Smart Meters - good idea or not?

brewerdave

[Deleted User] said:

brewerdave said:

badger09 said:

[Deleted User] said:

I wish people would take a step back from the usual approach of 'how will it benefit me'?

Smart meters are but one part of what is known as a smart grid. A smart grid is necessary because our energy supply is no longer constant as was the case when we had coal-fired power stations. Today, National Grid has to manage the weather and time-dependent vagaries of renewable energy where the amount of electricity provided by solar and wind power can range from 60% to not a lot - as is the case at the moment:



You can see that nearly 60% of our electricity is coming from gas at 9.20am on an October morning.

Renewable energy cannot be turned on and off with ease. It makes sense to offer cheap energy when supply exceeds demand and vice versa. Making good decisions requires better consumer profiling. Better profiling means that the Grid (and more truthfully, we) are not paying to have a coal-fired power station sitting on idle on a 'just in case' basis. The Grid operators need to know how much energy is needed per year and when the energy is being used. Smart meters provide this granularity. Renewable energy brings with it voltage and frequency challenges. My grid voltage goes up by 5volts when the two local solar farms start to generate. This has to be managed and DNOs are now trialling pro-active grid voltage management at an area level by taking voltage data from smart meters.

Many countries now have both time-of-use and demand restricted tariffs. The latter require the consumer to sign up to a power limit (kW): the benefit of doing so is a much cheaper overall tariff. The consumer is helping the Grid operator and gets cheaper energy as a result.

In sum, the whole point of a smart grid is to better manage demand with ever-changing renewable supplies along with better grid frequency and voltage control, and earlier grid component fault detection. It is not just about the supplier being able to bill on actual meter readings.

Sadly, that’s the only aspect some people are interested in☹️

Maybe because virtually all the adverts talked about on TV for the past 4 or 5 years , was how much the individual consumer could save by installing SMARTs ??

Chicken and egg.

Do the adverts focus on personal savings because that’s the only thing people are interested in, or is that the only thing people are interested in because it’s the only thing they were told about in the adverts?

I suspect the former !!

deano2099

casjen said:

Smart meters are totally pointless. In this digital age sending the readings over your phone/pc every month ensures both, you know the company has got them and B they are accurate. The don't save you any money whatsoever.  Just digital junk.

A 5 minute job, once a month means an hour every year of your life.
Over 24 years that's a day of your life. 

Now normally with this you'd have to weight up against the downsides - but other than specific suppliers having issues on some specific tariffs, there aren't really any.

Regardless of the other benefits, it's just cutting one menial task out of my life that has no benefit to me. The time saving isn't amazing but it's also far from nothing.

Astria

casjen said:

Smart meters are totally pointless. In this digital age sending the readings over your phone/pc every month ensures both, you know the company has got them and B they are accurate. The don't save you any money whatsoever.  Just digital junk.

They are essential for the energy providers though as they'll get a more accurate view of your energy consumption and can prevent fraud with changing energy prices as they can submit your energy readings every 30 minutes rather than ask someone to enter a reading into a website which could be manipulated - people have been known to give low reads to try and pay less for their energy, and some people give too high a reading when energy prices increase to try and pay at a lower rate for longer, both are fraud and can carry substantial penalties but people still do it.

oldagetraveller1

"A working smart meter means you no longer have to provide readings and won't get any estimated bills."

Working fully as intended would be more appropriate.

Since their installation in May this year, neither of my allegedly SMART meters have sent a monthly reading to my supplier. I've had to submit readings myself monthly. Not a big deal but it would be good not having to do that.

When contacted, my supplier just advised that they send the monthly figures on the 20th, no they don't!

They look nice though, particularly the electricity meter with it's flashing l.e.d.s.

facade

I spent 10 years working in industrial sensor design, and I don't trust smartmeters to give accurate readings.

The electric meters don't react well to the poorly designed switchmode power supplies we use in cheap equipment and lamp dimmers, and I have zero faith in a battery operated ultrasonic flow meter, if it were mains powered and continuously measuring I'd be a bit happier, there have been several cases on here of them over reading, and they must represent only a small number of the ones that are wrong and not being questioned.

EssexHebridean

sarar said:

dunstonh said:

BG have a problem with economy 7 on smart meters. I would decline if that is the case with you.  Otherwise there is nothing to fear and they can be useful.

Are they still having this problem and if so and the lady tells me that everything is sorted with the issue, is she not telling the truth?

We had a post just the other day from someone with the issue that is known about. I'm also E7 - and I can tell you that if we were with them, right now, I would definitely NOT be letting them change my meter to a smart one! 

You might clarify why they are saying you need the change - there are some issues with non-smart E7 meters with the potential upcoming switch-off of the RTS (?) system - again there was a thread on that subject recently which might inform you whether in fact your existing meter is one of those affected by that.  If so again - if it were me - I'd be considering a switch to a different supplier who is able to manage E7 and smart meters together. 

Ultrasonic

casjen said:

Smart meters are totally pointless. In this digital age sending the readings over your phone/pc every month ensures both, you know the company has got them and B they are accurate. 

No. Just because a customer submits a reading does not guarantee to a supplier that the reading is accurate. 

From a customer perspective I've found having smart meters only a positive experience, including never having to submit a meter reading whilst my energy supplier has far more data than I'd ever have sent manually. This has been particularly when changing energy supplier since it has meant I've had accurate predicted usage very quickly.

@[Deleted User] has posted about the important wider benefits to everyone of smart meters. 

victor2

casjen said:

Smart meters are totally pointless. In this digital age sending the readings over your phone/pc every month ensures both, you know the company has got them and B they are accurate. The don't save you any money whatsoever.  Just digital junk.

Until you inadvertently switch the gas and electric meter readings around. Been there, done that, the figures were similar so no alarm raised until I checked them later and realised my mistake. Took a bit of sorting out!

I know two people in their senior years who struggle to physically read their meters. One has the benefit of a smart meter, the other doesn't, as he lives in a flat and smart meters can't be installed. He reads it by lying on the floor in the meter cupboard, holding a torch.

EssexHebridean

See also "until your supplier manages to transpose your day and night readings" - happened to us twice now and is invariably a pain in the tubes to sort out! 

And yes - the point made above about SM's being a blessing for those less able for what every reason to actually take the readings themselves is an important one - for someone elderly and unable to crawl around in a meter cupboard, or blind and simply unable to see the readings themselves, it gives them far great independence as asking someone to do check readings every 3 - 4 months feels far less "demanding" than asking someone to take readings once a month. 

Chrysalis

casjen said:

Smart meters are totally pointless. In this digital age sending the readings over your phone/pc every month ensures both, you know the company has got them and B they are accurate. The don't save you any money whatsoever.  Just digital junk.

I see this thread is going in the direction of facebook and co.

When you are disabled and struggle to reach a meter to read it or its perhaps locked away its far from pointless, when you have to remember to read its far from pointless.

When you can see time of day data its far from pointless.

Now to absolutely kill your point dead, when you can save money on TOU and tracker tariffs they can save you money not to mention help people discover rogue power guzzlers when combined with an IHD to read live data.

Oh and when you in dispute with your supplier over what energy you using, smart meters can be absolutely invaluable, I expect I wouldnt have got my large rebate without it, and would also have struggled to get my supplier to reduce their inflated DD without it as well.