'Smart meters will save consumers just £11 a year' - MSE News

[Deleted User]

Hi,


your post is hard to read, could you edit please and paragraph.


Thanks.

robin58

The whole point is are you willing to chase a saving of 2.7p a day by constantly checking your usage. You don't get a £11 saving, you have to do the work for it.

Most people won't.

Ande1975, See you have fallen for the publicity blurb. Yep that's all fine and dandy but those are not the real forward reasons they want you to install a smart meter.

One of those advance uses they don't tell you is charging you different prices depending on time on day and network demand.

So when there is a big football match like the World Cup, they could charge you more for your electricity due to the high demand.

waamo

I can't take part days off work. The time off alone will cost me so much that the meter will be obsolete and need replacing before I ever recouped my lost earnings.

That's if I'm still around given I would have to live to over 90.

badmemory

The only way I am ever going to reduce my usage (after getting rid of the CRT TVs & computer screens which I did years ago) is to dump my old fridge & freezer which will save me 2 thirds of their usage. I'm not going to do that until I have spent several £k replacing my kitchen. I know this - what else can a smart meter possibly tell me? Answers on a postcard to - I really hate the size of my energy bills/ripoffs.com

thorganby

Ande1975 wrote: »

Ok, so to quell a few myths. Smets 2 meters have been available since April 2018. They have Booster thus avoiding any connection issues. All of the BIG 6 can download software to each others meters due to regulations imposed by Offgem. the issue comes when you change to a smaller provider, who a: Due to loopholes has no regulation from Offgem, b: also means you dont have the backing of the Ombudsman service. So in other words, what might appear cheaper, may well turn out to be a financial nightmare. The new Smart meters are smaller than current meters. Benefits are available to all people, for elderly people it means they don't have to stress about trying to read the meter which may be difficult for them, also useful for people who work full time as saves hassle. For younger people, or people on a budget it allows them to budget.. Win, Win, You aren't putting meter readers out of business, they are technicians, reading meters is a secondary job which an energy company is only required by law to read your meter once every 2 years. Hence, if you don't provide readings and your supplier has estimated bills and massively underestimated for that period then you may end up with a multi thousand pound bill when an actual reading is obtained. The meters only record readings every 30 mins to update in home display, energy companies only pull readings once per month and the information stored on meters is only energy info and is encrypted. Doesn't matter if a customer has a standard credit or Smart meter, an energy company can obtain a court order and enter your property with a locksmith regardless of whether you are in attendance or not to install a different meter, customers do not own the meters, the energy company does ( This is currently only enforced with non payment of bills and installation of prepayment meters). Finally, Martin Lewis provides amazing advice, i used to work for Sky, when Mr Lewis advised everyone to leave Sky as they were seriously overpriced, he stated... "there isn't anything you can't get with another provider", lots of people left, April brought a new season of Game of Thrones and lots of complaints because they couldn't get Sky Atlantic with their new provider. He may know what he's talking about with credit cards, but tbh he knows about as much as you or I regarding other things and is just another person expressing his opinion which people blindly follow.

Most forum members are far more savvy than you think and they certainly won't "blindly follow" the misinformed rubbish that you have posted about energy suppliers and smart meters!

waamo

thorganby wrote: »

Most forum members are far more savvy than you think and they certainly won't "blindly follow" the misinformed rubbish that you have posted about energy suppliers and smart meters!

I tried to read it but sadly the lack of paragraphs made it too difficult.

I'm glad you pointed out it is misinformed rubbish as I suspected it was all along.

Simmer45

I do not want a smart meter fitted. I know what energy I'm using. Telling me every 5 minutes (?) that I have my central heating on or am boiling a kettle for a cup of tea won't make me only half boil the kettle so it doesn't make tea or have the heating off so I end up in hospital with hypothermia. Although in my 7th decade I can still read and write and get a meter reading sent in so I never have estimated bills. I am now being plagued daily by my provider (or their 'agents'?) that they are "in my area and can fit my smart meter". Why don't they give me a number I can call to say "go away!" I think they want us to have smart meters so they can charge us extra for energy at what they decide is 'peak' time.

AndyPK

You with SSE by any chance?

