EDF Energy - Smart Gas Meters Not Suitable for Purpose?

Peter77777

I recently (after many months of trying) had my Smets 1 smart meters upgraded to Smets 2 by EDF.  I'm grateful for this.  The Smets 1 meters were installed by a previous supplier (British Gas) after I expressly asked them not to fit the meters unless they were Smets 2. 

After the new meters were installed by EDF, I discovered an issue.  I'm not getting any readings from the gas meter.  According to my conversations with EDF customer support, the gas meters may fail to communicate if they are installed more than about 5 metres from the electricity meters, or if there are walls between them.

Surely this makes the gas meters unfit for purpose?

According to EDF, this is not their fault but is due to the limitations of the current technology.

I'm bamboozled.

I'll need to investigate whether an alternative supplier has a set-up that solves the issue. 

 

Meanwhile, if anyone from EDF has an alternative solution, or wants to refute their previous advice, please feel free to post here.

MattMattMattUK

Peter77777 said:

I recently (after many months of trying) had my Smets 1 smart meters upgraded to Smets 2 by EDF.  I'm grateful for this.  The Smets 1 meters were installed by a previous supplier (British Gas) after I expressly asked them not to fit the meters unless they were Smets 2. 

After the new meters were installed by EDF, I discovered an issue.  I'm not getting any readings from the gas meter.  According to my conversations with EDF customer support, the gas meters may fail to communicate if they are installed more than about 5 metres from the electricity meters, or if there are walls between them.

Surely this makes the gas meters unfit for purpose?

According to EDF, this is not their fault but is due to the limitations of the current technology.

I'm bamboozled.

I'll need to investigate whether an alternative supplier has a set-up that solves the issue. 

 

Meanwhile, if anyone from EDF has an alternative solution, or wants to refute their previous advice, please feel free to post here.

It does not make them unfit for purpose, they still work as meters.

No other supplier offers a different system, they all fit the same meters that connect to the same network, in reality for smart meters they energy suppliers are booking agents, they do not manage the specification, the hardware or the smart network. 

Solutions are being worked on and will be implemented, some are expected to trial next year, others may take longer. 

Largs

All I know is when they work, they are a good idea - when they don't work, they are a complete waste of time and space. 

I have just sent a complaint to EDF as my gas "smart" meter has stopped communicating.  I have had 3 engineers out, if you can call them that.  1st one looked at meter and said it was faulty - that he had stocks in his van, but if he swapped it his "stocks" would not balnace.  2nd 1 swapped a battery and left, and 3rd 1 yesterday swapped battery again and told me to refuse any more engineers if they call me again.   This was because I had said I have had to take 4 days of work over these visits.

It seems the suppliers are hell-bent to installing them due to fines the government impose but once they are in, support just isn't there.  They want to pause the priority of installing and get what has already been installed working properly if you ask me. 

What I do know is under "Standards of Service" the supplier must deal with a faulty meter report within 5 days or they need to pay £30 to the customer.  If they don't pay this within 10 days they owe you another £30.  I have put this to EDF in my letter, but no doubt they will come back and say there is no fault.

https://www.edfenergy.com/sites/default/files/r863_guide_to_service_standards_aw1_e5.pdf

Good luck!

Peter77777

Thank you for all your inspiring responses.

I believe that you can try to recommission the gas meter by yourself.

As soon as I get instructions on how to do this, I will let you know how I get on.

Rodders53

The issue is around the Comms hub in the leccy meter and the Home Area Network.
Dual Band might be required rather than single band.

https://www.smartme.co.uk/home-area-network.html

Additionally the geographical region may limit the type of Comms hub available...  South uses mobile network for LAN cf North using Arqiva's UHF version.

But check out exactly what model(s) of meters and comms module you have fitted first before chasing up EDF.

Ectophile

What I do know is under "Standards of Service" the supplier must deal with a faulty meter report within 5 days or they need to pay £30 to the customer.  If they don't pay this within 10 days they owe you another £30.  I have put this to EDF in my letter, but no doubt they will come back and say there is no fault.

It sounds like the meter is not faulty.  It's simply out of radio range from the comms hub, that us usually on top of the electricity meter.

A meter is only really faulty if it fails to record the gas usage, or in the case of some rogue meters, starts recording units of gas that haven't been used.