British Gas Smart Meter Campaign

Chrishazle

Just ask them if they now have a domestic SMETS2 3 phase meter, they won't know whether or not you have 3 phase supply (which we do) and AFAIK that meter is not yet available!!

pulliptears

Another (Ex) EDF Customer.
Signed up in July last year, never realised that buried in the small print was the requirement to have a meter.
Around October they called my husband asking when they could come and fit one. Husband replied 'you cant'. A little bit of back and forth on the phone ended in him saying he did not give permission for a meter and did not give permission for them to enter our property.

Geared up for a fight but that was the last we heard from them. When the contract ended last month we switched and the first question I asked the new provider was 'is there a requirement for a smart meter?'
Happily they said no.

luxor4t

SevenOfNine wrote: »

No such pestering from EDF. We've been sent information, have not responded or shown any interest & that is the extent of it from them.

That's because they are busy pestering us

We have had a new meter installed already, but our understair cupboard is a 'not spot' so it is just a meter.

Then we changed supplier and now EDF, our new supplier, are harassing us by email and phone to have another new 'smart' meter. DH got very firm with one phonecaller, who apologised and said we'd be taken off the list - blow me, they were back ringing us within a week.

Now I have to answer the phone, as I'm not named on the bill so they won't talk to me

prettywowers

Interesting thread. I've noticed that some of the new "capped" deals state that a smart meter is mandatory to qualify for the deal. Does anyone else (other than pulliptears) have any experience of this in practice?.

Also, why do people not want them? Genuinely curious.

giraffe69

Some (but not all) don't want them because
1. they perceive evil things happening e.g. remote disconnection
2. Without permanent tin foli hat wearing a small number think their brains will be fried
3. The meters(especially the older SMETS1 meters) go dumb if you switch
4. It is their inalienable right not to be forced to have one of these.
5. In a few cases the signal is sufficiently poor that they can't be read remotely.
Although force is not used some suppliers are quite pushy and some are restricting cheap tariffs to those who will have them. We likely won't all have them by the end of 2020 but in due course we will.

badmemory

6. A lot of them are a lot harder to read yourself & the IHD doesn't keep working for long even if it does give the gas meter actual reading (a lot don't).


7. The gas meter needs a battery which is supposed to last many years. If you are unlucky & yours doesn't last as long as it should, then you could land up without any gas for a couple of weeks before they condescend to come out & fix it. Nice if it happens at Xmas!


I'm sure there are other reasons that aren't tinfoil hat type ones.

forgotmyname

I was not a fan of the way they tried to push them initially, they will save you money.. errr no they will not. it will just show me what I am using and actually cost me more as I will have another device plugged in to monitor the usage.

Then the fact that they had not tested them properly and brought out a single standard by which they all needed to comply with and add in future proofing so you dont need another meter for at least 20 years.

That should have been done at the outset before a single unit got fitted.


I dont need a smart meter to know that switching things off will save money. Maybe they should publich how much power their monitor uses?

Pay an extra £3 - £12 a year by fitting a smart meter??

oldagetraveller

giraffe69 wrote: »

Some (but not all) don't want them because
1. they perceive evil things happening e.g. remote disconnection
2. Without permanent tin foli hat wearing a small number think their brains will be fried
3. The meters(especially the older SMETS1 meters) go dumb if you switch
4. It is their inalienable right not to be forced to have one of these.
5. In a few cases the signal is sufficiently poor that they can't be read remotely.
Although force is not used some suppliers are quite pushy and some are restricting cheap tariffs to those who will have them. We likely won't all have them by the end of 2020 but in due course we

will.

Now list five good reasons why we need them.
Oh, I opt for "4", it should be totally voluntary without any pestering, end of.

mac.d

1. Everyone will have bills with actual readings and no estimates (unless there are problems communicating with meter, some people have had issues with their gas readings not being sent).

2. You won't have the 'hassle' of having to read your meter regularly (*though in reality, you really should keep reading your meters to make sure there are no problems like in #1).

3. Some suppliers can give very detailed information on your usage via their websites courtesy of having half hourly reads from your smart meter.

4. Having a smart meter will enable you to access the best deals offered by suppliers (we are already seeing more and more of the big 6 suppliers having smart meter installation required on some of their best deals).

5. In future you will be able to access time-of-use tariffs, there are already some good deals for people with electric cars. However, in future, I'd see this as more of a plus for the suppliers and not for us consumers, as they will be used more to limit demand at peak times, for example by making it very expensive to use electricity between say 4-7pm. On the other hand, environmentally that could be a good thing.

I'm sure there are more positives, but you can probably tell I'm not a huge fan of them, there are some good points, but in terms of what types of meters the suppliers wanted, the roll-out of them, the switching suppliers issues, and the potential downside of time-of-use tariffs, I'm still happy to not have one installed for now.

Takmon

forgotmyname wrote: »

I dont need a smart meter to know that switching things off will save money. Maybe they should publich how much power their monitor uses?

Pay an extra £3 - £12 a year by fitting a smart meter??

This is a good example of why Smart Meters are useful because people really don't have much of a clue how much energy devices actually use.

A typical smartphone which (will have a lot more going on than an IHD) will use less than 70p of electricity a year. So saying that an IHD will use between £3 & £12 of electricity a year is a massive overestimation.