How would I go about getting a pay as you go electricity meter replaced with a normal billed meter? 30 January at 11:04PM in Energy 71 replies 1.8K views

deano2099

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Here's where the inherent contradiction in these arguments comes in. It essentially boils down to "Energy companies will do everything they can to charge me as much as possible. But if I stay on a dumb meter, they'll leave me alone."

There's two options here. Either the energy companies behave ethically and fairly, and those with smart meters can access ToU tariffs, and those without just pay a single rate based on an estimate of when usage occurs. In this case, your argument does make sense *if* you have a very odd energy usage pattern. Maybe you work nights or something. If you use more energy at peak times and less at off peak times, you might end up better off than you would be on a ToU tariff. But you lose the flexibility of altering your energy usage times.
Also though, if the energy companies offer such an averaged, dumb meter tariff, and are behaving ethically, it follows that they would offer that non-ToU tariff to those on smart meters also. After all, it's a fair tariff, they're not making more or less money on average from it, so why wouldn't they?

The alternative is the "energy companies are evil" option. Here they are trying to get as much money out of you as possible. If you use a smart meter, they could charge you more for using energy during peak times ,yes. But if you don't have one, they can't. But what makes you think they would then treat you fairly, if you opted to remain on a dumb meter? What makes you think they wouldn't weight the cost of the dumb meter tariff on the basis that it's harder to administrate and they can't see your usage patterns, so have to assume a larger proportion of your energy is peak usage? Especially once everyone has been offered a smart meter and those that don't have one declined. Why would they decline? "Well regulators, many of them have declined because they're heavy peak-time users, and know it'll cost them more in the long term. So when we estimate average peak-usage for dumb meter users, we have to assume it's well above the national average"

Some people seem to think in the future, the cost of electricity will be X, and those with smart meters will pay X+50 during peak hours, whereas as those without smart meters will just get to pay X all day. It won't happen. The reality is the energy company will charge those on dumb meters a figure somewhere between X and X+50 all day. Whether you think that figure is closer to X+10 or X+40 will depend on how fair and ethically you think the energy companies will act.

deano2099

EssexHebridean said:

There have always been issues with meters giving false readings - those occasional issues won’t  go away with smart meters sadly because nothing is infallible. They are very rare though. Ultimately the same checks can be carried out on SM’s as on traditional meters too - and if the meter is recording incorrectly this should be established by the testing. I’m afraid this situation is always going to be an utter pain to try to deal with regardless of meter type involved. I do understand your reticence however in the circumstances. 

It's actually far easier to spot weird and incorrect readings with a smart meter. I think it's probably true we're seeing more faulty smart meters than dumb meters, but that's because people are noticing it.

If I read the meter once a month, and my usage seems a bit higher than I'd have expected, I probably assume it was me just using more than I thought.

But if I go look at my smart meter readings and daily usage for the month, and see that on alternating days my usage is twice as high as the other days, I can immediately see something is wrong (if I know my usage is mostly consistent).

And also many people trust them less because it's "technology" - they assume their old analogue meter must be correct because how could that go wrong? But computers are always breaking so the smart meters are more likely to be faulty. So more issues get flagged up.

deano2099

diystarter7 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Hiya
Exactly that, thanks!

I recall diesel cars being bigged up our honest government. As soon as diesel cars took off based on lies, ie better for the environment/etc, diesel started becoming more expensive than petrol for the first time I could recall them being much more expensive.

The difference here is that smart meters can do everything a dumb meter can, and more. It's like if the diesel cars were all also able to run safely on petrol anyway. 
Any tariff offered to a dumb meter user, can be offered to a smart meter user. This isn't true the other way around.
Now it's theoretically possible that some energy companies may refuse to offer the dumb meter tariffs to those on a smart meter. Just like it would have been theoretically possible for petrol stations to refuse to sell petrol to those with hybrid diesel/petrol cars.

But given that the push for smart meters is coming from the government, through the regulator, I would expect them to insist on dumb meter tariffs being available to everyone.

