Energy news in general

QrizB

The phrase "premises that rely on RTS technology" sounds like weasel words to me. Lots of room for argument.

It does give suppliers a reason to discontinue all those legacy RTS-only tariffs, though! Move the customers to single-rate and say they need a meter swap to have anything else.

70sbudgie

Can I just say that I am enjoying all the mis information that I have read on the last couple pages of comments of this discussion. 

RTS technology receives a radio signal to tell it to turn on or off (or switch between day and night rates for a meter). The same functionality is available with several different modern technologies - you don't have to have RTS or a smart meter to be on an E7 tariff. 

A long time ago, I read a discussion in this forum about "end of life" dates for meters. RTS meters have passed this date, so there are very few of them left on the system. Certainly not enough to justify the cost of operating a whole additional technology.

Smart meters can't cut off your supply, they only meter it. To cut off a supply, the supplier has to request the DNO to isolate their equipment. I don't remember the whole process as I think it has changed a few times over the last few years, but I think it usually involves a court order. 

Rolling cut outs is a back up plan in case something goes badly wrong (it is more like a plan z than plan b). Interestingly, the functionality introduced by smart meters means this is less likely to happen, as there are plenty of businesses with much bigger electricity use than homes, that have agreements to reduce their power when requested. Amongst a whole host of other mechanisms. That's not to say some of them haven't been corrupted by capitalism.

Yes, the energy industry needs changing. That is happening this year. "2025 will see once in a generation change". (Annoyingly I can't find the actual quote. I will link later, when I do) Even if there is a lot of political bluster wrapping, at the core there is still a really huge amount of change happening in / to / by the energy industry. 

There is currently more than 2x the renewable energy generation waiting to connect to the grid than has been predicted to be needed for net zero 2050. Most of the change happening this year aims to bring a lot of that forward into the next 6 years.

I recommend having a look at neso.energy (particularly under Publications)

Though be warned, there are thousands of pages of information on there, full of rabbit holes.

Ildhund

70sbudgie said:
  

... "end of life" dates for meters. RTS meters have passed this date, so there are very few of them left on the system. 
  

If you count 600,000 as 'very few': 
  
There are still approximately 600,000 RTS meters left in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) as of January 2025.
  

QrizB

Ildhund said:

If you count 600,000 as 'very few':
There are still approximately 600,000 RTS meters left in Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) as of January 2025.

That's definitely an overestimate, though. What we don't know is how much of an overestimate it is.

We've had several recent posts from people who are being prompted to replace their "RTS meters" where it turns out that the meters aren't RTS ones at all. In one recent example, the only evidence the supplier (Octopus) has is that LL123LL's supply has an entry on the database that's typically associated with RTS meters, and is refusing to accept actual photos of the meter as evidence that it isn't one.

A number of the 600,000 will be similar cases. If posters on MSE are typical (and I accept that they might not be), perhaps half or more of those meters might not be RTS ones.

Scot_39

It is curios in the supplier breakdown - that Octopus had the second highest reported number of remaining RTS in the Elexon breakdown - at 123,000 just ahead of Ovo on 120,000 (who would have inherited many RTS customers from SSE - like THTC etc)

Only S Power  on 138,000 was beating them.

And at a total between the 3 - represented c 50% of the estimated still active RTS meters in their Dec 1st report.

Followed by EOn and EDF at a guess on around 90,000.

Robin9

Has the remote switch off ever been done in the UK ?

QrizB

Gerry1 said:

Surely you must have heard of Classes of Services?

Your mobile phone has a CoS.  If there's an incident which generates far more calls than the network can support, you won't be able to make non-emergency calls.  MTPAS will be invoked by the Police Gold Commander instructing your supplier to stop everyone (so not one by one) making non-emergency calls.  That will keep the airwaves free for First Responders etc.

Although on recent occasions when the mobile networks have become congested and there would potentially have been good reason to invoke that privilege, Gold haven't done so because so many emergency responders use and rely on personal or corporate mobile devices that don't have elevated CoS.
So while the capability exists, for practical reasons it's never been used.

Robin9

Apologies if this has come up before - it's a long thread.

Can Smart's call into the DNO to say they have lost their mains electrical supply ?

As ex DNO engineer we know when there is a large scale loss of supply - the circuit that has tripped calls in.  But rely on consumers calling in for very localised events - perhaps just parts of a street.

QrizB

Robin9 said:

Can Smart's call into the DNO to say they have lost their mains electrical supply ?

Big Clive's strip-down video (recommended viewing) shows a couple of big capacitors inside the comms hub of that Secure Liberty meter, with speculation that they're there to allow "dying gasp" comminucation of a power failure. There's also a battery on the meter PCB itself.

I can't see anything in the comms hub tech spec (link) that mandates sending alerts in the event of power failure, although there is a requirement for the hub to log power failures and report them when power is returned.

The_Green_Hornet

Giant gas field discovered in Lincolnshire 'could fuel UK for years'

Gas reserves that could fuel the UK for several years have been discovered in Limcolnshire, an energy company says.

Reports in national media say the Gainsborough Trough "gas field" could provide a decade's worth of energy and boost the UK economy by £100 billion.

Giant gas field discovered in Lincolnshire 'could fuel UK for years' | ITV News Calendar