Smart Meters

harrym1byt

mac.d wrote: »

Fair enough if that's right, you've not convinced me though! Time of use tariffs and half-hourly reads go hand in hand, so why would they log them but not get the data until the end of the day?

Also, the only IHD I've seen working for any length of time (British Gas) only updates the gas every 30 minutes, but you are no doubt spot on with your reason for the electric usage being instant while the gas is just periodically updated.

Why would they need to accept the data more than once per day? They only suggest they log the data every 30 minutes. It is easy enough to check, if your supplier display the 30 minute data on the users web page - Check it late in the evening, then early next morning. In the evening the current day's consumption data will be absent, next morning it will be there, showing the previous days data.

The meters receive the time sync from the mobile network, just as does your phone. The meters store the usage and the time, then around midnight the data is all sent as a batch back to the supplier, where the supplier automatically uploads in onto the users secure web pages. Besides which, you have the IHD providing you with the near instantaneous consumption data.

BG use different meters and IHD's to mine, so no reason why the gas usage data would update every couple of minutes as the Secure units do.

brijanhub

I will not have a Smart Meter installed as the only people they benefit are the Utility Company. If you look at your contract it states a 'Fixed Direct Debit' but in reality it doesn't mean a fixed amount. I had this argument with Eon several years ago who tried to put up my DD because it was winter and I suddenly was owing them money but in reality over the year it would balance out. As an Electrical Engineer and now a pensioner I sympathise with your Dad. All he needs do is ensure he sends meter readings every month so no estimated readings are used and also that he has calculated his correct usage. Also keep away from the Big Boys, use a smaller company. I use Flow Energy who seem more honest than most and in fact reward loyalty by offering a tariff at end of contract which is only a small increase and very competitive.

larrywalker

Many thanks for your comments.
Does anyone one else share these views?

brewerdave

larrywalker wrote: »

Many thanks for your comments.
Does anyone one else share these views?

In many of the houses built in the last 30 years or so, the meters are on outside walls in meter boxes. My meters are certainly not 2 metres apart. I guess maybe 1 metre but they are in separate enclosures. The cost of moving them to be 2 metres apart would be significant and can't see anyone standing for an extra bill, neither homeowner nor distributor!

matelodave

larrywalker wrote: »

Many thanks for your comments.
Does anyone one else share these views?

Which views????. The anti-smart ones or the pro smart ones.

RandomQ

larrywalker wrote: »

I am currently with Ecotricity as I run a Nissan LEAF all electric car.
I like to be a loyal customer but times are changing.
I have asked them to install a smart meter but they can't because my gas and electric meters are 60 cm apart and new rules dictate that meters should be 2m apart.
That being the case I cannot see how the smart meter roll out can be achieved. I would think that most meters in homes are close together under the stairs.
Consequently the smart meter roll out is not achievable and I have not seen any reference to this. However I do know that someone who is a Scottish Power customer had a smart meter installed where the existing meters were close together - so why the discrepancies?
Smart Energy GB are responsible for the roll out and state that by the end of 2020, around 53 million smart meters will be fitted in over 30 million premises (households and businesses) across Wales, Scotland and England. ( smart energy gborg)
How can this be? Who is policing this?
Has anyone else had this problem/come across this??

I think he means with regard to replies to his post

zeupater

harrym1byt wrote: »

There is no need to be able to connect an app directly to the meter, the meters upload to the suppliers website and you can log into the website and see a representation of the data in some form or another. The problem is that none of it is standardised between suppliers and none of them offer an opportunity to recover the data back to the customers PC.

OVO's and First Utility's presentation of the data was not bad on their website. Bristol Utility's representation is appallingly bad, just a month by month comparison between each month, this year and last year. It doesn't even give the meter readings back, which have been taken each week, so a very poor implementation of 'smart'.

Throughout my four different suppliers, in the past 3 years, I have taken weekly readings of gas, electric and water, which I feed once per week into my own spreadsheet.

