Smart Meters

RandomQ

zeupater wrote: »

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

I do not have, want or need a smart meter, as far as I am concerned the whole project is a farce, the promised benefits are a load of ball hooks that would never stand up to proper business scrutiny, but give a bunch of corporates huge power to dip into our pockets and they will gladly steal the £10, £12, £30 billion this project will cost.

I wanted to cut my energy usage and saw a suggestion online to measure the devices I have around the home (a smart meter can't do this effectively). It turned out that there is not a huge amount I could do that I was not already doing.

For example I have a 3kw kettle, if I buy a kettle that has lower kw it will take longer to boil but end up using the same amount of energy.

I read the following article which was about as useful as sand paper to wipe your backside, it seems that the best thing an "eco" kettles has a a mark to say where a single cup is:

http://www.besthomekitchenstuff.co.uk/top-5-best-energy-efficient-eco-kettles-uk-quick-reviews/

I just fill a cup to 3 quarters and pour it into the kettle and I descale reasonably regularly.

I worked out that for making my morning coffee it costs half of 1p

So what shall I do, deprive myself and drink less coffee?

I also measured my microwave and my expresso coffee maker, there I got a few surprises

I thought the microwave was 700w to 800w, my chinese plug meter that accurately reports the kettle at 3000w and shows the Microwave at around 1400w. While my expresso machine used the least despite all that steam used to heat the milk.

I use the microwave to reheat coffee if I do not drink it promptly and sometimes to reheat once I add the milk. It uses even less energy so being the sad git I am I worked out that if I make a cafetiere of coffee with kettle and reheat a cup at a tune during over two days, I "might" save 1p a day or £3.65 in a YEAR!

With my fridge I found pretty much what I knew, that my fridge is an eco fridge, but the manufacturer figures are not accurate. I did keep turning down the settings till I could maintain the lowest cost but cold enough setting for winter and for summer, then use a high tech marker pen to mark those positions.

I already had a power block in the living room that cuts off all my devices when I turn off low energy PC, including the TV, router and other kit.

With my cheap Chinese energy monitor I found out my bedroom TV uses quite a lot on standby so I isolated it to a switch I turn on when I rarely watch TV in the bedroom. I have a similar power block in bedroom that turns off all devices. My laptop is set to hibernate with non-use anyway.

Overall I became aware of why I use WITHOUT a stupid smart meter, it would have been cheaper to send one of these devices to every household in the country than install the so called smart meters.

So what ARE these dumb meters good for, well when they finally get the Smet2 ones out (again we will pay for the debacle of correcting Smet1) there MIGHT be some benefit but not to us, except if you count getting back the billions that consumers have let the energy companies steal from them in Direct Debits and store in interest bearing accounts.

You see the real goal of the energy companies is to move us all to monthly billing; now they could have done this by just using estimates which we could have been free to dispute or correct via their portal, but NO, they charge us £10bn (indirectly) to install a bunch of kit that is unnecessary, a network that is unnecessary and a computing project that is unnecessary. It is so easy when you are spending other people's money and that is the disease in this country.

I am not against cutting back, I have the Thames Water free 4 minute sand timer and the low water devices, but my water bill went up by 20% !! Hell I even flush the loo less often (meet the fockers style).


With my Gas boiler I found I could turn the temperature down by 1 degree but at a certain point it becomes not fit for purpose, I need hot water in kitchen to be hot enough to actually clean and get rid of grease.

My conclusion was that you can't really get beyond a certain point in your usage, so what has to change is the stinking rip off money grabbing gamblers of our money, aka the energy companies.

So FORGET your app and your Smarthome, just get yourself a sub £10 energy monitor and use IT to work out your usage device by device, then get rid of any old fridge, get rid of those tropical fish and that 3 bar electric fire.

If OFCOM actually put the consumer first it would have said to the energy industry, "you are free to do this project but here is a cap on energy and we are abolishing standing charges. If you can still make the project financially viable to do, then go ahead, otherwise we will fight the EU on your behalf and delay this (as some countries have done).

This being RIP OFF UK, we get screwed, not only do we not complain but we say thank you!

Parsnip1

I want a Smart Meter (I'm disabled and my meters are outside), but I've been holding off getting one, until my supplier, Ovo, are able to fit SMET2, due to compatability issues if I should want to change provider in future. However, they are now saying that it will be fine if I have a SMET1 fitted, as a software update in the future will make it compatible and equivalent to a SMET2. Does anyone know if this is correct, or am I being subject to a sales pitch? They are very keen to get me metered up.

Apologies if my question has been answered elsewhere in this thread, I did try and check but it's pretty long! Thanks for any replies.

PennineAcute

From what I can see, there is no date set for the software upgrades to be done. If you want a smart meter, I would wait until OVO can fit a SMET 2, as the wait for the upgrade could be a long while.

RandomQ

Parsnip1 wrote: »

I want a Smart Meter (I'm disabled and my meters are outside), but I've been holding off getting one, until my supplier, Ovo, are able to fit SMET2, due to compatability issues if I should want to change provider in future. However, they are now saying that it will be fine if I have a SMET1 fitted, as a software update in the future will make it compatible and equivalent to a SMET2. Does anyone know if this is correct, or am I being subject to a sales pitch? They are very keen to get me metered up.

Apologies if my question has been answered elsewhere in this thread, I did try and check but it's pretty long! Thanks for any replies.

As I understand it they will ONLY be able to provide SMET2 from October, it was going to be July but they got an extension.

RandomQ

PennineAcute wrote: »

From what I can see, there is no date set for the software upgrades to be done. If you want a smart meter, I would wait until OVO can fit a SMET 2, as the wait for the upgrade could be a long while.

My understanding is that they have to have the whole network SMET2 by 2020, i.e. hence they quote by the end of 2019.

I still think they could just convert the bloody things before they install.

brewerdave

RandomQ wrote: »

My understanding is that they have to have the whole network SMET2 by 2020, i.e. hence they quote by the end of 2019.

There is not a snowball's chance in Hell of that date being achieved:rotfl:

System

RandomQ wrote: »

My understanding is that they have to have the whole network SMET2 by 2020, i.e. hence they quote by the end of 2019.

I still think they could just convert the bloody things before they install.

The 10M or so existing SMETS 1 meters are not being upgraded to SMETS 2 . The requirement placed on the DCC and suppliers is to find a way of adopting these meters on to the DCC infrastructure so that they are no longer supplier dependent. Note the use of the term adoption rather than upgrading or full integration.

BillTee

Thanks for the info. I've received multiple emails from National Grid on behalf of Ebico (Robin Hood) and presume that they would fit the same. I'm a low user and find the present online meter recording convenient so will continue to ignore offers until meters are all SMETS 2 and truly smart.

BillTee

RandomQ, thanks for the info. Could I ask where you bought your plug monitor?

RandomQ

brewerdave wrote: »

There is not a snowball's chance in Hell of that date being achieved:rotfl:

Well a 4 year old could work out that there is no way they will get the 40m odd smart meters installed by 2020, why should the currently redundant (if you change supplier) Smet1 meters be any different!

The whole project is ill conceived, will not meet the so called promised benefits.

At the moment their argument seems to be to fob off the regulator with the suggestion that they will remotely update them to Smet2 when their network is complete or something.

It seems to me that if nothing else these devices are anti competitive, a consumer informed that their Smet1 will become a dumb brick if they change may not change supplier.

I have seen some useless, not fit for purpose projects in my time but this one does rank in the top ten

What I find amazing is that programmes and projects have regular business reviews, I can't see how this get through them.