And if you're thinking "well that means the dumb meter tariffs will suck, as if they were any good, everyone would go for them" then you're absolutely right.

Qyburn

The_Green_Hornet said:

Qyburn said:

Do you mind me asking, which government and in what exact way?.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-41985715

Thanks. So that's really an absence of any penalty for Diesel rather than incentives. Although company car tax did penalise Diesel, VED did not.

Looks like a bit of rewriting history, for example another BBC article refers to basing VED on CO2 emission as "lower vehicle tax for diesel cars".

diystarter7

deano2099 said:

diystarter7 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Hiya
Exactly that, thanks!

I recall diesel cars being bigged up our honest government. As soon as diesel cars took off based on lies, ie better for the environment/etc, diesel started becoming more expensive than petrol for the first time I could recall them being much more expensive.

The difference here is that smart meters can do everything a dumb meter can, and more. It's like if the diesel cars were all also able to run safely on petrol anyway. 
Any tariff offered to a dumb meter user, can be offered to a smart meter user. This isn't true the other way around.
Now it's theoretically possible that some energy companies may refuse to offer the dumb meter tariffs to those on a smart meter. Just like it would have been theoretically possible for petrol stations to refuse to sell petrol to those with hybrid diesel/petrol cars.

But given that the push for smart meters is coming from the government, through the regulator, I would expect them to insist on dumb meter tariffs being available to everyone.

And if you're thinking "well that means the dumb meter tariffs will suck, as if they were any good, everyone would go for them" then you're absolutely right.

Hi

The term "dumb" meter is not nice or required as the meters can easily be described as the nnew gen 2 smart, E7 or the old meters.

Secondly, even if you insist it that  the standard meter is a "dumb" meter- then you are also using the term incorrectly as this does not genrally refer to the standard/lod meter but one as often posted here messes up.

I won't have a smart meter fro reasons stated as the time will soo come when those o smart meters during power shortages will be have to pay higher rates for peak hours and this will get approved.

The gov and suppliers are pushing for these meters not to help the customers but to help themselves. If they are sayig different, then ask yourself this, can the government and big business lie and you have your answer

You dont have to agree with me but I'm standing by that.

I'm also aware some people are happy with the smart meters but then agai some are happy wiht their old meters.

Re diesel vheicles, the public we fooled into thinking this fuel was greener - it was cheaper until there were a lot more of diesel vehicles on the roads and you know what happened next.


I don't mind change and often for it but not when the suppliers and the gov is taking the mick and telling me its for my benefit.

Thanks

GingerTim

diystarter7 said:

deano2099 said:

diystarter7 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Hiya
Exactly that, thanks!

I recall diesel cars being bigged up our honest government. As soon as diesel cars took off based on lies, ie better for the environment/etc, diesel started becoming more expensive than petrol for the first time I could recall them being much more expensive.

The difference here is that smart meters can do everything a dumb meter can, and more. It's like if the diesel cars were all also able to run safely on petrol anyway. 
Any tariff offered to a dumb meter user, can be offered to a smart meter user. This isn't true the other way around.
Now it's theoretically possible that some energy companies may refuse to offer the dumb meter tariffs to those on a smart meter. Just like it would have been theoretically possible for petrol stations to refuse to sell petrol to those with hybrid diesel/petrol cars.

But given that the push for smart meters is coming from the government, through the regulator, I would expect them to insist on dumb meter tariffs being available to everyone.

And if you're thinking "well that means the dumb meter tariffs will suck, as if they were any good, everyone would go for them" then you're absolutely right.

Hi

The term "dumb" meter is not nice or required as the meters can easily be described as the nnew gen 2 smart, E7 or the old meters.

Secondly, even if you insist it that  the standard meter is a "dumb" meter- then you are also using the term incorrectly as this does not genrally refer to the standard/lod meter but one as often posted here messes up.

