Octopus have switched on my electric meter smart feature without my permission

t0rt0ise

Curiousgirl1 said:

Daisy_Blue said:

It's no bother to me to provide readings and yes I am concerned about the possibility that they will be able to switch off supply. 

Why would an energy company do that unless you didn’t pay your bill but even then they would just change you to a PAYG 

I don't have a smart meter but I worry that they could do these things in error. I'm getting letters from British Gas accusing me of owing them money when I don't. At the moment they'd have to go court to get the right to break in to change the meter to prepay, but with a smart meter it's too easy to just change it. Errors concern me more than anything else.

[Deleted User]

t0rt0ise said:o

Curiousgirl1 said:

Daisy_Blue said:

It's no bother to me to provide readings and yes I am concerned about the possibility that they will be able to switch off supply. 

Why would an energy company do that unless you didn’t pay your bill but even then they would just change you to a PAYG 

I don't have a smart meter but I worry that they could do these things in error. I'm getting letters from British Gas accusing me of owing them money when I don't. At the moment they'd have to go court to get the right to break in to change the meter to prepay, but with a smart meter it's too easy to just change it. Errors concern me more than anything else.

We can all worry ourselves into the grave. You may recall that when smart meters were first introduced, the Press were reporting that houses were burning down. Given that Millions of these devices have now been installed, where are all the burnt out ruins? There is absolutely no evidence that the Government will ever allow suppliers to disconnect properties from the Grid at random. Tariff-based disconnections made be allowed where a contract exists between the supplier and the consumer.

With variable renewable power, we have to find ways of better matching supply with demand. One form of demand side response is time-of-use tariffs with variable prices throughout the day. These types of tariffs are now in common use across the World.

Edit: A typical T-o-U tariff



In the future, a simple kWh/year price comparison will not get you the cheapest tariff. BEIS has recently developed a tool that will enable consumers to download 12 months of actual data from their smart meters (usage and time of use) and consumers can use this data to determine the cheapest overall tariff for their usage pattern.

At the moment, consumer requests for smart meters is leading to long installation times. Once the majority of homes have smart meters, then suppliers already have the right to deem existing analogue meters as end-of-life and they can legally replace them with smart meters.

Curiousgirl1

t0rt0ise said:

Curiousgirl1 said:

Daisy_Blue said:

It's no bother to me to provide readings and yes I am concerned about the possibility that they will be able to switch off supply. 

Why would an energy company do that unless you didn’t pay your bill but even then they would just change you to a PAYG 

I don't have a smart meter but I worry that they could do these things in error. I'm getting letters from British Gas accusing me of owing them money when I don't. At the moment they'd have to go court to get the right to break in to change the meter to prepay, but with a smart meter it's too easy to just change it. Errors concern me more than anything else.

They still have to give you notice and plenty of warnings that it’s going to be done. If you have a complaint raised with BG - which I’m sure you do - they shouldn’t do it anyway until resolved. 

It’s not just smart meters they can make mistakes on, plenty of people have had their supplies disconnected in error who have old style meters. At least with smart meters it’s much easier to rectify 

victor2

I spent time in countries over 30 years ago where they couldn't generate enough electricity to meet demand. They just switched off entire areas as necessary. People were used to it.
Hospitals, essential services, the wealthy etc. just had their own generators. Still goes on today. No smart meters in sight.