speed cameras will stop unlicensed drivers from speeding in unregistered cars... the claim sounds good on paper or out of the mouths of politicians, but in reality it is ineffective.

System

Of course there is a way round defeating electric smart meters.Its certainly not easy, extremely dangerous and compared to the simplicity it is now with an electric prepayment meter unlikely to be attempted by the vast majority of cannabis growers...Nearly all cannabis growers are small timers typically taking up one room for a crop. The big ones, organised by the masters of cannabis growing is in the control of the Vietnamese. They typically will run many properties where every room possible is put to growing a 12 week crop.They do have expensive equipment which can avoid the meters of course.
Once an electric smart meter is in place then the supplier can see what the usage is ..I have a property at the moment which has nt used 5 kwhs in 6 months..that is not uncommon..Revenue Protection can visit properties which are showing zero usage and make an assessment from the property.The small timers will be easily seen to be using electricity when visited at the correct time.I personally have found many cannabis growers over the years. I would have got thousands if smart meters were in the property and the user is claiming no electricity usage.

EachPenny

House_Martin wrote: »

Of course there is a way round defeating electric smart meters.Its certainly not easy, extremely dangerous and compared to the simplicity it is now with an electric prepayment meter unlikely to be attempted by the vast majority of cannabis growers...They do have expensive equipment which can avoid the meters of course.
Once an electric smart meter is in place then the supplier can see what the usage is ... Revenue Protection can visit properties which are showing zero usage

Again, I don't want to go into too much detail, but from what I understand the 'expensive equipment' can be purchased in most DIY stores for a couple of quid in sufficient quantity to do a couple of hundred meter bypasses.

So what you are saying is if your smart meter reports back to big brother that you aren't using much energy then a revenue protection officer is going to swoop down on you? Sounds like lots of revenue protection officer time is going to be spent visiting empty houses, and the homes of people on holiday.

Still don't understand what you meant by the apology thing?

System

they do not bypass at the meter. I will not go into detail about the methods but it is pricey equipment.we are not talking about a few inches of earthing sized thickness wire because that is all the expense needed to bypass a prepayment meter and can be done by a 10 year old it is that easy.i might add in over ten years of reading smart meters for BG I have nt found one bypassed smart electric meter. (landys Gyr e470 ).That is evidence itself of how difficult it is to breach these.
no, of course a RPU man will not mess about visiting zero users of electricity or he would be constantly wasting his time knocking on doors like my second house for no reason. They will target properties where no access has been given /refused accesses or multi suspicious excuses why a meter reader is denied access. All my "suspicious " refusals get passed on to the RPU where they can check payment history.If its a big fat zero or super low then they will visit, armed with a warrant on many occasions. The important detail is that if they have a smart meter installed they can instantly see if zero usage is being logged.Without that facility they cannot really decide because they don t see the meter reads. Many people routinely refuse access nowadays. It used to be rare, but not now..People who submit reads online are pretty ratty when we come knocking to see the meter. In the old days no one ever refused..not now .
BG are the only supplier to work like this.The foreign suppliers like EDF, EON and Npower do not spend as much as BG..BG are the only supplier who do anything and they find nearly all of the gas/electric theft in the UK. The little suppliers ..forget it ! hopeless.. particularly poor are suppliers like Utility Warehouse and Spark Energy. People who have been caught by BG switch to these suppliers where they won t be bothered too much

EachPenny

House_Martin wrote: »

they do not bypass at the meter. I will not go into detail about the methods but it is pricey equipment...

...I have nt found one bypassed smart electric meter. (landys Gyr e470 ).That is evidence itself of how difficult it is to breach these.

The important detail is that if they have a smart meter installed they can instantly see if zero usage is being logged.

I think we are talking about very different methods used by criminals to extract electricity then. I'm not going to say any more about it for the same reason as you - but regardless of whether the meter is smart or dumb, the criminal can still get their electric and it doesn't involve expensive equipment.

The fact you haven't seen a bypassed meter of a specific type isn't evidence in itself that smart meters will prevent energy theft. Smart meters may prevent one type of theft, but they won't stop it completely. The criminals will just use different techniques.

If a criminal is extracting electricity and they have a smart meter then they would be a pretty stupid criminal to then have zero legitimate consumption. All they need to do is to ensure some consumption goes through the meter and they will be indistinguishable from genuine low-consumption consumers.

For example little old ladies who are so frightened of big bills they sit in virtual darkness and only put the heating on when absolutely necessary, people who may also be too scared to open the door to strangers. These people will be flagged up as "suspicious". In the scenario you are putting forward, these little old ladies could be getting their doors kicked in by the RPU's and police to check to make sure they aren't cannabis farmers.

It won't happen, the political fall-out would be far too great.

System

EachPenny wrote: »

The fact you haven't seen a bypassed meter of a specific type isn't evidence in itself that smart meters will prevent energy theft. Smart meters may prevent one type of theft, but they won't stop it completely. The criminals will just use different techniques.

.

Theft of any kind is reprehensible. We should, however, bear in mind that BEIS ( previously DECC) - who are not known for understating the financial benefits that will accrue from smart meters - has just published in its latest Smart Meter Cost Benefit Analysis that:

Quote: we continue to assume that the roll-out of smart meters will reduce theft by 10%, which is also conservative given estimates that smart meters could reduce theft by 20-33% in previous consultation responses. We continue to assume that the amount of theft is likely to decrease as suppliers will have access to more accurate and frequent data and will detect theft more quickly; however we also recognise that new methods of theft will arise. Following standard Government practice, we value theft reductions for domestic customers at the resource rather than the retail value of energy, resulting in benefits of £0.29 per meter per annum for electricity and £0.36 per meter per annum for gas.

This results in present value gross benefit of £219m. Unquote

Given that the above works out at less than £2 per household per year saving (at retail prices) I am not sure that the the prevention of energy theft has ever a prime driver for the roll-out of smart meters in the UK.

System

Hengus wrote: »

Theft of any kind is reprehensible. We should, however, bear in mind that BEIS ( previously DECC) - who are not known for understating the financial benefits that will accrue from smart meters - has just published in its latest Smart Meter Cost Benefit Analysis that:

Quote: we continue to assume that the roll-out of smart meters will reduce theft by 10%, which is also conservative given estimates that smart meters could reduce theft by 20-33% in previous consultation responses. We continue to assume that the amount of theft is likely to decrease as suppliers will have access to more accurate and frequent data and will detect theft more quickly; however we also recognise that new methods of theft will arise. Following standard Government practice, we value theft reductions for domestic customers at the resource rather than the retail value of energy, resulting in benefits of £0.29 per meter per annum for electricity and £0.36 per meter per annum for gas.

This results in present value gross benefit of £219m. Unquote

Given that the above works out at less than £2 per household per year saving (at retail prices) I am not sure that the the prevention of energy theft has ever a prime driver for the roll-out of smart meters in the UK.

That data you have dragged up is crapola and pure guesswork..no one actually knows what is being nicked. Only BG catch people, all the rest don t even try .apart from token attempts at running the bare minimum RPU of a couple of chaps in an office to keep OFGEM sweet They do not run a viable RPU. Scottish Power for instance won t take out more than a dozen warrants a YEAR to stop energy theft. Personally I would only believe what the head of British Gas revenue protection has stated on the BBC that it is costing each consumer £60 a year extra to cover the theft of gas and electric. They are the experts in the UK not some quango dragging up a set of figures which changes every month. I have seen energy theft increasing year by year to levels you would not believe are possible in certain areas. Meter fiddling in.Hexthorpe and parts of Edlington in the Doncaster area are now at just plain silly levels..We meter readers have all given up at getting in many of the properties at all nowadays. The inhabitants are laughing their heads off at how stupid we are in the UK to allow it.. As I keep saying there is only BG doing much at all about it. This is insider info which Richard Littlejohn in the Daily Mail is interested in running a story to publicise how these foreign suppliers have stormed into the UK and just pass on theft of energy direct to the customers without doing much about it.
Liverpool is always known as the capital of fiddles, god knows how much is being nicked by the Scouses. It will be a tremendous amount.
Hengus is always trying his to downgrade smart meter s and this is just another set of useless figures he s trawled up.

lstar337

kelpie35 wrote: »

NO.............. they are the worst thing to have in your home.

I can think of quite a few worse things to have in your home.

• An angry bull
• A serial killer
• Polonium-210

Just for perspective.

However, I recently turned down a smart meter from EDF as I do not see the point until SMETS2 meters are released. I am a frequent switcher so I have no use for a SMETS1 meter.

MattE9

Smart Meters for energy are only of use to people who don't monitor their daily use and need that, and/or can never get themselves together to submit accurate readings.
In my parents home, they (Siemens) spent 5 hours installing them only to discover at the end they wouldn't work.
I have refused to have one in my flat (I have had to tell them about 20 times so far to stop pestering me with emails, land line and mobile calls!) as I have no use for one.