Smart Meters

brijanhub

But why do you want a Smart Meter just because you have an electric car!

billp42

When we with BG we were sent various letters asking us to take smart meters and we ignored all these offers. In the end BG rang and told me that they had arranged for smart meters to be installed the following week. I accepted on the basis of 'ok, if you must', despite me not asking for them.


The meters were fitted and some months later when I had a bill, I found myself over £250 in credit. BG had my payments and no readings. Another engineer came and informed me that the mobile signal was bad so fitted a signal booster. Several months later my credit was even bigger.


Third engineer attended and said that there was no mobile signal in the cupboard in the centre of our property where the electricity meter was. He said that the mobile signal was poor in our house - what a shame that they didn't check that in the first place, or asked me, as I could have told them that we were in a mobile signal blackspot. We now have a set of 'normal' meters re-fitted and haven't looked back.

zeupater

brijanhub wrote: »

But why do you want a Smart Meter just because you have an electric car!

Hi

I'm no advocate of the smart-meter project and have recently been posting simply to describe the reason for local comms being in the SMETS specification, but to attempt to answer the above ...

Consider an EV in a garage being plugged into the mains & being charged ... lets add a little more future complexity and add something like a CHP heating system capable of generating (say) 1kW when the heating system is on and a solar PV system which generates electricity when it's light, the energy from both either being used within the home, exported to the grid, or used to charge the car's battery, which itself could be used to supplement grid capacity at times of high demand if there's a low load within the household ....

In this scenario, wouldn't it be useful for an energy management system to not only understand the demand in the house, but also the energy source, available storage capacity and relative costs of energy ... for example, if the power tariff moves to a punitive rate due to supply issues or extremely high demand, stop charging the batteries, or if there's a supply glut causing prices to plummet (possible in a high windpower supply scenario), forget the normal timed overnight charging routine and soak-up power when available .... this is extremely likely when a very high proportion of energy is supplied by intermittent supply renewable sources ....

It's also possible that tariffs will be based on power demand thresholds ... draw more power than you've contracted for & the cost per unit of energy rises (punitive) ... in this case, you'll likely not to want to charge the car whilst using the kettle and simultaneously have the heat-pump running - again this is where an in-house energy management system would come in pretty handy, and of course, you'd need to know power import/export and tariff rates on a real-time basis, an important component of which could be the smart-meter, but the functionality required could just as easily be provided by a monitor & a link to an online real-time customer tariff database for a fraction of the cost ....

In each case it's the automation provided through utilising an energy management system which is key, not the smart-meter itself ... the problem is that much of the energy & cost saving attributed to the smart-metering project can only be achieved if consumer take-up of smart products and an associated energy management systems is successful, therefore the project cost/benefit analysis is flawed ... the cost only includes the smart-meter installation project, the benefit is based on an assumption that consumers will spend additional £billions on IoT devices and management systems ....

HTH
Z

RandomQ

brijanhub wrote: »

But why do you want a Smart Meter just because you have an electric car!

Why would anyone sensible want an smart meter, especially at this time when whole project is a debacle.

RandomQ

billp42 wrote: »

When we with BG we were sent various letters asking us to take smart meters and we ignored all these offers. In the end BG rang and told me that they had arranged for smart meters to be installed the following week. I accepted on the basis of 'ok, if you must', despite me not asking for them.

The meters were fitted and some months later when I had a bill, I found myself over £250 in credit. BG had my payments and no readings. Another engineer came and informed me that the mobile signal was bad so fitted a signal booster. Several months later my credit was even bigger.

Third engineer attended and said that there was no mobile signal in the cupboard in the centre of our property where the electricity meter was. He said that the mobile signal was poor in our house - what a shame that they didn't check that in the first place, or asked me, as I could have told them that we were in a mobile signal blackspot. We now have a set of 'normal' meters re-fitted and haven't looked back.

Blooody typical, the first engineer should have done some sort of survey in the fist place.

I lived in a mobile blackspot for 2 years, PINA.

I am surprised they put old ones back, I would have throught they would have left them in and dumber.

RandomQ

I went to visit a friend the other day, I noticed they had new meters in their garage, they told me that it was ILLEGAL not to allow them.

I did point out that they are entitled to refuse them but they were adamant, in the end I decided not to argue with them.

It is astonishing what people believe about this futile programme.

I know we will all eventually be dragged kicking and screaming into having a Smart meter or else be punished financially, but when the programme is a complete and utter balls up and there is serious detriment to getting one at this time, it is seriously wrong for energy companies to tell consumers like my friend that they MUST COMPLY.

Lemmings please stop listening to your energy company BS.

PennineAcute

For some, it is not a fruitless exercise. For disabled people, for people who cannot be bothered to read their meters, they are the perfect thing.

They are (depending on which prepay company fits them) the perfect thing for being able to come off prepay meters.

Yes, it has been a bodge job - but anything that is (any percentage) the idea of the Government always is. I got another set of SM put in, just to get rid of my liberty meter.

System

PennineAcute wrote: »

I got another set of SM put in, just to get rid of my liberty meter.

So the target is no longer 53M smart meters: it is now 53M plus 2. And the cost is now more than the predicted £12Bn. Suppliers should not be changing smart meters imho.

Nick_C

RandomQ wrote: »

Why would anyone sensible want an smart meter, especially at this time when whole project is a debacle.

Well I consider myself sensible.

I wanted a smart meter in order to save myself the trouble of taking meter readings every quarter and submitting them on line.

I travel a lot, and I wasnt always available to take meter readings at the time the supplier asked me to.

And even if you submit quarterly readings, you will still get an estimated bill if the tariff changes mid quarter.

I am very happy with my smart meters. I am very happy to be getting accurate monthly statements of actual consumption and true costs.

I'm on a fixed contract with Ovo until October 2019. I'm hoping that by then my SMETS1 meter will be compatible with other suppliers if I want to change.

A secondary reason in my case was BG would not replace my E7 meter with a standard meter, and insisted on recording the readings the wrong way round on their system.

I agree though that the roll out has been badly planned, badly implemented, and is increasing costs for consumers.

PennineAcute

Hengus wrote: »

So the target is no longer 53M smart meters: it is now 53M plus 2. And the cost is now more than the predicted £12Bn. Suppliers should not be changing smart meters imho.

I do quite agree. However, they offered me one, I asked which they were putting in, did my research and thought perfect.

When the installer was here, he said, no doubt I will see you again when you change supplier. Told him no chance, as most others were putting in the rubbish he was taking out.