Smart Meters

Robin9

Just think how much info the traditional meter reader could gather if he/she was so minded - no cars on drive ie property unoccupied, Rolls Royce ie wealthy, old banger ie poor; security alarm; dog barking......................

carl.waring

brijanhub said:

Amazing that when people start being caught out in their answers they revert to personal remarks!

Not sure who you're referring to but I haven't been "caught out". I said exactly what I meant and knew what I was saying. Smart meters do not and cannot collect "data which can be derived such as type and brand of devices in the household, social data, etc."

murphydavid

 After switching to Shell Energy I receive what seems like an enormous number of emails from them; which I can only describe as badgering; to get me to allow them to install a smart meter. Which I stoically ignore.
I am on an Economy 7 tariff.
The latest contains:

"We’re writing to let you know that your Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meter will lose functionality from March 2022. This is due to an industry wide change that will affect the radio signal your meter uses to communicate.

This change means your meter won’t be able to support your multi-rate tariff, as it’ll be unable to switch to your tariff’s cheaper off peak rates. In some cases, this change may also cause a permanent interruption of your home’s central heating, as well as your meter’s ability to record your energy usage accurately.

It’s important that you take steps to arrange a replacement for your RTS meter, and we have just the thing." Yes its a smart meter advertisement again with a twist. They must be getting a big handout from somebody. Is the above statement true? Can a smart meter cope with Economy 7 or will the next thing be to change my tariff anyway? If it is what are my other options? There must be millions of people in this situation. I certainly don't want to be involved with this and wish it would just not be true. Since switching to shell I have been involved with amazing incompetency. To cut it short it all started with them ignoring my stated meter readings and setting a starting meter read that does not match with my closing read with the previous supplier and would result in me paying for 9 months of gas twice over and starting a dispute with them (and me). Taking 7 months so far. So if I do get another meter I certainly don't want them involved since I can see how they can change a simple admin exercise into a marathon of emails for no reason at all.

carl.waring

I think some companies now have smart economy 7 meters but I am not sure if they’re industry-wide yet or still in testing. My point being, that there is no reason not to believe what they tell you in the email.

as to your other read issue that is something called ‘supplier agreed reads’ and if you’re opening read with your new supplier is incorrect you need to get your previous supplier to discuss it with your new supplier.

brijanhub

Interesting, I’m with Shell Energy also and they constantly try and get me to get a smart meter which I also don’t want. They made a muck up when I switched to them, human error, they made a mistake in my email address so never notified me when the switch took place. I complained and got £20 out of them so not all bad but  hopefully, as it’s only 4 months to end of contract, no more errors. I find I generally have to switch every year to maximise my savings but it’s good brain exercise.

matelodave

TBH you dont really need an Economy 7 smart meter unless you are relyig on it to switch the E7 circuits on and off. Even the Teleswitch isn't switched by the meter, it just tells the meter when to start and stop recording on the off-peak register. There are multir-egister smart meters around which can switch between the peak and off periods and control a contactor to do what the teleswitch or even a timeswitch does - its not rocket science

The smart meter records consumption in 30minute intervals so it's quite feasible for the cost of energy to be billed at what ever price they want at varying times of the day (in fact it's how Octopus provide their ToU tariffs like Agile, Go and Go faster)

Gerry1

murphydavid said:

The latest contains:

"We’re writing to let you know that your Radio Teleswitch Service (RTS) meter will lose functionality from March 2022. This is due to an industry wide change that will affect the radio signal your meter uses to communicate.

This change means your meter won’t be able to support your multi-rate tariff, as it’ll be unable to switch to your tariff’s cheaper off peak rates. In some cases, this change may also cause a permanent interruption of your home’s central heating, as well as your meter’s ability to record your energy usage accurately.

It’s important that you take steps to arrange a replacement for your RTS meter, and we have just the thing."

This is just blatant lies and scaremongering, something of which the smart meter project fiasco has long been guilty.

It's a lie to state that Teleswitches will lose functionality from March 2022: the contract has already been extended to March 2023, and it's quite likely it will be extended at least once again.

My understanding is that Teleswitches run autonomously and don't actually need the radio link to work.  If the Radio 4 Long Wave control signal is switched off, Teleswitches will still continue to operate and switch between Normal and Low rates: they will just continue using their internal crystal clock, albeit unsynchronised, and behave exactly the same as the motorised rotating disc type that are still in service.

Teleswitches have to work like this otherwise any outage at any of the three Long Wave sites (e.g. storm damage to the aerials or transmitter failures during a long freezing winter) could result in serious disruption for all-electric vulnerable consumers.  Similarly, weakening or loss of signal locally (e.g. new buildings screening the signal, new interference sources) could also cause similar failures if the Teleswitches did not have a fallback mode.

All that will be lost is the ability to vary the start and finish times by +/- 15 minutes, something which is very rarely used in practice.  So nobody would find that their off peak storage and immersion heaters would remain switched off the whole time

If anyone has any verifiable information to the contrary I'd be very interested to hear it.

This scaremongering by Shell to strong arm unwilling customers to accept smart meters should be called out by the Ombudsman, Ofgem or the ASA, but I shan't be holding my breath.

carl.waring

If anyone has any verifiable information to the contrary I'd be very interested to hear it.

Actually, it’s not up to anyone to prove you wrong. It is up to you to back up your statement of facts with appropriate links.

To be fair, this article does back up your comments but, given the reference to “early 2021”, it may be that Shell has simply not updated the template yet.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_teleswitch

Gerry1

carl.waring said:

If anyone has any verifiable information to the contrary I'd be very interested to hear it.

Actually, it’s not up to anyone to prove you wrong. It is up to you to back up your statement of facts with appropriate links.

To be fair, this article does back up your comments but, given the reference to “early 2021” ,I suspect it is just that Shell has simply not updated the template.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_teleswitch

"We also secured a further extension to the existing Radio Teleswitching arrangements out to March 2023".

carl.waring

As I said, the article backs you up. 

And this backs me up.

“The availability of radio teleswitching has been progressively extended and as of early 2021 the service was due to remain in operation until at least March 2023”.