Smart Meter upgrade

irishesman

hi all

I currently have a smeets 1 smart meter for my gas and electricity made by Itron. 

Is there any way to see if it has been upgraded to communicate via DCC yet? I tried asking my supplier but I just get standard replies about the rollout of type 2 meters. 

Thanks 

matelodave

The only way to find out is if your supplier is using the data from it to use for billing.
They don't just get upgraded as a matter of course. They will get an upgrade, either when your existing supplier decides that all his processes are in place to enroll your meter onto the DCC and for him to start collecting data from it.
Likewise if you change suppliers they have to be ready, willing and able to sort out the complex task of identifying your meter, getting it transferred from the existing supplier, sorting out the upgrade, enrolling it onto the DCC and then using the data from it.

Just swapping a dumb meter from supplier to supplier is a pretty trivial process. Transferring a SMETS2 meter is a lot more process oriented because all the permissions and data collection has to be handed over from one supplier to another via the DCC. Add it the problems of  identifying a smart meter thats dumb, sorting out who has to do the upgrade and then integrating it into the DDc and suppliers billing system you can see that it's going to be a pretty complex job that they are going to avoid for as long as they can.

You can be pretty confident that it's probably not everso high on any of their priority lists whilst they are being badgered to to keep installing SMETS2 meters and sorting out all the other problems that have arisen during the last three or four months.

TBH I doubt that anyone will put a great deal of effort in until they start getting beaten up by OFGEM or the Government to start the transition process so i wouldn't lose any sleep over it. It still works as a meter.

Perhaps a trawl through this and all the attendant documents might shed some light for you but even this is 12 months old - there doesn't seem to have been much info promulgated since then - https://www.smartdcc.co.uk/smart-future/enrolment-and-adoption/smets1-migration-updates/

There's lots of outdated stuff on what they are going to do and when they are going to do it but not a lot of info on what they are actually achieving