Anything Positive about Smart Meters?

Petriix

clive0510 said:

I have a smart meter and in answer to the o/p thread title the positive thing about a smart  meter is obviously that you dont have to keep fiddling about sending meter readings every month. my meter box is outside on the back wall, and I can never find the key to it when I want it! so for me smart meter is definitely a positve.

I assume that you are with an expensive 'big 6' supplier and have no intention of switching. I personally switch at least once per year, almost exclusively to smaller suppliers. None of my recent suppliers have supported automatically reading smart meters.

Even if they could, I would still need to manually read the meters for my own records and to ensure that my bill were accurate. There is no way I would ever trust my supplier to always get it right.

Talldave

Octopus Agile with a Powervault battery system is the kind of setup I'd be going for,  if only I had a house to stick it in!!

@MWT also interested in how the billing works, you showed a bill with a single rate?

Highland76

Petriix said:

clive0510 said:

I have a smart meter and in answer to the o/p thread title the positive thing about a smart  meter is obviously that you dont have to keep fiddling about sending meter readings every month. my meter box is outside on the back wall, and I can never find the key to it when I want it! so for me smart meter is definitely a positve.

I assume that you are with an expensive 'big 6' supplier and have no intention of switching. I personally switch at least once per year, almost exclusively to smaller suppliers. None of my recent suppliers have supported automatically reading smart meters.

Even if they could, I would still need to manually read the meters for my own records and to ensure that my bill were accurate. There is no way I would ever trust my supplier to always get it right.

The big 6 are only expensive if you go with them directly. They offer significantly cheaper prices if taking out one of their ‘exclusive’ tariffs via CEC or uswitch. That said, I will be moving from EDF to Octopus very soon as I like the look of their Agile tariff which (for me)  easily beats any other electric tariff on the market  - around 85% of my usage is outside the ‘peak’ hours of 4pm-7pm. 

[Deleted User]

Talldave said:

Octopus Agile with a Powervault battery system is the kind of setup I'd be going for,  if only I had a house to stick it in!!

@MWT also interested in how the billing works, you showed a bill with a single rate?

You receive the standard bill with an average cost per kWh PLUS, in a 31 day month, 31 pages of detailed information showing kWhs used per 30 minute period; cost per 30 minute period and total cost for that period. There are also apps such as Octopus Energy Watchdog and Octopus Watch that update to show the previous day’s costs (with days going back up to 30 days). In sum, more information that most mortals want or can cope with. There are also numerous free tools to check billing accuracy.

My average unit price since March has been 8p/kWh but wholesale costs are increasing. Tomorrow’s peak cost in 35p for 90 minutes from 5pm. To make Agile work, the household has to be proactive. For example, we use a slow cooker rather than the oven on expensive days. Washing and dishwasher overnight etc.

Highland76

@[Deleted User]
are you saying each monthly bill on the Agile tariff lists all the ~1500 different unit rates used? 

[Deleted User]

Highland76 said:

@[Deleted User]
are you saying each monthly bill on the Agile tariff lists all the ~1500 different unit rates used? 

One page per day with 48 prices covering each 30 minute period which shows amount used; at what unit price and total for the charging period. Each page also shows the total kWhs used per day and the AVERAGE kWh price for that day. (All the 30 minute charges added up and divided by the total kWhs consumed in that day.) The main part of the bill shows the standard start and finish meter readings along with the AVERAGE (equivalent ) kWh price for the whole of the billing period plus VAT etc. This makes comparisons with tariffs on a PCW very easy. Each account has an API and it is very easy to get pages of 30 minute costs going back to when the smart meter was installed.

[Deleted User]

This guide to Agile was produced by a PhD student and published online yesterday:
https://www.guylipman.com/octopus/octopus_guide.html

I should add that Agile is not a set up and forget tariff. One day’s missing data stops Kraken from issuing an automatic bill. The data has to be recovered manually by Octopus and they do need to be nudged.

MWT

Looks like all questions to me have been answered, so not much to add, but I will say that if you are not already on Agile watch and wait for a couple of weeks or so and see if the wholesale prices remain high due to the current minimal nuclear based power production or if something changes.

Hopefully this is a short term measure, but if not it would change the landscape somewhat, and not just for Agile...

Pedro1877

Yes, I love to have a smart meter.  I have had electricity meters for years even before smets1 became available.  I still have an original BG one in my bedroom and an Electrisave in the kitchen. Very useful if you forget to switch something off,  the meters have reminded me many times!  I like to know how much each appliance uses and have changed to the most energy efficient appliances as they have improved.  I switch supplier every year and am paying the same monthly DD as I was over 10 years ago.  I kept my original smets1 meter supplied with the first CEC deal with BG years ago.  Last year I returned to BG and plugged it back in and hey presto!  I changed to Avro in July and fingers crossed it has still not gone dumb like it did when I changed from BG years ago.  My current DD for Dual fuel is £54 pm.  Three bedroom house with gas central heating.  Seamless switch to Avro and BG came up with refunds in a few weeks after the switch.  My best win was free gas for a year courtesy of the ombudsman when Scottish power could not identify my gas meter - long story!

CJ123

You get a free clock via the energy monitor which doesn't go tick tock either!