I won't have a smart meter fro reasons stated as the time will soo come when those o smart meters during power shortages will be have to pay higher rates for peak hours and this will get approved.

The gov and suppliers are pushing for these meters not to help the customers but to help themselves. If they are sayig different, then ask yourself this, can the government and big business lie and you have your answer

You dont have to agree with me but I'm standing by that.

I'm also aware some people are happy with the smart meters but then agai some are happy wiht their old meters.

Re diesel vheicles, the public we fooled into thinking this fuel was greener - it was cheaper until there were a lot more of diesel vehicles on the roads and you know what happened next.


I don't mind change and often for it but not when the suppliers and the gov is taking the mick and telling me its for my benefit.

Thanks

The latter half of @deano2009's post at the top of the page responds to the bolded part of your post:

deano2099 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Here's where the inherent contradiction in these arguments comes in. It essentially boils down to "Energy companies will do everything they can to charge me as much as possible. But if I stay on a dumb meter, they'll leave me alone."

There's two options here. Either the energy companies behave ethically and fairly, and those with smart meters can access ToU tariffs, and those without just pay a single rate based on an estimate of when usage occurs. In this case, your argument does make sense *if* you have a very odd energy usage pattern. Maybe you work nights or something. If you use more energy at peak times and less at off peak times, you might end up better off than you would be on a ToU tariff. But you lose the flexibility of altering your energy usage times.
Also though, if the energy companies offer such an averaged, dumb meter tariff, and are behaving ethically, it follows that they would offer that non-ToU tariff to those on smart meters also. After all, it's a fair tariff, they're not making more or less money on average from it, so why wouldn't they?

The alternative is the "energy companies are evil" option. Here they are trying to get as much money out of you as possible. If you use a smart meter, they could charge you more for using energy during peak times ,yes. But if you don't have one, they can't. But what makes you think they would then treat you fairly, if you opted to remain on a dumb meter? What makes you think they wouldn't weight the cost of the dumb meter tariff on the basis that it's harder to administrate and they can't see your usage patterns, so have to assume a larger proportion of your energy is peak usage? Especially once everyone has been offered a smart meter and those that don't have one declined. Why would they decline? "Well regulators, many of them have declined because they're heavy peak-time users, and know it'll cost them more in the long term. So when we estimate average peak-usage for dumb meter users, we have to assume it's well above the national average"

Some people seem to think in the future, the cost of electricity will be X, and those with smart meters will pay X+50 during peak hours, whereas as those without smart meters will just get to pay X all day. It won't happen. The reality is the energy company will charge those on dumb meters a figure somewhere between X and X+50 all day. Whether you think that figure is closer to X+10 or X+40 will depend on how fair and ethically you think the energy companies will act.

macman

Emily_Joy said:

macman said:

Emily_Joy said:

macman said: The anxiety induced by the prospect of prices rising at peak time is going to be much less than the anxiety induced by the prospect of load-shedding being a regular feature of life once the grid cannot match demand. We came close to that only last week.

The way to tackle this would be to look at office buildings first. I know for a fact that many facilities that keep light on all night when nobody is around.

Agreed, but around 80% of energy is used for heating and hot water. Switching off unwanted lights should of course be done, but it's not going to contribute much to preventing load shedding. 

They also keep heating on all night

Then the companies involved will be getting huge commercial tariff bills this winter, and have every incentive to do something about it. Residential bills have increased far less because of greater gov't intervention.
But this really doesn't have anything to do with TOU tariffs. Office heating being on all day and night doesn't cause any excess grid load. What causes problems are the surges when everyone gets home, puts the kettle on, oven on, heating on etc. around the same time.

EssexHebridean

macman said:

Emily_Joy said:

macman said:

Emily_Joy said:

macman said: The anxiety induced by the prospect of prices rising at peak time is going to be much less than the anxiety induced by the prospect of load-shedding being a regular feature of life once the grid cannot match demand. We came close to that only last week.

