Smart Meters - not now

[Deleted User]

50Twuncle wrote: »

Ok 1.25 million installed according to https://www.google.com/url?q=https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/712151/2018_Q1_Smart_Meters_Report_.pdf&sa=U&ved=2ahUKEwiln6WY2f_fAhVoRhUIHYPXDM8QFjADegQIChAB&usg=AOvVaw05JS9SaFkAVNahQ-x81fKk
That still leaves an awful lot to do..

Yet Utility Week are saying that 11 million smart meters have been installed in the UK.
https://utilityweek.co.uk/over-11-million-smart-meters-installed-in-uk-homes-and-businesses-says-beis/
I agree still a long way to go. I ve been saying on here for years with the speed that meter fitters work and that it will be to at least 2030 . So many people have refused smart meters there is no point in continuing unless they change the rules that the Tory government hastily came up with not to make them obligatory..The rest of the EU mostly made them obligatory apart from Germany and Sweden.
Those figures include business users but the Telegraph has reported 6 million installed by the big 6 suppliers alone, most of those will be by BG ..approx one in five homes now have smart meters..But I expect many of those will have become dumb as more people switch suppliers.

50Twuncle

Houbara wrote: »

Yet Utility Week are saying that 11 million smart meters have been installed in the UK.
https://utilityweek.co.uk/over-11-million-smart-meters-installed-in-uk-homes-and-businesses-says-beis/
I agree still a long way to go. I ve been saying on here for years with the speed that meter fitters work and that it will be to at least 2030 . So many people have refused smart meters there is no point in continuing unless they change the rules that the Tory government hastily came up with not to make them obligatory..The rest of the EU mostly made them obligatory apart from Germany and Sweden.
Those figures include business users but the Telegraph has reported 6 million installed by the big 6 suppliers alone, most of those will be by BG ..approx one in five homes now have smart meters..But I expect many of those will have become dumb as more people switch suppliers.

I agree with the figure of 11 million - my figure of 1.25 million DID appear wrong - but still a huge number to go !!
When was the first smart meter installed in UK ?
I'll tell you - before July 2007 - so at least 12 years for 11 million - so at that rate - another 36 million will take another 34 years +

Raxiel

I saw that video when it came out, in fact I posted it to this very board at the time to much less alarm.


The idea that the video is illegal is quite wrong. This is not a nuclear weapon, the design of a smart meter is not 'born secret'. That is not a matter of opinion, it's a fact.


Whether it's ethical to share the information in the video is a matter of opinion. Houbara clearly believes it is, I disagree.
As has been stated, meter tampering is a thing, generally developing in hotspots where one person does it then hooks up their neighbours. They've been doing it long before this video released, and I view of the inside of a meter will encourage people to crack theirs open and bypass it any more than keeping it a secret would prevent people from trying anyway.


If anything, showing just how many 'tamper' detectors there are might put someone off trying.



Security through obscurity is not real security.



And on the subject of ethics, at the very start of the video he states that before giving it to Clive, the people who recovered the meter from a skip contacted the supplier named on the meter first to return it, and they didn't bother to respond, so they clearly don't consider a meter 'in the wrong hands' cause for concern.


Going back to the OP itself, time-of-use tariffs already exist in the form of E7 and E10. We may see more 'dynamic' TOU charging in the future, but if we do Smart meters will be the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a long and ongoing underinvestment in energy production and distribution that's left us with a grid that has very little spare capacity.

50Twuncle

Raxiel wrote: »

Going back to the OP itself, time-of-use tariffs already exist in the form of E7 and E10. We may see more 'dynamic' TOU charging in the future, but if we do Smart meters will be the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a long and ongoing underinvestment in energy production and distribution that's left us with a grid that has very little spare capacity.

I am not denying any of the above - although the government (S) have obviously been responsible for the situation of running out of power by not investing in renewables / nuclear in enough time and also by trying to get us all to use electric vehicles .. which will not help either (at peak time)
But people like me - using just £30 of dual fuel power per month - this makes very little difference to costs - unless high rate electricity is going to double my costs

Raxiel

50Twuncle wrote: »

I am not denying any of the above - although the government (S) have obviously been responsible for the situation of running out of power by not investing in renewables / nuclear in enough time and also by trying to get us all to use electric vehicles .. which will not help either (at peak time)
But people like me - using just £30 of dual fuel power per month - this makes very little difference to costs - unless high rate electricity is going to double my costs

I do know what you mean. In theory TOU charging is the 'fairest' way, putting the largest cost burden on those who put the largest burden on supply, but it doesn't feel very fair when you have limited choice on when you actually use energy (see also holidays outside term time).



Unfortunately we can only compare possible peak rate hikes against what we're paying now. In an alternate universe where investment had been early and adequate there may be less talk (or need) of smart metering and TOU tariffs but at the same time average bills are probably higher than they are here and that's just considered 'normal'.

[Deleted User]

Raxiel wrote: »

I saw that video when it came out, in fact I posted it to this very board at the time to much less alarm.


The idea that the video is illegal is quite wrong. This is not a nuclear weapon, the design of a smart meter is not 'born secret'. That is not a matter of opinion, it's a fact.


Whether it's ethical to share the information in the video is a matter of opinion. Houbara clearly believes it is, I disagree.
As has been stated, meter tampering is a thing, generally developing in hotspots where one person does it then hooks up their neighbours. They've been doing it long before this video released, and I view of the inside of a meter will encourage people to crack theirs open and bypass it any more than keeping it a secret would prevent people from trying anyway.


If anything, showing just how many 'tamper' detectors there are might put someone off trying.



Security through obscurity is not real security.



And on the subject of ethics, at the very start of the video he states that before giving it to Clive, the people who recovered the meter from a skip contacted the supplier named on the meter first to return it, and they didn't bother to respond, so they clearly don't consider a meter 'in the wrong hands' cause for concern.


Going back to the OP itself, time-of-use tariffs already exist in the form of E7 and E10. We may see more 'dynamic' TOU charging in the future, but if we do Smart meters will be the symptom, not the cause. The cause is a long and ongoing underinvestment in energy production and distribution that's left us with a grid that has very little spare capacity.

Had to laugh at that outdated view on meter tampering you have in your mind ..eg , starts at hotspots when one hooks up the others lol.. by "hotspot " do you mean Liverpool !, followed by Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, London,Glasgow ..Next you will be saying they "hook up to the lamp posts in the street " which is the view of fiddlers in 1950..
A senior member of British Gas s Revenue Protection Unit was having a joke with me about the levels in Dundas Rd where they found 7 out 20 terraced houses bypassing meters and the levels in Liverpool , the meter fiddling capital of the UK saying Dundas Rd was on a par with Liverpools rougher areas
. The real truth is that the numbers bypassing is in all areas now, not just in the down market inner city terraces but in middle class UK as well.
Only BG run a proper RPU. The rest of the big 6 pay lip service only .SSE being the best of the rest.. and the little suppliers...forget it !
I used to have faith in the "dream " that smart meters would mostly end the free energy boom in the UK because I was nt finding any smart meters fiddled but with help from a Scot chasing views on Youtube then the electric prepay meter fiddlers have all the answers to not really fear a supplier coming along and exchanging his cashcow easy peasy fiddle meter.
. Don t forget Raxiel that a smart meter not connected to the server is nt a "smart meter " any more..and the server/supplier will not be taking any notice that the meter is nt sending off data anyway.. And even if they do notice they will do very little about it..

Raxiel

Houbara wrote: »

by "hotspot " do you mean Liverpool !, followed by Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, London,Glasgow

No I mean what I said. Any given street is more likely to have several or none (likely, not absolute). One neighbour will figure it out and be known as the person to 'fix your meter' for a pint or three. You can't extrapolate out from Dundas Rd (which incidentally isn't a 'middle class' area - particularly 5 years ago) and say '35% of all homes in the UK are filing the meter' because it was a hotspot.

And if the other suppliers have decided that the cost of fraud is outweighed by the cost of enforcement, (even ignoring last gasp tamper alerts from their smart meters) that's hardly Clive's fault.


How do they have 'all the answers'?



Beyond the comms module these meters aren't that complex. Anyone who's already figured out how to bypass an old meter could easily just pull the covers from a new one and figure that out too, assuming they're not already a trained meter fitter making some cash on the side then it's even more trivial.


No one who's never attempted or considered bypassing an electric meter will choose to do so based on that video.

blueacid

Surely the smartness of the meter is irrelevant in terms of bypassing it?


If someone's going to bypass the meter, they'll find a way. I thought the usual technique was pushing pins into the cables feeding the meter, then taking power from those pins.


No denying it's dangerous, but equally I don't see how showing a teardown on Youtube is condoning the behaviour of bypassing the meter? By your logic, someone showing a video on how to properly sharpen a razor should have the video taken down, lest it be used to sharpen a razor to cut someone's throat. Or, onboard footage from a motorbike doing the Isle of Man TT should also be taken down, in case it causes a copycat rider to kill themselves.


Surely the main concern is that revenue protection doesn't seem to exist. I'm confident that I've not bypassed my meter & have lived in my house since it was new, but in all that time nobody has come to read the meter, much less inspect the surrounding cables thoroughly for evidence of foul play.

[Deleted User]

blueacid wrote: »

Surely the smartness of the meter is irrelevant in terms of bypassing it?


If someone's going to bypass the meter, they'll find a way. I thought the usual technique was pushing pins into the cables feeding the meter, then taking power from those pins.


No denying it's dangerous, but equally I don't see how showing a teardown on Youtube is condoning the behaviour of bypassing the meter? By your logic, someone showing a video on how to properly sharpen a razor should have the video taken down, lest it be used to sharpen a razor to cut someone's throat. Or, onboard footage from a motorbike doing the Isle of Man TT should also be taken down, in case it causes a copycat rider to kill themselves.


Surely the main concern is that revenue protection doesn't seem to exist. I'm confident that I've not bypassed my meter & have lived in my house since it was new, but in all that time nobody has come to read the meter, much less inspect the surrounding cables thoroughly for evidence of foul play.

Well, I m very confident that you and Raxiel definitely would not dream of meter fiddling seeing as you have no idea about how to bypass an electric meter (Raxiel has even less idea ! ) by that account you just gave, I m not going to enlighten you except to say that the people who are aware how to bypass their electric meters will definitely get valuable information from "bigclive.com " pointless tear down on an item that is illegal to enter in the first place by any member of the public.
Revenue protection does exist, especially with BG.. They tend to check payment historys if they are targeting properties to visit and like to call on fast food places more than private residences .
.Any electric meter, in use, is a dangerous item to be poking around in..Lethal voltages are in place within the meter.
The meters are the property of either the supplier (smart meters ) or the local DNO for dumb meters and no one is allowed to snip the seals to enter them. " Bigclive.com" did snip the seals , upper and lower, which he should not have been doing even if , and its a big if , he had found it on a dump.
That is why he carefully made sure to black out all serial numbers on view in the meter in his sordid little stripdown .He was nt taking any chances because the address the meter was originally installed can be found from the serial numbers. meters do get stolen from areas which are being demolished and in my area in my village ,November last year we had 7 gas meters stolen from outside boxes in one week alone.

thorganby

Houbara wrote: »

Well, I m very confident that you and Raxiel definitely would not dream of meter fiddling seeing as you have no idea about how to bypass an electric meter (Raxiel has even less idea ! ) by that account you just gave,

Still posting totally unnecessary personal insults to fellow posters I see!

I m not going to enlighten you except to say that the people who are aware how to bypass their electric meters will definitely get valuable information from "bigclive.com " pointless tear down on an item that is illegal to enter in the first place by any member of the public.

You don't need to enlighten anyone with your so called "insider knowledge" as it is very obvious to anyone of normal intelligence how to bypass any meter! A couple of minutes on Google will tell anyone all that they need to know and it is not your problem to worry about.

There is absolutely no valuable information in Clives tear down video that could possible help anyone bypass a meter and he has certainly done nothing illegal in his video. The cable termination points are the same on all meters and this standard has been used for decades.

Revenue protection does exist, especially with BG.. They tend to check payment historys if they are targeting properties to visit and like to call on fast food places more than private residences .
.Any electric meter, in use, is a dangerous item to be poking around in..Lethal voltages are in place within the meter.

Lots of things can be dangerous but are not to those with a modicum of common sense i.e. anyone removing meter seals could also remove the main fuse seal and isolate all wiring.

The meters are the property of either the supplier (smart meters ) or the local DNO for dumb meters and no one is allowed to snip the seals to enter them. " Bigclive.com" did snip the seals , upper and lower, which he should not have been doing even if , and its a big if , he had found it on a dump.

You post whatever rubbish suits your argument at the time e.g. here you state that you can arrange to install your own electricity meter and then inform the supplier later!

Houbara wrote: »

You can arrange to install your own electric meter so I would suspect that you can employ a private qualified electrician to remove it. Then inform the supplier. Business users seem to have inflated rates for this minor job
Scottish Power seem to always charge the most to install/remove meters.. They use to charge over £200 to just exchange a prepay for a credit meter..a twenty minute job.. OFGEM banned that practice

Your statement is ridiculous and you seem to have misheard the very start of the video where he states that they were given to him. You can think and post what you like but no matter how many times you post rubbish, it does not make it fact.

That is why he carefully made sure to black out all serial numbers on view in the meter in his sordid little stripdown .He was nt taking any chances because the address the meter was originally installed can be found from the serial numbers.

More silly assumptions, the meter may never ever have actually been installed in any property, it could have been a sample no longer required and simply dumped and given to Clive. You are clearly in a minority thinking that this is a sordid tear down video that should be removed and you posts on this simply make you look ridiculous.

meters do get stolen from areas which are being demolished and in my area in my village ,November last year we had 7 gas meters stolen from outside boxes in one week alone.

Sounds like you need to find a better place to live!

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