NAO report on smart meters

EachPenny

Well in very surprising news, we discover....

Government will miss smart meter deadline, watchdog warns
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-46305961

The full report is available here:-
https://www.nao.org.uk/report/rolling-out-smart-meters/

The facts are that the programme is late, the costs are escalating, and in 2017 the cost of installing smart meters was 50% higher than the Department assumed. 7.1 million extra SMETS1 meters have been rolled out because the Department wanted to speed up the programme. The Department knows that a large proportion of SMETS1 meters currently lose smart functionality after a switch in electricity supplier and there is real doubt about whether SMETS1 will ever provide the same functionality as SMETS2. The full functionality of the system is also dependent on the development of technology that is not yet developed.

A glowing endorsement of the programme then.

Andrew1974

They want to scrap this asap. Or at least pause it. What annoys me is the pressure they put on the suppliers to get us to move to one. Having a smart meter will not change my use one bit.

daveyjp

Lots of double speak in the BBC report.

Every home to have one by 2020. Start or end? If I want something by 2020 I have to buy it before 31 December 2019.

It then says there are two years left, so by 2020 actually means by 2021.

Clare Perry then doubles down with:

"We've said everyone will be OFFERED a smart meter by the end of 2020". So in her world as long as everyone gets a letter offering one job done!

"They also enable consumers to use cheaper tariffs, by using power in the evening or on week-ends."

Do these actually exist? Whether yes or no at least it shows where this is going. Variable pricing.

Its a very expensive mess.

brewerdave

...and as I have been saying:-
"12
The Department has not yet attempted to enrol SMETS1 meters within the
DCC infrastructure. The target dates for this have been pushed back, and it is not
certain that it will work as intended.
The Department has always planned on enrolling
SMETS1 meters to make them fully interoperable. But this is technically challenging and
the solutions are still being tested or in development. The target start date for enrolment
has been pushed back from November 2018 to May 2019 and there is a risk of further
delay. The Department’s assumption for the purposes of cost–benefit modelling is that
2% of the first two thirds of SMETS1 meters will not be successfully enrolled but some
stakeholders told us that significantly more could fail. Furthermore, the Department
has not yet decided if it will attempt to enrol all makes of SMETS1 meter. Therefore,
the Department should be cautious about suggesting that the successful enrolment
and adoption of all SMETS1 meters is inevitable"

So the NAO don't believe the BEIS/Govt. b**lsh*t either:rotfl:

System

daveyjp wrote: »

"They also enable consumers to use cheaper tariffs, by using power in the evening or on week-ends."

Do these actually exist? Whether yes or no at least it shows where this is going. Variable pricing.

Its a very expensive mess.

ToU tariffs are being rolled out by most suppliers. Arguably, E7 and E10 tariffs have been ToU tariffs for many years. BG offers a ToU that gives 8 hours of free energy at the weekends, and Octopus has an Agile tariff that pays consumers to use electricity at certain times of the day. The future is here.

There is logic to ToU pricing as we pay standby generators £Ms a year just to be available if peak demand is likely to be greater than available supply. We also pay owners of wind turbines £Ms a year to feather the blades on their turbines when there is insufficient consumer demand. It makes sense to encourage consumers to make use of this energy at a lower cost.

[Deleted User]

Like I have been bleating on about it on here for years. The choice the Government made to get the suppliers to install all the smart meters instead of the usual DNO s would completely escalate the costs through the roof. Only one or two really big suppliers like BG could do the exchanges efficiently.
when we had all the old token prepayment gas and electric meters updated to smart key/card, the DNO s and their contractors like United Utilities would sweep a whole area in one go working down each street in an efficient manner.
United Utilities were also the main contractor exchanging Imperial gas meters for Metric meters and they also worked in a very efficient manner doing dozens of meter exchanges in one day on a bonus incentive . They have probably done many more meter exchange s than this lot of over 50 suppliers buzzing around endlessly doing very little work on smart meter work. They did the whole prepay meter update lot in a couple of years..These updating costs, just like the smart meter update s are all paid for ultimately by the consumer. We never heard any complaints at all about the costs of getting prepayment meters modernised even though millions were exchanged
My friend, an ex meter reader, who now works for Eon meter fitting ,tells me he could fit one meter in one town then have to drive 30 miles to the next appointment, who may not answer the door, so no wonder he s lucky to fit no more than 4 meters in a day on a good day and only one a day on a slack day. All these costs add up to dragging the roll out on many more years.
Meter fitters are not on performance bonus s to my knowledge so no wonder they are not like turkeys voting for christmas and they are not rushing about too much busting a gut to install as many as possible in one day.
Possibly they are only one third through the smart meter roll out if only 12 million have been fitted so far . Still two thirds to go..2030 is a realistic date for completion and that does nt count the high percentage of occupants who are refusing smart meters and many of these will take it to the ultimate to refuse smart meters even if they are SMETS10 !

Biggus_Dickus

I can’t believe the tone of this thread,...O’Ye of little faith! :mad:

Smart Energy GB: ”the voice of the smart meter rollout. It's our task to help everyone in Great Britain understand smart meters”

Just watched Rob Cheesewright, (Director of Corporate Affairs, Smart Energy GB) on BBC news;..quote ”people who are getting smart-meters are saving 3% on their energy,...that’s enough to power their house for free for one week,...they love their smart-meters!” :rotfl:


...god loves a trier !

brewerdave

I've just watched him on BBC Breakfast - a classic example of "ignore the report - full speed ahead" - I'm surprised that Smart Energy GB haven't suggested doing away with the opt out thus making SMETS compulsory-who cares if they work as intended or not!:rotfl:

EachPenny

Hengus wrote: »

...and Octopus has an Agile tariff that pays consumers to use electricity at certain times of the day. The future is here.

I was curious about this, so took a look thinking it might be of interest to me.

The Octopus site says "Over the last 12 months, unit prices dropped below 2p / kWh 31 times and below 0p / kWh 4 times."

Helpfully they have a downloadable spreadsheet of historic pricing data for 30 minute intervals covering the period 23/05/2017 to 25/05/2018. If you sort the data by unit price there are indeed 4 'times' where the unit price fell below 0p/kWh.... but these were all between 01:00 to 03:00 on 07/06/17.

So other people might say that the price has dropped below 0p/kWh (aka 'consumers get paid to use electricity') just "once" in a 12 month period. :undecided

There are also 31 periods where the price was below 2p/kWh (excl VAT), but these actually represent just 5 events (e.g. 23:00 on 06/06/2017 to 05:00 on 07/06/2017 to me represents one 'event', but accounts for 12 of the 31 periods).

At the other end of the scale there were 2055 periods where the rate was 20p/kWh or more, of those 811 exceeded 25p/kWh, and of those 122 exceeded 30p/kWh (a cap kicks in at 35p/kWh). I used the London dataset, but the results for the other regions look similar.

The average for all the 00:00 to 07:00 periods works out at 8.1p/kWh (E7 equivalent?). The average for all the 07:00 to 00:00 periods is 12.26p/kWh, but this figure masks the peak hours from 15:00 to 18:00 for which the average charge is 21.61p/kWh.

It is really interesting stuff... there might be scope for people with storage heaters that run out in the evening to make use of a recharge during the late morning, and people who have an (electric) cooked lunch (rather than cooked dinner) could benefit. But I'd guess that most people who have children and work will struggle to move much of their consumption out of the 15:00 to 19:00 period, and for them the future TOU model might not be such a good thing overall.

Biggus_Dickus

Houbara wrote: »

Like I have been bleating on about it on here for years. The choice the Government made to get the suppliers to install all the smart meters instead of the usual DNO s would completely escalate the costs through the roof. Only one or two really big suppliers like BG could do the exchanges efficiently.
when we had all the old token prepayment gas and electric meters updated to smart key/card, the DNO s and their contractors like United Utilities would sweep a whole area in one go working down each street in an efficient manner. They did the whole lot in a couple of years..These updating costs, just like the smart meter update s are all paid for ultimately by the consumer. We never heard any complaints at all about the costs of getting prepayment meters modernised even though millions were exchanged
My friend, an ex meter reader, who now works for Eon meter fitting ,tells me he could fit one meter in one town then have to drive 30 miles to the next appointment, who may not answer the door, so no wonder he s lucky to fit no more than 4 meters in a day on a good day and only one a day on a slack day. All these costs add up to dragging the roll out on many more years.
Meter fitters are not on performance bonus s to my knowledge so no wonder they are not like turkeys voting for christmas and they are not rushing about too much busting a gut to install as many as possible in one day.
Possibly they are only one third through the smart meter roll out if only 12 million have been fitted so far . Still two thirds to go..2030 is a realistic date for completion and that does nt count the high percentage of occupants who are refusing smart meters and many of these will take it to the ultimate to refuse smart meters even if they are SMETS10 !

....I’m holding out for SMETS-17,...just to be on the safe side. :money:

NAO Summary pg 14:
“It may take years before we know if the SMETS2 system works in its entirety. While the core communications infrastructure has been implemented and shown to work with a range of meters, it may take years before we know if the SMETS2 and DCC system works in its entirety”

System

EachPenny wrote: »

I was curious about this, so took a look thinking it might be of interest to me.

The Octopus site says "Over the last 12 months, unit prices dropped below 2p / kWh 31 times and below 0p / kWh 4 times."

Helpfully they have a downloadable spreadsheet of historic pricing data for 30 minute intervals covering the period 23/05/2017 to 25/05/2018. If you sort the data by unit price there are indeed 4 'times' where the unit price fell below 0p/kWh.... but these were all between 01:00 to 03:00 on 07/06/17.

So other people might say that the price has dropped below 0p/kWh (aka 'consumers get paid to use electricity') just "once" in a 12 month period. :undecided

There are also 31 periods where the price was below 2p/kWh (excl VAT), but these actually represent just 5 events (e.g. 23:00 on 06/06/2017 to 05:00 on 07/06/2017 to me represents one 'event', but accounts for 12 of the 31 periods).

At the other end of the scale there were 2055 periods where the rate was 20p/kWh or more, of those 811 exceeded 25p/kWh, and of those 122 exceeded 30p/kWh (a cap kicks in at 35p/kWh). I used the London dataset, but the results for the other regions look similar.

The average for all the 00:00 to 07:00 periods works out at 8.1p/kWh (E7 equivalent?). The average for all the 07:00 to 00:00 periods is 12.26p/kWh, but this figure masks the peak hours from 15:00 to 18:00 for which the average charge is 21.61p/kWh.

It is really interesting stuff... there might be scope for people with storage heaters that run out in the evening to make use of a recharge during the late morning, and people who have an (electric) cooked lunch (rather than cooked dinner) could benefit. But I'd guess that most people who have children and work will struggle to move much of their consumption out of the 15:00 to 19:00 period, and for them the future TOU model might not be such a good thing overall.

I suspect that this is typical of the type of ToU tariffs that we will see:

http://www.ontario-hydro.com/current-rates