Different electricity and gas suppliers. Can I still have smart meters?

gsmh

I was with Neon Reef and Zog and have been transferred to British Gas and EdF. I'd like smart meters because my meters are outside and high up so are difficult and inconvenient to read. Would this be possible with two different suppliers?

QrizB

I think there are people here who have done that, yes.

Get BG to fit the electricity meter, then contact EdF for the gas meter.

Petriix

I've arrived at BG from Neon Reef. I have just arranged an electricity only smart meter installation from them. My gas is with bulb and I have no need for a gas smart meter as there are no time of use tariffs on gas (that I'm aware of) to take advantage of.

Ignite

Petriix said:

I've arrived at BG from Neon Reef. I have just arranged an electricity only smart meter installation from them. My gas is with bulb and I have no need for a gas smart meter as there are no time of use tariffs on gas (that I'm aware of) to take advantage of.

How did you arrange the smart meter install with BG?  If I click the Get Smartmeter link, I get taken to my account overview and there is no mention of smartmeters.

gsmh

Same here. I can only assume it's because our accounts are not fully set up yet.

gsmh

I've just been on chat with BG and was told I can apply for a smart meter 28 days after my supply starts.

Petriix

Ignite said:

Petriix said:

I've arrived at BG from Neon Reef. I have just arranged an electricity only smart meter installation from them. My gas is with bulb and I have no need for a gas smart meter as there are no time of use tariffs on gas (that I'm aware of) to take advantage of.

How did you arrange the smart meter install with BG?  If I click the Get Smartmeter link, I get taken to my account overview and there is no mention of smartmeters.

I phoned the number and went through the automated system - I said 'smart meter installation' when asked what I was calling about. They seemed to recognise my account just by the phone number I was calling from and had the correct address etc. Booked in for 22 December.

gsmh

To answer my own question, it appears this is not always possible. I had my British Gas electricity smart meter installed before Christmas and my EDF gas smart meter installation was this morning. Unfortunately the engineer was unable to get a communication with the electric meter. He said it is usually the case where a British Gas electric smart meter is already installed. He tried for so long, but had to abort the installation. There are so many cases online with EDF smart meters. I'd love to switch my EDF gas supply to British Gas so I'd be with them for both fuels, but I doubt I'd get a such a 'favourable' deal as we get where EDF was the SoLR.

TangoGolf

It can be done. Some years ago I had a Smets 1 Secure smart electricity meter installed by Eversmart. My gas was with SSE I think and they installed a smart gas meter. The problem for the installer was that the Secure meter only communicated with Eversmart so he had to install a separate comms module for the gas meter. I believe this communicated with DCC via radio rather than sim card. It's turned out a bit pointless as the Landis Gyr gas smart meter packed up after less than a year and the repairer fitted a dumb meter which was older than my original gas meter! By the way my Smets 1 meter is now adopted by DCC.

Petriix

I've kept my dumb gas meter. As far as I can tell there's no benefit to having a gas smart meter fitted as there aren't any beneficial time of use tariffs for gas.

The electric smart meter is now enabling me to access electricity for 5p per kWh for 4 hours from 9:30pm each night.