Fitzmichael

I was with BrGas and they offered Smart meters, which I accepted but I agree they're unlikely to save you money. Not long after, their price shot up so I switched to E.on and the meters switched off. Even though E.on were offering them, they said they could not read BrGas ones. This article makes me suspect that this is not because of how the meters work but because of how the info is sent/received or encoded. Does anyone at MSE know?
So my complaint is not that I can't watch the monitor like a hawk, but how difficult it now is to take a reading and submit it. I am 77 but could read the mechanical, clock-like displays without glasses; the digital ones are fainter, especially if I can’t shelter them from the sunlight – they’re in an outside cupboard. The gas meter is a particular problem. As in all the many houses I have lived in or seen, the gas meter is just above the floor/ground. I could see the (sharp, black) mechanical display by bending slightly and looking down on it but now I need to press a button and look more or less directly at the electronic display. This means kneeling on the ground outside the cupboard, bending full forward and tipping my head backwards. I had only looked in order to have a reading when switching, so when I pointed this out to Br Gas, I was told to "mention any vulnerabilities" to my new supplier, who said it was not their problem.
I have never considered whether I might qualify as ‘disabled’(and so, what?), when I am less so than some younger people but, in conversation with a surveyor some years ago, I mentioned how awkwardly positioned gas/electricity meters often seemed to be, and without reason, and he responded that that was because builders put them in where it was most convenient and cheapest for them and there was no regulation to make them have the least concern for the convenience of householders. I'm not surprised, unfortunately, that it has never concerned the local govt 'experts' who devise the Building Regulations.
I complained to the Ombudsman, got an acknowledgement, then nothing. I had a resurgence of my illness, and didn't persevere. Then, a week ago, I got this:
To: OS Enquiries (Energy)
Subject: Smart meters functionality
Sent: 18 May 2017 23:47:13 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
was deleted without being read on 17 July 2018 11:54:13 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.

Again, does anyone know whether the regulator has any power here, and does MSE have any care how a regulator can get away with this?

System

Fitzmichael wrote: »

I was with BrGas and they offered Smart meters, which I accepted but I agree they're unlikely to save you money. Not long after, their price shot up so I switched to E.on and the meters switched off. Even though E.on were offering them, they said they could not read BrGas ones. This article makes me suspect that this is not because of how the meters work but because of how the info is sent/received or encoded. Does anyone at MSE know?
So my complaint is not that I can't watch the monitor like a hawk, but how difficult it now is to take a reading and submit it. I am 77 but could read the mechanical, clock-like displays without glasses; the digital ones are fainter, especially if I can’t shelter them from the sunlight – they’re in an outside cupboard. The gas meter is a particular problem. As in all the many houses I have lived in or seen, the gas meter is just above the floor/ground. I could see the (sharp, black) mechanical display by bending slightly and looking down on it but now I need to press a button and look more or less directly at the electronic display. This means kneeling on the ground outside the cupboard, bending full forward and tipping my head backwards. I had only looked in order to have a reading when switching, so when I pointed this out to Br Gas, I was told to "mention any vulnerabilities" to my new supplier, who said it was not their problem.
I have never considered whether I might qualify as ‘disabled’(and so, what?), when I am less so than some younger people but, in conversation with a surveyor some years ago, I mentioned how awkwardly positioned gas/electricity meters often seemed to be, and without reason, and he responded that that was because builders put them in where it was most convenient and cheapest for them and there was no regulation to make them have the least concern for the convenience of householders. I'm not surprised, unfortunately, that it has never concerned the local govt 'experts' who devise the Building Regulations.
I complained to the Ombudsman, got an acknowledgement, then nothing. I had a resurgence of my illness, and didn't persevere. Then, a week ago, I got this:
To: OS Enquiries (Energy)
Subject: Smart meters functionality
Sent: 18 May 2017 23:47:13 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London
was deleted without being read on 17 July 2018 11:54:13 (UTC+00:00) Dublin, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London.

Again, does anyone know whether the regulator has any power here, and does MSE have any care how a regulator can get away with this?

I am afraid that you will have to blame the Government for this chaos. It was planned that foundation stage meters would all be supplier dependent with the odd exception where 2 suppliers deploy the same model of smart meter and use the same mobile provider. SMETS 2 meters will connect to a central hub which not supplier dependent. Suppliers will take usage information from this hub.

The Government has directed that suppliers and The Data Communications Company (DCC) must find a way of upgrading foundation meters to the SMETS1 standard. This will allow these meters to connect to The DCC via there own portal