British Gas Smart Meter Campaign

Ganga

Is it not that a lot of people are frighted of new tech.

forgotmyname

Takmon wrote: »

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.

The BGas unit that clamped around my meter cable used just over 7 watts from the wall. Screen stayed active all the time. If your phones screen was on 24/7 it could use over £10 a year on electric.

Agreed on 1 charge a day not being much though, even a full charge. My S6 uses over 4w per hour to charge and if left with the screen on not a lot reaches the battery. Not a scientific full test but a quick test where I added 10% charge in 15 minutes. Again not measured just going by the phones battery icon.

230mAh in 15 minutes. Charge had tapered off as it neared 80% though, dropped from just over 1amp to around 0.7A.

I checked things years back when a supposedly 13W router gave off enough heat to keep your cup of tea warm. Over 23 watts with devices connected, maybe 13 with the wifi off and nothing plugged in?
Low energy 9w/11w bulbs that were 18/20watts

Takmon

forgotmyname wrote: »

The BGas unit that clamped around my meter cable used just over 7 watts from the wall. Screen stayed active all the time. If your phones screen was on 24/7 it could use over £10 a year on electric.

The ones i have seen the backlight is off unless a button is pressed so it won't use anywhere near as much as a phone screen.

I also have a wireless energy monitor with a sender connected to the main feed into my house. It has the screen on all the time (with backlight off) and it runs off AA batteries. It if was constantly drawing 7 watts the batteries would be dead in no times. But this isn't the case and the batteries lasted over 3 months and they were cheap ones.

14wishy

I switched from BG to Ovo who pulled out BG smartmeters as they said they were totally rubbish. Then switched back to BG tariff as was the best deal. 2 engineers and 4 refitted smart meters later and still not working, monitor gives no information or is even linked to gas meter. I suddenly seem to be paying far more and don't have a clue what energy I'm actually using. Smart? I think not!!

femalemonarchfemalecanine

badmemory wrote: »

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.

8. keeps meter readers in a job.

boliston

femalemonarchfemalecanine wrote: »

8. keeps meter readers in a job.

There are lots of 'robotic' jobs like this that are best replaced with technology - in a few years people will be amazed that people would sit at checkouts all day scanning other peoples shopping

femalemonarchfemalecanine

boliston wrote: »

There are lots of 'robotic' jobs like this that are best replaced with technology - in a few years people will be amazed that people would sit at checkouts all day scanning other peoples shopping

not if its your job they are replacing

Raxiel

mac.d wrote: »

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.

6. A smart grid can be run closer to capacity, allowing us, as a nation, to keep kicking the can of serious investment into generation capacity down the road for a while longer.
That's not really a positive, but it keeps prices down right now, which is all a lot of people seem to care about.