The way to tackle this would be to look at office buildings first. I know for a fact that many facilities that keep light on all night when nobody is around.

Agreed, but around 80% of energy is used for heating and hot water. Switching off unwanted lights should of course be done, but it's not going to contribute much to preventing load shedding. 

They also keep heating on all night

Then the companies involved will be getting huge commercial tariff bills this winter, and have every incentive to do something about it. Residential bills have increased far less because of greater gov't intervention.
But this really doesn't have anything to do with TOU tariffs. Office heating being on all day and night doesn't cause any excess grid load. What causes problems are the surges when everyone gets home, puts the kettle on, oven on, heating on etc. around the same time.

The commercial breaks in major football matches, and during peak storylines, the ones in Coronation Street have both in the past been described as causing surges too haven't they. All those high draw appliances in use at once!

Spoonie_Turtle

diystarter7 said:

deano2099 said:

diystarter7 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Hiya
Exactly that, thanks!

I recall diesel cars being bigged up our honest government. As soon as diesel cars took off based on lies, ie better for the environment/etc, diesel started becoming more expensive than petrol for the first time I could recall them being much more expensive.

The difference here is that smart meters can do everything a dumb meter can, and more. It's like if the diesel cars were all also able to run safely on petrol anyway. 
Any tariff offered to a dumb meter user, can be offered to a smart meter user. This isn't true the other way around.
Now it's theoretically possible that some energy companies may refuse to offer the dumb meter tariffs to those on a smart meter. Just like it would have been theoretically possible for petrol stations to refuse to sell petrol to those with hybrid diesel/petrol cars.

But given that the push for smart meters is coming from the government, through the regulator, I would expect them to insist on dumb meter tariffs being available to everyone.

And if you're thinking "well that means the dumb meter tariffs will suck, as if they were any good, everyone would go for them" then you're absolutely right.

The term "dumb" meter is not nice or required as the meters can easily be described as the nnew gen 2 smart, E7 or the old meters.

It's an accepted convention to make the distinction between appliances that have smart functions and those that don't.  If you use it to refer to a person (or an idea) it's a slur, but for electronics it's been the accepted terminology since smartphones became available, if not before.

GingerTim

Spoonie_Turtle said:

diystarter7 said:

deano2099 said:

diystarter7 said:

Scorpio33 said:

Currently it may be true that the tarrifs are more expensive for a non-smart meter, but there is nothing saying that will be the case long term. Even if it was, I'm not sure that outweighs the other disadvantages. That is to say that even if I accept that it will be cheaper on a smart meter, in my opinion, that doesn't make up for the other issues.

I currently pay 34.23p/kWh for Electricity and 10.46p/kWh for Gas.

Hiya
Exactly that, thanks!

I recall diesel cars being bigged up our honest government. As soon as diesel cars took off based on lies, ie better for the environment/etc, diesel started becoming more expensive than petrol for the first time I could recall them being much more expensive.

The difference here is that smart meters can do everything a dumb meter can, and more. It's like if the diesel cars were all also able to run safely on petrol anyway. 
Any tariff offered to a dumb meter user, can be offered to a smart meter user. This isn't true the other way around.
Now it's theoretically possible that some energy companies may refuse to offer the dumb meter tariffs to those on a smart meter. Just like it would have been theoretically possible for petrol stations to refuse to sell petrol to those with hybrid diesel/petrol cars.

But given that the push for smart meters is coming from the government, through the regulator, I would expect them to insist on dumb meter tariffs being available to everyone.

And if you're thinking "well that means the dumb meter tariffs will suck, as if they were any good, everyone would go for them" then you're absolutely right.

The term "dumb" meter is not nice or required as the meters can easily be described as the nnew gen 2 smart, E7 or the old meters.

It's an accepted convention to make the distinction between appliances that have smart functions and those that don't.  If you use it to refer to a person (or an idea) it's a slur, but for electronics it's been the accepted terminology since smartphones became available, if not before.

As far back as 1976 in relation to computers, as per the OED: