Smart Meter fitted but we have no mobile signal or mesh signal. What do we do?

mrbobbob

Hello,

We had solar panels fitted that meant our old wheel type electric meter started going backwards! 

EDF came out to fit a smart meter.  The engineer said it wouldnt work though as there is no phone signal where we live (Wales) but he fitted it anyway on the off chance it picked something up.  Its been a few weeks pretty sure it wont.

We're not sure where we go from here.  We get passed around at EDF and dont seem to get an answer.

Im even wondering would something like this signal box from O2 work as the engineer said they use the O2 network.
(cant link apparently  - its called a O2 boost box)
But thats hardly ideal as we dont use O2 so its of no benefit to us and a bit of a cost to gamble if it will work.

Im sure we cant be the only people with no coverage for a smart meter so whats the usual solution here?  As far as we understand we need a smart meter to take advantage of some of the better tariffs and payments for feeding back to the grid.

Any help much appreciated.

Evan3020

You can manually read your smart reader and send in the readings.

mrbobbob

Evan3020 said:

You can manually read your smart reader and send in the readings.

This is true but does that exclude us from a night time tariff for charging a car/battery?  eg the octopus go one

Scrounger

mrbobbob said:

Hello,

We had solar panels fitted that meant our old wheel type electric meter started going backwards! 

Nice - why did you want it changed? 

Scrounger

mrbobbob

Scrounger said:

mrbobbob said:

Hello,

We had solar panels fitted that meant our old wheel type electric meter started going backwards! 

Nice - why did you want it changed? 

Scrounger

I know, very tempting to leave it going backwards but I suppose we would be risking an unexpected bill if EDF were to notice. 

MWT

mrbobbob said:

Evan3020 said:

You can manually read your smart reader and send in the readings.

This is true but does that exclude us from a night time tariff for charging a car/battery?  eg the octopus go one

Yes it does exclude you, a smart meter is a requirement, as is having an EV of course...

Evan3020

Ask if you can have your backwards moving meter back.

QrizB

mrbobbob said:

EDF came out to fit a smart meter.  The engineer said it wouldnt work though as there is no phone signal where we live (Wales) but he fitted it anyway on the off chance it picked something up.  Its been a few weeks pretty sure it wont.

The meter fitter should not have fitted a smart meter if ther is no signal. They need a signal in order to commission the meter, and an uncommissioned meter is useless.

You won't be able to have Octopus Go, and you won't even be able to have a conventional time of use tariff like Economy 7 since your supplier won't be able to send the tariff timings to the meter.

mrbobbob

QrizB said:

mrbobbob said:

EDF came out to fit a smart meter.  The engineer said it wouldnt work though as there is no phone signal where we live (Wales) but he fitted it anyway on the off chance it picked something up.  Its been a few weeks pretty sure it wont.

The meter fitter should not have fitted a smart meter if ther is no signal. They need a signal in order to commission the meter, and an uncommissioned meter is useless.

You won't be able to have Octopus Go, and you won't even be able to have a conventional time of use tariff like Economy 7 since your supplier won't be able to send the tariff timings to the meter.

Maybe we should have just kept the one that went backwards

Is there likely anything EDF can do to get it working or are we out of options?

Evan3020

Cant these meters connect to your wifi and broadband?

MWT

Evan3020 said:

Cant these meters connect to your wifi and broadband?

No, that is not considered to be a secure data path...

They do sometimes use a Mesh mode to daisy-chain comms hubs to allow hubs that have no signal to connect hubs that do have a signal.