Smart Meters

House_Martin

carolbristol wrote: »

Had a smart meter fitted earlier this year and stupidly did not look into the consequences fully enough. Am now looking to switch and have already discovered that the SM I have will lose its functionality if I switch to the companies I am considering. This doesn't really concern me, as I am used to reading my meter manually and the in home display unit I have doesn't work anyway and sits at the back of a cupboard. Of more concern is the notice attached to the smart meter, 'property of (my current supplier)'. Are they going to charge me for removing the meter if I switch away from them, lmeaning another charge from map new company? I suppose I could ask them but every time I have a query I enter into long and inclonclusive correspondence with customer service assistants who can't or won't, understand my query.

They could well charge you. I have seen some advice where Ovo, who was one of the first to fit smart prepayment meters, put up barriers to customers who want to change suppliers, say, back to British Gas. BG cannot use the Liberty Secure meters in prepay mode which Ovo and now others also use. Ovo try to bill customers for the meter exchange which is required or put barriers up to block the switch.
I personally will be refusing Eon to fit Secure Liberty meters at my property if they want to book me a time to fit them.
They are welcome to fit the Landis Gyr smart meters they used to install.
Just because they have changed to the cheapjack awful Liberty Secure meters, because they are cheaper to buy, I don`t have to go along with it.
I will be switching from Eon in 11 months time anyway so I most probably won`t have that problem. All meter fitters for Eon work at a snails pace , it will be decades before they get the job done.

Robisere

matelodave wrote: »

another load of rubbish from another conspiricy theorist

And a response from someone who cannot spell 'conspiracy'.

-Although, admittedly, the organisation does appear to be full of 'facts' that are mostly donkey doo-doo. The only reference I can find in the hysterical 'warnings' that has some truth, is that there have been fires, caused by improper fitting, by untrained fitters.

AndyCF

Robisere wrote: »

The only reference I can find in the hysterical 'warnings' that has some truth, is that there have been fires, caused by improper fitting, by untrained fitters.

Assuming its not something like overheating relay contacts inside which seems unlikely somehow, I can only guess the cause of this is either the 'tails' not being secured enough and heating up due to resistance or the terminal block (or whatever it would be called in these) not being up to scratch, but that seems unlikely somehow.

If there's another 'likely cause' them I'm all ears.

Going to say I am actually reasonably happy with my (electric supply) Smart despite my very long 'saga' with it all.

sparrowhawk123

Hi
Could you give an example of a "fact" that you consider to be donkey doo-doo.
And do you have any thoughts on the EMF Radiation that will be emitted from a smart meter.
Thanks

System

sparrowhawk123 wrote: »

Hi
Could you give an example of a "fact" that you consider to be donkey doo-doo.
And do you have any thoughts on the EMF Radiation that will be emitted from a smart meter.
Thanks

We live in a connected World and unless you walk around in a Faraday Cage, I doubt that there is any way that people worried about RF radiation from smart meters can protect themselves. Should we be concerned, various cancer support sites think not?

Quote: Smart meters are typically installed outside the home, either in place of or as part of existing meters. How much RF energy that people are exposed to from the smart meter depends on how far they are from the smart meter antenna and how the smart meter sends its signal. The frequency and power of the RF waves given off by a smart meter are similar to that of a typical cell phone, cordless phone, or residential Wi-Fi router. Smart meters typically send and receive short messages about 1% of the time.

Because the smart meter antenna usually is located outside the home, people are much farther away from the source of RF waves than some other possible sources of exposure to RF radiation, such as personal cell phones and cordless phones. In addition, walls between the person and the smart meter’s antenna further reduce the amount of RF energy exposure. This means that the amount of RF radiation that someone would be exposed to from a smart meter is probably much lower than the amount that they would be exposed to from other sources.

Can smart meters cause cancer?

Smart meters give off RF radiation. RF radiation is low-energy radiation. RF radiation doesn’t have enough energy to remove charged particles such as electrons (ionize), and so is called non-ionizing radiation. Non-ionizing radiation has enough energy to move atoms in a molecule around or cause them to vibrate, which can lead to heat but it can’t damage DNA directly.

RF radiation is classified by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), as “possibly carcinogenic to humans.” This is based on the finding of a possible link in at least one study between cell phone use and a specific type of brain tumor. Because RF radiation is a possible carcinogen, and smart meters give off RF radiation, it is possible that smart meters could increase cancer risk. Still, it isn’t clear what risk, if any there might be from living in a home with a smart meter.

It would be nearly impossible to conduct a study to prove or disprove a link between living in a house with smart meters and cancer because people have so many sources of exposure to RF and the level of exposure from this source is so small. Because, the amount of RF radiation you could be exposed to from a smart meter is much less than what you could be exposed to from a cell phone, it is very unlikely that living in a house with a smart meter increases risk of cancer. The World Health Organization has promised to conduct a formal assessment of the risks from RF exposure but this report is not yet available. Unquote

Source: American Cancer Society

Michaelw

sparrowhawk123 wrote: »

Everyone has their own opinion, if the public get the chance to look into the evidence for and against the use of smart meters, they could then make their own informed decision on whether its right for them and the environment . At the moment I don't think people are getting the option.

We just don't know what if any long term effects are regarding signals/radiation from smart meters these can travel well over 50 meters plus in the right conditions to a inhome display and the wall out the front may well be the best place for them from a standard point of view.

The gas meter readings on British Gases smart meter is approximately half an hour behind real time.This means a reading of say 6p or zero an hour is not at current usage similarly when the heating is switched on this can jump to 26p an hour around half an later the booklet does explain this when read closely also I have noted the electicity price sometimes jumps 10p turning to the next day on occasion.

They do offer some benefits in prepay without having to know what is the credit on meters outside and offer more ways to pay but they do offer the supplier much more convience in the long run and immediate and total control of supply and usage.Also the display on their (British Gas) E470 Electricity meter is of poor use there is no immediate backlight,no todays amount usage and is not at first glance friendly I found in prepayment mode.

System

This guy should be seriously worried about the effects of radiation on his brain:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-42271150

House_Martin

Michaelw wrote: »

We just don't know what if any long term effects are regarding signals/radiation from smart meters these can travel well over 50 meters plus in the right conditions to a inhome display and the wall out the front may well be the best place for them from a standard point of view.

The gas meter readings on British Gases smart meter is approximately half an hour behind real time.This means a reading of say 6p or zero an hour is not at current usage similarly when the heating is switched on this can jump to 26p an hour around half an later the booklet does explain this when read closely also I have noted the electicity price sometimes jumps 10p turning to the next day on occasion.

They do offer some benefits in prepay without having to know what is the credit on meters outside and offer more ways to pay but they do offer the supplier much more convience in the long run and immediate and total control of supply and usage.Also the display on their (British Gas) E470 Electricity meter is of poor use there is no immediate backlight,no todays amount usage and is not at first glance friendly I found in prepayment mode.

Smart prepayment meters are one of the answers to the wholesale meter fiddling going off in our streets in huge numbers .This link below surprised hard bitten BG RPU men who went into 20 houses nearby the gas explosion with the help of the Police and were shocked at the extent of the theft of energy in just one terraced street in Tinsley , Sheffield
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-25718447
In this example the 7 out 20 houses BG visited were fiddling the meters in Dundas Rd Sheffield were all prepayment meters. that is 7 OUT OF TWENTY ! bypassing meters in one terraced street in South Yorkshire. That tells a huge story to the extent of meter bypassing in the the UK. It is huge !
I would say that 9 out of 10 occupants thieving energy are using the easy to fiddle prepayment meters.
Smart prepayment meters will level up the playing field giving the suppliers knowledge of what exactly is happening inside properties.
We are all paying in the long run for stolen energy exactly the same as we pay for the smart meter roll out

jasee

The main problem to me (as I have just had a new smart meter fitted) is the smart meter is energy supplier specific, so if I change energy supplier, the meter will no longer send my meter reading in (of course). It sends only to the one supplier that fitted it. So one big benefit is lost.
Also the remote display (which doesn't anyway give you a meter reading directly , so you still have to look at the meter!) won't give you the correct rates (so the costs are wrong) after a supplier change!
And, fitting a smart meter is not just a question of fitting a meter to an existing system, the whole original meter has to be replaced with a new meter! So it must be expensive to do.
So, every time you change electricity suppliers, a new smart meter will have to be fitted if you want all the benefits of having a smart meter. What a ridiculous situation!

brewerdave

jasee wrote: »

The main problem to me (as I have just had a new smart meter fitted) is the smart meter is energy supplier specific, so if I change energy supplier, the meter will no longer send my meter reading in (of course). It sends only to the one supplier that fitted it. So one big benefit is lost.
Also the remote display (which doesn't anyway give you a meter reading directly , so you still have to look at the meter!) won't give you the correct rates (so the costs are wrong) after a supplier change!
And, fitting a smart meter is not just a question of fitting a meter to an existing system, the whole original meter has to be replaced with a new meter! So it must be expensive to do.
So, every time you change electricity suppliers, a new smart meter will have to be fitted if you want all the benefits of having a smart meter. What a ridiculous situation!

SHOULD be resolved by SMETS2 compliant meters which will feed data back to a Data collector for onward distribution to your supplier - HOWEVER, this system is only in its infancy and is unproven on any sort of larger scale.
At the same time, the Govt. have decreed that the older SMETS1 meters will be adopted into the system in the fullness of time - personally I believe the chances of this happening in an orderly fashion, to be between zero and nought!!:rotfl: