Energy company refuses to change tariff without a smart meter?

RogerBareford

Section62 said:

RogerBareford said:

A smart meter is just a newer type of meter. When they changed from analog meters to digital meters were you also resistant and didn't like them for some reason?

Given a choice I'd be quite happy to keep a mechanical meter rather than have a digital one.

If you need to read the meter the mechanical ones are easier for many people, and if a mechanical meter goes wrong it is very unlikely to reset itself to "00000" or "        ".... leaving the energy company to come up with a random guess at what the current reading(s) should be.

RogerBareford said:

I just don't understand why people would care what type of meter their electricity is measured with.

Some of them perhaps understand the technical workings of different meter types and have a rational reason for preferring one over another?

I also find it quite worrying that forums like this one allow people to be belittled for making a choice, which may be entirely rational.

But that's the thing, the type of meter people have should never have been made a choice, it's never been a choice before so why now. You don't get to choose the type of fuel pump when you fill up your car as in my previous example.

It should be purely down to the electricity suppliers to choose what kind of meter they want people to have as by making it a choice means lots of people who have no idea about meters can listen to false information and decide they just don't like them.

Ofcourse they should work correctly and if a meter does go wrong the energy company should extract the last reading from it's memory and not just estimate someone's usage. But if a mechanical meter stops working then it's no different as they will eventually notice the same reading each for a long period and have to do an estimate aswell. Considering that smart meters keep a number of recent readings stored locally in the memory it's very unlikely it will reset to 0.

I think very few people outside the industry know enough about the technical workings of different meter types to make a truly rational choice. The OP for example has said they avoid mobile phones so they seem to be a non "techie" person. They may be the worlds leading expert in how mechanical meters works but if they don't know much about how digital one's work then they will alway favour the mechanical as that's what they understand. So it's very easy for people to be biased by feel they are being "rational"

Tiger_greeneyes

QrizB said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Thank you - I've found this on my most recent statement, I'm hoping it's what you're wanting!

Estimated Annual Consumption - Day 3446.3 kWh
Estimated Annual Consumption - Night 397.4 kWh

214.0kWh 33.96148p
56.0kWh 22.34572p

Thst's very helpful, thank you. I think you've quoted the ex-VAT unit prices - which makes them 35.65p and 23.46p and puts you on the zero-standing-charge version of the tariff in the West Midlands.

• Your estimated annual consumption works out as £1322/yr on E7.
• On the same tariff but single-rate, 3843.7kWh at 33.53p/kWh would be £1289/yr - a £33/yr saving.
• On EDF's standard single-rate tariff of 27.86p/kWh plus 48.13p/day, it would cost £1247/yr - £75/yr less than you're curently paying, and £42/yr less than the single-rate option with OTM.

So if you plan to stay on a varaible tariff, it looks to me as though you'd be best off switching away from Outfox The Market and joining EDF (or Octopus, whose SVT is pretty much identical to EDF and get fewer complaints on this forum.) In both cases you can't switch via their website so you'll have to phone them (Octopus will I think also let you switch by email).

QrizB said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Thank you - I've found this on my most recent statement, I'm hoping it's what you're wanting!

Estimated Annual Consumption - Day 3446.3 kWh
Estimated Annual Consumption - Night 397.4 kWh

214.0kWh 33.96148p
56.0kWh 22.34572p

Thst's very helpful, thank you. I think you've quoted the ex-VAT unit prices - which makes them 35.65p and 23.46p and puts you on the zero-standing-charge version of the tariff in the West Midlands.

• Your estimated annual consumption works out as £1322/yr on E7.
• On the same tariff but single-rate, 3843.7kWh at 33.53p/kWh would be £1289/yr - a £33/yr saving.
• On EDF's standard single-rate tariff of 27.86p/kWh plus 48.13p/day, it would cost £1247/yr - £75/yr less than you're curently paying, and £42/yr less than the single-rate option with OTM.

So if you plan to stay on a varaible tariff, it looks to me as though you'd be best off switching away from Outfox The Market and joining EDF (or Octopus, whose SVT is pretty much identical to EDF and get fewer complaints on this forum.) In both cases you can't switch via their website so you'll have to phone them (Octopus will I think also let you switch by email).

QrizB said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Thank you - I've found this on my most recent statement, I'm hoping it's what you're wanting!

Estimated Annual Consumption - Day 3446.3 kWh
Estimated Annual Consumption - Night 397.4 kWh

214.0kWh 33.96148p
56.0kWh 22.34572p

Thst's very helpful, thank you. I think you've quoted the ex-VAT unit prices - which makes them 35.65p and 23.46p and puts you on the zero-standing-charge version of the tariff in the West Midlands.

• Your estimated annual consumption works out as £1322/yr on E7.
• On the same tariff but single-rate, 3843.7kWh at 33.53p/kWh would be £1289/yr - a £33/yr saving.
• On EDF's standard single-rate tariff of 27.86p/kWh plus 48.13p/day, it would cost £1247/yr - £75/yr less than you're curently paying, and £42/yr less than the single-rate option with OTM.

So if you plan to stay on a varaible tariff, it looks to me as though you'd be best off switching away from Outfox The Market and joining EDF (or Octopus, whose SVT is pretty much identical to EDF and get fewer complaints on this forum.) In both cases you can't switch via their website so you'll have to phone them (Octopus will I think also let you switch by email).

QrizB said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Thank you - I've found this on my most recent statement, I'm hoping it's what you're wanting!

