Smart Meters

[Deleted User]

You may disagree but it is a fact that having smart meters installed in early November mine still do not function correctly.

Who are you dealing with at Octopus Energy? The smart team can be contacted directly on smart@octopus.energy or you can email the CEO - greg@octopus.energy. 

waamo

It would appear I'm not the only person to have the same problem https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/77815689/#Comment_7781568

Scorpioangel reports an extremely similar issue too.

waamo

[Deleted User] said:

You may disagree but it is a fact that having smart meters installed in early November mine still do not function correctly.

Who are you dealing with at Octopus Energy? The smart team can be contacted directly on smart@octopus.energy or you can email the CEO - greg@octopus.energy. 

I've dealt with the help team and the smart team. To be fair I will give them a bit longer as Christmas does slow things down a bit but if they can't fix it I will switch from them and hope that shakes things up a bit.

oldandwizend

Despite playing 'devil's advocate' on some of the points that I have raised in this forum even I, in due course, will undoubtedly succumb to the world of smart meters; I have often found that it does not always pay to be near the front of the queue!

I would, however, appreciate some feedback for those who have had experience of, or are conversant with, the actual installation. From what I have seen the smart meter does not appear as robust as the current gas meter and, as such, may be more prone to the odd 'knock'. Also, from videos etc that I have seen the meters appear to be fixed to wall.  Both my gas and electric supply enter the house in a cupboard under the stairs.  The electric meter is not a problem as the supply enters adjacent to the outside wall with the meter fixed to that wall. The gas main, for some inexplicable reason, enters the house in the middle of the floor of the cupboard with the meter seemingly 'suspended' in mid-air and only supported by the attached pipework. As the cupboard is also used for storage the meter has had the occasional ‘knock’ but so far so good!  When I moved into the house, I did enquire of both my supplier and SGN as to how safe this was and whether it could be 'tidied up' to make the cupboard more usable.  Both said, 'if that was how it was installed then it is safe'!  SGN quoted approximately £400 for moving the meter (this was some 15 years ago) but would only carry out the work if I could tell them the exact route from the gas ‘main' to the meter; something I would have hoped that they should know – do they expect me to dig up most of my ground floor and the front garden? Hence my, hopefully unnecessary, concern over smart meter installation.

MikeE67

[Deleted User] said:

The 'idiot' as you put it notes down nothing on paper. The installation process is carried out using a phone or PDA. As this blog indicates, it is a complicated process:
https://octopus.energy/blog/solving-smart-meter-issues-octopus-energy/
I suspect that many suppliers lack smart meter teams with the detailed knowledge to deal with problems.

This is one of the key sentences in the Blog:

" If we cannot apply our Octopus certificates to the meter (this is a security measure that ensures that only we can read your meter), we will not be allowed to complete the commissioning process."

That could explain why my gas meter tariffs haven't updated since switching to Octopus Energy.
As I understand it, only OVO's installers can solve the problem as Octopus sent me an email a few weeks ago saying that the gas meter hasn't been commissioned properly.

At least I have WAN connectivity now so I no longer have to give meter readings which is more than I had before !

[Deleted User]

Each supplier has its own security certificates. They are produced in very small batches;  rolled out to new and switched meters and then deleted from the supplier’s system. That is, you cannot find out the security certificate allocated to my meter by hacking my suppliers’s systems.

DC89216

How much are people paying at the moment for their Gas + Electric? Just got my bill and it's 100 pounds. Is this normal? 
3 bed 3 floored house. 

Gerry1

DC89216 said:

How much are people paying at the moment for their Gas + Electric? Just got my bill and it's 100 pounds. Is this normal? 
3 bed 3 floored house. 

It's a meaningless question because there are so many variables: number of people, in/out all day, efficiency rating of property, terraced/semi-detached/detached. temperate/tropical, boiler efficiency etc.

Far more important to make sure you're on the cheapest tariffs, remembering that separate suppliers can be cheaper than dual fuel.

Also better to delete and re-post as new thread because it's not related to smart meters: it soon gets confusing when there are several OPs in a single thread.

pjapk

Apologies if this question has already been asked/answered but this is a huge topic with many posts & I'm not sure of the best search terms to find what I'm after.
I've been offered a Smart Meter but last time I looked into them there were a lot of mumblings around how the power companies could effectively monitor your usage then "tune" your Peak/Off-peak period to suit YOUR usage rather than an arbitrary time etc. thus leading to extracting more cash out of you through bills.
Was this just a daft conspiracy theory or has any such thing happened in practice? It it *literally just* used as a method for more efficient collection of usage information or has any other nefarious use been uncovered in the last few years?
I don't tend to war tin hats and could absolutely see how this could happen in practice, I'm just not surer if they'd be allowed to get away with it and this is the only thing that's making me hold off on getting one just yet.
(feel free to point me to any posts that it's been discussed in, or let me know the best search terms to find it myself).

[Deleted User]

pjapk said:

Apologies if this question has already been asked/answered but this is a huge topic with many posts & I'm not sure of the best search terms to find what I'm after.
I've been offered a Smart Meter but last time I looked into them there were a lot of mumblings around how the power companies could effectively monitor your usage then "tune" your Peak/Off-peak period to suit YOUR usage rather than an arbitrary time etc. thus leading to extracting more cash out of you through bills.
Was this just a daft conspiracy theory or has any such thing happened in practice? It it *literally just* used as a method for more efficient collection of usage information or has any other nefarious use been uncovered in the last few years?
I don't tend to war tin hats and could absolutely see how this could happen in practice, I'm just not surer if they'd be allowed to get away with it and this is the only thing that's making me hold off on getting one just yet.
(feel free to point me to any posts that it's been discussed in, or let me know the best search terms to find it myself).

Oh where to start. Two words come to mind - complete b*****ks. Smart meters are just meters that record your usage with the ability to pass that information to your supplier for billing purposes. You are free to use energy when you choose to use it.Yes, we are seeing the rollout of what are known as time-of-use tariffs that reflect the higher cost of energy at peak times, and the lower cost of energy at off peak times. 

I am on an Octopus tariff that is based on 30 minute billing. My smart meter reports back with the actual usage for each 30 minute period. My peak cost is 14.6p/kWh but I get 4 hours each night at 5p/kWh. Clearly, the more of my electricity demand I can transfer to the off peak period, the cheaper my monthly bill. There is also another Octopus tariff called Agile which bases each 30 minute cost on the wholesale cost for that period. The tariff is updated at 4pm each day for all customers within a given electricity region. There is nothing sinister going on and Octopus allows switching at anytime with no exit fees.

Thirty minute profiling of domestic supplies is needed for two reasons: one, all wholesale settlements are in 30 minute segments and, two, profiling of my usage; your usage et al allows the National Grid to better match supply with demand. Future tariff price comparisons will not be based on kWhs/year, they will be based on your past usage data with options to show how a cheaper annual cost could be achieved with a little demand shifting. 

At this point, some posters will suggest that as all smart meters have a remote kill switch that suppliers will turn off supplies at will to manage demand with supply. Yes, this is possible but there are easier ways of disconnecting a large number of consumers. Some countries now offer cheaper tariffs for customers that agree to limit their demand  (in kWs). If, say, the contractually agreed demand limit is 5kWs between 4 to 7pm and this is exceeded, then the supplier sends out messages by text; on the IHD etc before the supply is disconnected. Reconnection requires a telephone call.

I have had SMETS2 meters now for nearly 2 years and I have achieved unit prices as low as 8p/kWh with very little inconvenience.