Smart Meters

zeupater

Ken68 wrote: »

It would have been cheaper to legislate different working hours, so that traffic management would also gain.
As it is, I can see higher prices for peak time and lower prices for when consumers don't need the electricity. Any gains the generators and distributors make will take forever to filter down to the end user.
Thankfully we have more competition in the industry, so that is a start I suppose.

Hi

In theory that's what smart-meters are supposed to bring about - behavioural change through TOU (time of use) tariffs on a carrot & stick basis ... beat the consumer with hefty unit prices when demand is high & offer the incentive of low cost energy when demand is low ... however, the concept of low demand and low prices has been challenged and overtaken by events ...

The foundation of the smart-metering project lies in tackling climate change through managing generating resources by encouraging consumers to change their electricity usage patterns, that is resources as envisaged a couple of decades ago .... yet, as is normal in such governmental intervention, a wholistic approach which looked sufficiently into the future and parallel developments wasn't applied ....

So along comes wind & solar PV generation, particularly the disruptive microgeneration offerings ... add in the drive to electrify transport (charged overnight) & more recently the move towards changing domestic heating from gas to electric (ASHP/GSHP), much of which would also accumulate heat overnight & the dip in overnight demand starts to fill fast, so don't expect low cost overnight tariffs to remain anywhere near as competitive as they have historically been, with the potential for overnight pricing matching that during non-peak daytime rates.

But then comes the smart-meter killer in the form of home battery storage, especially when it's combined with microgeneration .... then what use are the current generation of smart-meters??

HTH
Z

Ken68

Agree Z...more can be achieved by changing our building codes. Every new home could be built to cash in on free resources, but no, we chuck money at changing the way we record the data.Amazing.Bonkers.

zeupater

Ken68 wrote: »

Agree Z...more can be achieved by changing our building codes. Every new home could be built to cash in on free resources, but no, we chuck money at changing the way we record the data.Amazing.Bonkers.

Hi

£20billion on smart-meters and £100billion on HS2 just describes the waste that governments of any colour are willing to accept on little more than the say-so of groups with vested interests ... yet projects such as the Severn barrage, tidal flow & properly managed free insulation schemes are considered 'too expensive', particularly so when the same vested interest groups get involved!

That kind of money (£120Bn) is huge, for example:- it's enough to provide domestic battery storage for every household in the UK whilst providing multiple times the number of full-time jobs over many more years than HS2 ever would (economics), plus delivering far superior demand smoothing than smart-meters ever could (economics+strategic) as well as delivering a significant positive step towards delivering a comprehensive climate-change solution (ecological+economics+strategic) ...


It's a no-brainer really, so no wonder the politicians haven't caught up with the rest of us yet! ...


HTH
Z

Ken68

Also the £500 million lost in administering the Renewable Heat Incentive by the DUP. Whatever happened to the police investigation ?

brewerdave

Just seen a smart meter ad during the IPL cricket - they have leapt on the climate change bandwagon now - trying to persuade people that it'll help with global warming -have they no shame!!!!

SnowTiger

brewerdave wrote: »

Just seen a smart meter ad during the IPL cricket - they have leapt on the climate change bandwagon now - trying to persuade people that it'll help with global warming -have they no shame!!!!

I have a smart meter for gas and electric.

After a few weeks the novelty wears off and it's now only used to check meter readings, which I would have previously had to go outside to read.

I don't think using smart meters will save very much. BBC: 'People who have smart meters installed are expected to save an average of £11 annually on their energy bills, much less than originally hoped.'

Real savings might come when energy suppliers charge dynamically. For example: it's a windy day, there's an excess of wind energy being produced, meter beeps to warn kWh price has reduced and now would be a good time to charge your car or do some washing.

Uxb1

Ken68 wrote: »

Agree Z...more can be achieved by changing our building codes. Every new home could be built to cash in on free resources, but no, we chuck money at changing the way we record the data.Amazing.Bonkers.

Its all to do with future power generation
Our power grid is sized for the couple of hours of peak demand in the UK
If we could smooth out this peak across the day there would not be the need for more power stations to be built at huge cost and those that are running can be run more efficiently at a more constant load.

Smart meters introduce the capability for variable pricing tariffs throughout the day as a way of incentivizing people not to use lots of energy during the peak demand periods. So in the future if you want to put on your energy expensive tumble drier at these peak time - expect to pay a lot for it.
Already industrial users have such tariffs and other countries have introduced them. Some others have peak demand tariffs where you are only allowed to use a certain amount of energy at any one time and the meter blocks you from using anymore.

Then there is the effect on the grid of electric vehicle charging - I can foresee with smart meters in place some form of EV charging tariff for those with chargers.

zeupater

Uxb1 wrote: »

Its all to do with future power generation
Our power grid is sized for the couple of hours of peak demand in the UK
If we could smooth out this peak across the day there would not be the need for more power stations to be built at huge cost and those that are running can be run more efficiently at a more constant load.