I would certainly prefer it if I didn't need to feed in the data manually and if the data were 30 minute data and able to be zoomed into. Technically it is do-able, but only if the suppliers co-operate in making the data downloadable and in a standardised format.

To answer the other question about meters and IHD's - I have had the Secure meters and IHD installed each time I have swapped suppliers (3x), third new set of identical meters now. The IHD is pretty pathetic in my opinion, a crude LCD backlit touch display, something you would have expected back in the 1980's, but I have not compared it against any others. For both G and E - It shows current consumption, a bar graph of earlier consumption and what it has cost us since the last (monthly) bill was paid.

It fails to provide the actual reading of the meter, units used since it was installed. So for my spreadsheet, I have to go and actually read the numbers on the meters. Instantaneously consume more than a pre-decided amount, and a green LED changes to orange then red. The user cannot change the set points, so every time the gas boiler fires up, the green changes to red, which really tells me nothing useful at all.

The actual meters themselves offer much more detailed information, by pressing buttons - for the day, the week, the month etc., plus of course the actual meter reading.

Hi

I've been following the thought process over the past few posts, but reference the one above because it's eminently relevant ....

The entire smart-meter project is based on the premise that there will be significant energy usage reductions for households due to the provision of additional visibility of information to consumers through the use of smart technology and the automation of data collection provided by the comms replacing manual reading, thus resulting in the lowering of energy bills and carbon emissions ... for now we'll leave the additional functionality aside and just concentrate on how this becomes relevant in addressing the statement posed above .... "There is no need to be able to connect an app directly to the meter" ...

So, is there a potential need to have direct access to smart-meter data on a frequency higher than the HHM spec? ... of course there is, over that, in order for the functionality of the equipment to be of any real use it's essential that access is possible .... so why? ...

Forget looking at smart-meters in isolation, they're just a really overpriced piece of kit which is just one component element in what will eventually become smart-homes .... think of a home with battery storage, microgeneration (eg solar), an electric vehicle, heat-pump etc .... in order to be able to optimise the use of resource, there will need to be some form of automated energy management system, possibly part of a complete building management system controlling access/security etc, but whichever the flow of information must be at a frequency far above that needed for HHM - this frequency is measured in seconds (or fractions of seconds), not hours, therefore unless both access to and processing of smart-meter data is local the transmission to the DCC, their pre-processing and site data remote-access produces a comms burden that the network has not been built for, tens-of-millions of additional comms events per second! ....

So is there a need to access the data on the smart-meter on a local basis .... of course there is, and the existing SMETS specifications allow this to happen .... if there's a security concern within the industry that dissuades suppliers from opening up access to the smart-meter real-time data then that's effectively where the plug should be pulled on the project because it's the only functionality which would be of use to consumers for long-term ongoing energy savings ....

HTH
Z

matelodave

Has anyone seen this - https://shop.glowmarkt.com/products/glow-cad-for-smart-meters

Dunno how easy it would be to monitor your smart meter but it may do what some on here want - gather their own data via an app presumably using the Zigbee data that's squirted out to the IHD.

I've been using a clip on networked energy monitor from EnergyHive which seems to have morphed into Glow (both owned by Hildebrand), so they have plenty of experience in data capture, logging and presentation and I guess they'll use a similar format

PennineAcute

Just wondering how it captures it? As the data is supposedly secure, it must connect to the smart meters somehow.

matelodave

I suppose which data is secured - that which is sent to the energy supplier or the meter readings that are squirted to the IHD.

I know my IHD is paired to the meter so I guess that there'll have a to be a pairing operation to ensure that it only responds to the requisite meter. Dunno how it's done but I guess you cant actually affect the meter, jut gather whatever data might be avaiable or allowed.

My ELSTER smart meter (supplied by SSE) doesn't communicate with my present supplier (IRESA) but I can still remotely read the meter and there's some history data presented on the IHD, but no pricing or billing info. So I assume that I could pair this with the Glow device to send data to their servers to be accessed via their App.