why are energy companies pushing smart meters? what's the catch??

EssexHebridean

We don’t switch off at the socket (mostly because it’s an absolute pain to get at!) but we do turn it fully off at the set itself, not just use the button on the remote. The sky box stays on standby, but that’s because we do actually use it to record stuff, sometimes remotely,  and if it was switched fully off it would struggle with that. And that is of course the crux of it - for many people the tiny amount of power that modern tech uses while on standby is worth it for the convenience of being able to actually use the it as intended - quality of life does need to come into the equation too!

QrizB

wild666 said:

About the only option they can do with a smart meter that they cannot do with the old analogue meters is restrict the supply to each property.

Another thing they can dol which gets used much more often, is switch you to pre-payment without having to physicvally replace the meter.

Switching to pre-payment is the usual way of dealing with delinquent accounts, disconnections are almost unheard of.

Astria

Every appliance put into standby would be using 100 Watts per day, some less, over a year it can be hundreds of kWh per year. As little as 50 years ago you had few appliances, if any, that went into standby if you pressed the off button. You had the TV, fridge, freezer, the later two were on 24/7, the TV off button actually cut the supply to the set. 
Nowadays everything goes to standby or the socket is left on 24/7 with an appliance plugged in, the only way to use less is turn the switch to the off position. 

For me, switching to the off position saves no real electricity and just incurs more hassle. The light flashes on the front of the set on standby, but if I switch the plug off, it will resume flashing for about a minute longer, so I know it's not using a vast amount of electric. Out of interest I did connect a kilowatt to it (and various other devices on standby) and they all used < 1 watt. YMMV of course.

Verdigris

EU regulations limited stand-by consumption. It is trivial for modern devices. Changing one conventional bulb to a LED would save mare than all the stand-by consumption on everything, in a typical house. Turning the thermostat down by one degree, even more.

wymondham

Smart meters don't offer any advantage to the end user. They don't cut your energy consumption unless you go round switching things off to reduce the reading, but few would bother. They are designed to submit readings automatically and shortly, to allow providers to charge users differing rates throughout the day based on supply demands - especially once electric cars take off!

MWT

wymondham said:

Smart meters don't offer any advantage to the end user...

The main advantage in my experience, is access to tariffs that I could not get without one.

I'm paying less for energy now than I have done for a very long time thanks to the smart meter.

Astria

MWT said:

wymondham said:

Smart meters don't offer any advantage to the end user...

The main advantage in my experience, is access to tariffs that I could not get without one.

I'm paying less for energy now than I have done for a very long time thanks to the smart meter.

So what are you current rates, and is it fixed or variable tariff?

[Deleted User]

Astria said:

MWT said:

wymondham said:

Smart meters don't offer any advantage to the end user...

The main advantage in my experience, is access to tariffs that I could not get without one.

I'm paying less for energy now than I have done for a very long time thanks to the smart meter.

So what are you current rates, and is it fixed or variable tariff?

Octopus Go Faster: peak 15.97p/kWh - Offpeak 5.5p/kWh for 5 hours. Fixed until October 2022. The tariff has now changed, and the peak price is close to 26p/kWh for new customers.

MWT

Astria said:

So what are you current rates, and is it fixed or variable tariff?

My current rates, like so many other people who saw the current situation coming, were fixed back in April this year so not possible to replicate right now (around 10p/kWh), but if I was looking for a tariff to start fresh I'd still not be paying much more than that on one of the smart EV tariffs that are out there.

What would be a fair comment I think is that if the only thing you have is a smart meter, with no EV or solar PV then the benefit is limited by the extent to which you have moveable loads that you can shift into cheaper periods.

Without anything additional you can still get cheaper tariffs, but not dramatically so...

wild666

MWT said:

wymondham said:

Smart meters don't offer any advantage to the end user...

The main advantage in my experience, is access to tariffs that I could not get without one.

I'm paying less for energy now than I have done for a very long time thanks to the smart meter.

And that is the only real advantage, suppliers will increase the price per kWh by a penny or more, if the person doesn't have a smart meter and uses 3,100  kWh per year they will pay £31 more than a person with a smart meter, maybe more.