A problem with our smart meter

kitla

A few years ago we were with Bulb Energy & had their smart meter fitted. I liked the fact it gave us our current live electricity usage so I could see how much we saved by switching things off, however it is not able to do the same with the gas usage. The best we get is a  "so far today" reading.  My neighbour has just had one fitted that does show the current gas usage & I'd prefer to have this facility, we are now with British gas. As we already have a working s/meter how would we go about upgrading the display unit? Is this something we'd have to buy privately or would British Gas need to provide it?

MWT

kitla said:

My neighbour has just had one fitted that does show the current gas usage...

I rather doubt that, the gas meter is battery powered and to ensure the battery lasts a long time it only provides updates at 30 min intervals, so you can't get 'current' gas use from a smart meter.

'So far today' is as good as it gets.

Ultrasonic

Truly instantaneous gas usage isn't really useful in the same way it can be for electricity, since gas use is always intermittent. Instantaneous electricity usage is more helpful for tracking down things on all the time and wasting energy.

I've not heard of an in home display giving instantaneous gas use before. Are you certain your neighbour's does this?

[Deleted User]

Ultrasonic said:

Truly instantaneous gas usage isn't really useful in the same way it can be for electricity, since gas use is always intermittent. Instantaneous electricity usage is more helpful for tracking down things on all the time and wasting energy.

I've not heard of an in home display giving instantaneous gas use before. Are you certain your neighbours does this?

In the days before smart meters, it was possible to buy an optical device that ‘counted’ the number of times a blob of solder in the numeral 0, 6 or 9 in the meter register passed the reader, Using a Zigbee connection, this information could then be translated into usage. I have seen devices that would report back every 15 minutes. As you say, all SMETS1/2 gas meters report back to the gas proxy meter in the comms hub every 30 minutes. There are no instantaneous gas readings hence the ‘So Far Today’ usage figure which uses a fixed calorific value and which may not be the same as the calorific value used on the actual bill.

kitla

Thanks for the replies. I havent actually seen my neighbour's meter, just had a conversation about it, so perhaps we misunderstood each other!