Smart meters introduce the capability for variable pricing tariffs throughout the day as a way of incentivizing people not to use lots of energy during the peak demand periods. So in the future if you want to put on your energy expensive tumble drier at these peak time - expect to pay a lot for it.
Already industrial users have such tariffs and other countries have introduced them. Some others have peak demand tariffs where you are only allowed to use a certain amount of energy at any one time and the meter blocks you from using anymore.

Then there is the effect on the grid of electric vehicle charging - I can foresee with smart meters in place some form of EV charging tariff for those with chargers.

Hi

Yes, that's the theory, or it was almost a couple of decades ago, but things have changed so much that both the project cost justification & deliverables pathway have completely changed.

Savings forecasts were based on predicted costs & energy usage with consumer 'education' provided through smart meter technology providing a significant contribution to energy saving - however, in reality many of the savings which could be delivered have already occurred, without any input from smart-meters ... for example, with smart-metering project theory being well over a decade behind developments, how can watching IHDs convince consumers to go out and replace their highly inefficient CRT & Plasma TVs with something less power hungry when they've probably already done so ? ... the same for CFL & LED lighting over incandescent, A(+++....) rated appliances etc, etc ... the smart-metering project timescale has simply been too long & has never recognised the existence of parallel technology efficiency improvements for goods with life-cycles well within timescales defined in the scope of the project ... you can't account for the savings twice & from a smart-metering viewpoint, the boat has already sailed, years ago!

So we're left with demand shifting away from peak ... odd really, as mentioned, it's always been one of the project goals to ensure that the evening peak is addressed, yet we're hearing more & more about this particular point, as if vested interests are desperately clinging to a lifebuoy ... but how is it achieved? ... is everyone expected to stagger their evening meals & cups of coffee more than they do now, because that's the main power demand contributor at peak peak time!? - anyway, the evening peak box has already been ticked, LED TVs (replacing CRTs & Plasma units) alone saw to that by reducing UK demand by between 1 & 2 of the hugely expensive new generation nuclear power stations ... and when is peak-time viewing? - yes that's right, during the evening peak time demand!

So far there's been no mention of the disruptive technologies referred to as microgeneration (solar PV etc), which for a good proportion of the year actually do reduce peak demand ... but again, the biggest peak demand disruptive technology is set to arrive over the next few years - big batteries ... that's batteries in homes to store daytime solar generation to be used at peak times, batteries in homes to shift demand away from daytime & peak rate pricing, and utility-scale batteries to smooth demand variability ... the very demand that smart-meters & smart-meter controlled load shedding was supposed to address !!

Yes, that boat has certainly sailed, the problem is that it's still surrounded by too much dead-wood for anyone to notice the real distance between it & the port of departure ... :wall:


HTH
Z

Former_E.ON_Company_Representative:_Malc

HoneysuckleHouse wrote: »

I've refused a smart meter from Eon for a while now. They've booked appointments to change it without me saying yes to it and I've had to refuse it by calling them. I've been badgered with phone calls and letters and this morning I've had yet another letter. It simply states that my meter needs to be changed and the word "smart" doesn't appear at all in the letter. They claim, as they have for many other people, that my meter has reached the end of its life. It was replaced about 14 years ago and has a digital display so I don't know how legit that claim is. I'm also having issues updating my meter readings and suspect they are making that difficult to stop me moving providers and/or forcing my arm to have a smart meter fitted. How can I say once and for all to Eon to chuff off and stop insisting I need a new meter.

Thanks

Hello HoneysuckleHouse and welcome to the Forums.

As your meter is 14 years old and our letter says it's 'reached the end of its life' it looks like we need to replace it as part of our statutory commitment. Now it's coming to the end of its guaranteed shelf life, as MeterMan says, we may no longer be sure it's recording usage accurately.

There'll be a phone number on the letter to arrange this exchange. If eligible, I suspect we'll offer to fit a smart meter. You can refuse this and ask for a classic meter instead.

What issues are you having with meter readings? We're happy to accept a customer's readings and provide various ways to send them. This includes online through our website, phone app or Live Chat service; by phone or text, email or letter. The more readings we have, the more accurate accounts are.

Please let me know if there's something else causing an issue with your readings as happy to help.

Malc

Shiralco

Sorry to hijack this thread but am new to this forum and not exactly sure where to post. I switched to EDF through the Energy club a year or so ago and EDF fitted smart meters as part of the deal. No problems, and the meters have been quite useful in showing the cost of the energy I use. Then in early March I signed a new contract with EDF, with new (higher) charges for both the KWh and daily charge. After about a week I noticed that the tariff data on the smart meter display had not been updated. I contacted EDF customer services who agreed to look into it. After a further three weeks nothing had happened so I contacted them again. This time I was put through to an engineer who told me that it takes about eight weeks for the display to be updated. In other words, for eight weeks the information the display gives regarding the cost of energy I am using is completely wrong, and therefore useless. It appears that the smart meter is not so smart after all! Is this normal? Are all smart meters completely useless for a couple of months (or maybe more) each time you change tariff?