Estimated Annual Consumption - Day 3446.3 kWh
Estimated Annual Consumption - Night 397.4 kWh

214.0kWh 33.96148p
56.0kWh 22.34572p

Thst's very helpful, thank you. I think you've quoted the ex-VAT unit prices - which makes them 35.65p and 23.46p and puts you on the zero-standing-charge version of the tariff in the West Midlands.

• Your estimated annual consumption works out as £1322/yr on E7.
• On the same tariff but single-rate, 3843.7kWh at 33.53p/kWh would be £1289/yr - a £33/yr saving.
• On EDF's standard single-rate tariff of 27.86p/kWh plus 48.13p/day, it would cost £1247/yr - £75/yr less than you're curently paying, and £42/yr less than the single-rate option with OTM.

So if you plan to stay on a varaible tariff, it looks to me as though you'd be best off switching away from Outfox The Market and joining EDF (or Octopus, whose SVT is pretty much identical to EDF and get fewer complaints on this forum.) In both cases you can't switch via their website so you'll have to phone them (Octopus will I think also let you switch by email).

QrizB said:

Tiger_greeneyes said:

Thank you - I've found this on my most recent statement, I'm hoping it's what you're wanting!

Estimated Annual Consumption - Day 3446.3 kWh
Estimated Annual Consumption - Night 397.4 kWh

214.0kWh 33.96148p
56.0kWh 22.34572p

Thst's very helpful, thank you. I think you've quoted the ex-VAT unit prices - which makes them 35.65p and 23.46p and puts you on the zero-standing-charge version of the tariff in the West Midlands.

• Your estimated annual consumption works out as £1322/yr on E7.
• On the same tariff but single-rate, 3843.7kWh at 33.53p/kWh would be £1289/yr - a £33/yr saving.
• On EDF's standard single-rate tariff of 27.86p/kWh plus 48.13p/day, it would cost £1247/yr - £75/yr less than you're curently paying, and £42/yr less than the single-rate option with OTM.

So if you plan to stay on a varaible tariff, it looks to me as though you'd be best off switching away from Outfox The Market and joining EDF (or Octopus, whose SVT is pretty much identical to EDF and get fewer complaints on this forum.) In both cases you can't switch via their website so you'll have to phone them (Octopus will I think also let you switch by email).

Thank you so much for this information, I'll contact EDF today. I find it really difficult to work with numbers as I have an acquired brain injury after bacterial meningitis aged 23. Your help has been invaluable to me!

wolvoman

Surely benefit of avoiding a smart meter is to 'hedge' costs by 'pre-paying' for energy before price increases?

EssexHebridean

Tiger_greeneyes said:

frugalmacdugal said:

Hi,

as above, are you also against a smart tv, smart phone?

Yes. Although it's hard to avoid smartphones these days. 

It's actually not. My husband has a smartphone for work, but an old style non-smart one for personal use. He gets by. And no, he doesn't use the work smartphone for anything personal! Absolutely there are some things that would be more convenient for him if he DID have a smartphone, but can he function day to day without one? Absolutely. 

Two points I've taken from this - Smart meter conspiracy theories DO exist, and indeed we see them voiced on this board frequently, so for one of the regulars on here to refer to them is not "belittling language" it is simply statement of something we know to exist. And secondly, as a TOU tariff user since the early 2000's, and indeed one who uses 75 - 80% of our annual power consumption at the off-peak rate - it's not really all that challenging. I'm happy to run the WM overnight in my circumstances, but if I weren't then particularly at this time of year it would be simple enough to put it on to run through very first thing in the morning and still on the off-peak rate. same with the dishwasher. The water heats up cheerfully enough overnight and in fact we're currently experimenting to see just how little time we can get away with heating it for and switching it on manually in the mornings. Our heating takes charge overnight and lets that charge out as heat the next day. The only things we use routinely at peak rate are lights, kettle, TV and microwave really, plus the "tickover" items that are on all the time like Fridge freezer, router, TV box etc. I'm comfortable enough with a TOU tariff that I'm exploring the possibility of taking that a step further with the Green Energy UK "Tide" tariff in due course. Yes the "peak" rate is eye watering, but I rather thing we'd still save money over what we pay currently. Again - is it difficult to get into the mindset of minimising power use at the peak periods? No, not really - you do have to want to though - and paying less is a great incentive! 

For what it's worth we don't currently have smart meters - largely because until British Gas sort out the issues they have with Economy 7 and smart metering, I'm mindful of the fact that right now should our supplier fail we would be vulnerable to an SOLR transfer to BG which, if we had an electricity smart meter, would go quite horribly wrong. That's not the fault of the SM's though - but of BG for not having got their act together and ironed out the issues they have! As for the gas, there's not much point in having just that one done, and as we are such insignificant users of gas our provider there is in no hurry to spend any more money on us than they absolutely  have to!

EssexHebridean

wolvoman said:

Surely benefit of avoiding a smart meter is to 'hedge' costs by 'pre-paying' for energy before price increases?

That worked last time for the people on pre-pay meters, whether it will work again in October though? I'd imagine a lot more companies will be wise to it this time round. What percentage of users actually have pre-payment meters anyway - I'd guess relatively small, although possibly getting larger again?

QrizB

wolvoman said:

Surely benefit of avoiding a smart meter is to 'hedge' costs by 'pre-paying' for energy before price increases?

You can only pre-pay if you've got a pre-pay meter with a pre-pay account, and even then this does not work with all pre-pay meters.

Unless, of course, you're suggesting fraud?