Meter change

Spoonie_Turtle

TomCanty said:

… I'm inclined to suspect that someone, somewhere is getting a lot more than their energy bills paid for by all this activity.

We are all paying for the smart meter rollout in our energy bills anyway whether we like it or not (I forget the average per household per year), so unless you have a complex metering setup and would lose an important legacy tariff*, you may as well get your money's worth and have one.

And I wonder if more knowledgeable members can enlighten me, do we have to keep on paying the longer the rollout takes?

*in which situations it is purely because suppliers choose not to support such tariffs via smart meters, nothing to do with the meters not being technically capable.  Heck, Octopus Agile is a smart tariff with a different price every 30mins and changes every day, so something like three different price periods that stay the same every day for e.g. Economy 10 is absolutely well within the technical capabilities of having a smart meter.  Just suppliers have chosen not to offer those kinds of tariffs beyond existing customers on older meters. 

BarelySentientAI

Scot_39 said:

It wasnt a personal attack - I have posted the headline rates - which actuallly came from a gov uk roll out update report not the media - and been shot down in flames by others for using them - listing on of more of the reasons.

Unlike many I tend to not listen to soundbites - or rust headlines - Govt, opposition or media alike - just thought as you have given interesting links on energy related topics in past posts - you might have more insight here too.

Completely get you - we're all confused where the Govt managed to get the numbers from (at least given what they claim it is measuring - truly faulty meters).  They seem to have done some sort of survey of meter operators to get them, but the source statistics are missing from many of the descriptions.

I sort of suspect that they came from the Q4 2023 Smart Meters Statistics Reports, because there's this paragraph in which the numbers look a little familiar:

"Of the 34.8 million smart and advanced meters operating in homes and small businesses at the end of 2023, 30.8 million were smart meters operating in smart mode or advanced meters. This now means that 54 per cent of all meters were smart in smart mode or advanced meters; with the remaining 4.0 million smart meters operating in traditional mode."

That report says that "traditional mode" includes (but is not exclusively) meters that are with suppliers that can't read them smartly (the SMETS1 supplier change issue), meters fitted where the comms network is not good enough, and meters in new-builds that are not yet occupied.  

The SMSR isn't talking about "faulty" meters at all, which could suggest that there's a different analysis somewhere of similar (or the same) source data from suppliers.

BarelySentientAI

Spoonie_Turtle said:

And I wonder if more knowledgeable members can enlighten me, do we have to keep on paying the longer the rollout takes?

At the moment, yes.  Whilst there are still meter installation targets, it is still planned to be included as recoverable costs - and the cost per meter installed has increased according to the last audit (from something like £170 per meter in the original plan to £230? per meter now).

Even afterwards, the cost of the DCC, upgrades, replacement of the comms when 2G/3G goes, etc will be included as OPEX in the price cap methodology.

It is, however, expected to be offset by a reduction in the network costs component because of better balancing, fault finding, system management etc, and by a reduction in consumption (their stats say between 2.2% and 3%).  That is still expected to be the case across the defined audit period (to 2034) even with more than 2 years delay in completion of roll-out (although the two figures are closing rapidly).

Scot_39

TomCanty said:

"Put it this way then.  There is about the same rate of actual legitimate problems with smart meters as there is with older meters, "

Well if the older models have about the same rate of problems as the smart meters why change them if the claim is that the new ones are almost perfect ? I'm perfectly happy with my old one which seems to be still working perfectly.

Since posting I read the small print at the bottom of the edf e-mail which contained these two paragraphs:

"^In line with current government regulation, we'll replace all old meters with a SMETS2 compliant smart meter. If you don't want a smart meter, we can install your new meter without activating the smart meter functionality, meaning that it'll only operate in the same way as your current meter."

"During installation we may identify that a smart meter isn't compatible with the current metering set up at your property. If this is the case, we’ll reinstall your existing meter and get in touch when we’re able to offer you a suitable smart meter."

OK, I understand that if I decline the smart meter function the new installation can be operated like the old meter but I'm not so sure about the second paragraph I quoted. If an old meter is at the end of its life and about to give up the ghost how comes it can be resuscitated if it transpires that a suitable replacement isn't available ? As this seems to be an option for all these meters it must indicate that there's plenty of life in all these old dogs. I know that I'm susceptible to conspiracy theories but if they're fixing things that aren't broken I'm inclined to suspect that someone, somewhere is getting a lot more than their energy bills paid for by all this activity.

Do please help a poor, stick-in-the-mud old man understand, BarelySentientA1 but see if you can do it in a less patronizing way.

Like anything somethings will fail or drift out of calibration slowly.
Others will fail completely.

If faced with no supply or old supply - most would I suspect prefer to risk the old meters for a little longer.

As to reasons why they might not fit.
The tariff you are on doesn't necessarily reflect the exact  metering setup - e7 can be dual or single metered, applied to rts or mechanical timeswitched analogue, digital or smart metering etc.

The meter MPAN or MPANs etc would give better clue - but until the meter fitter opens the cabinet- he doesn't know what they will find.

When EOn stopped supporting my RTS Heatwise it took 3 meter visits.

The first looked and said sorry don't recognise the setup and no idea how to modify to suit and left. 
The second looked, spent 10 min on phone to colleagues and again left not convinced he could do the change.
The third came from a different regional office c40miles away - opened the cabinet - said yes standard heatwise - this is what I'll be doing- and got one with the job. 

And generic emails wouldn't necessarily expect consumers to understand their metering.

There wasn't afaik a smets2 smart meter that could have supported my homes as built 3 independently controlled wiring circuits - 1 normal and 2 from rts meter for hw and nsh seperately  - originally EMEB Heatwise RTS.  The last 2 are now 1 parallel fed / controlled circuits.

Most suppliers will not offer my e10 tariff - despite from original smart meter spec -  any meter with alcs like for E7 smets2 - has the capacity to control and measure to it.  That's a choice - not a technical limitation and as Ofgem doesn't compell suppliers to offer it - they don't.

But suppliers like Ovo and SP etc have stated are working on solutions for more complex restricted metering setups.


There was a 7 port smets1 in the Secure Liberty series I found  that could have supported my old  3 circuits setup as well as other specials like THTC and a few others SP offered to all electric at build time.

wrf12345

Both meter types are allowed plus or minus three percent accuracy so the changeover may result in lower bills (in my case, hurrah!) or higher bills or most likely pretty much the same bills, worst case would be at the extremes, six percent higher or best case six percent lower, both quite unlikely, but worth bearing in mind. I did not want one either but having seen the tariffs that are on offer and the likelihood that going forward smart meters are going to be yet cheaper than std ones, I decided to let BG fit them when they "requested" compliance and happy enough with them, now with Octopus Agile (so saving on the s/c as the old one was locked in pre-April and the actual usage). I am on the internet a lot, anyway, and it is easy enough to keep an eye on energy usage (the in-house display went weird after a week, caused by the power adaptor connector but it can be run on batteries so I can slap them in when needed). If you want to change providers post smart meters then it is usually very quick, a couple of days rather than a week or two, another benefit.

400ixl

To keep it simple.

The replacement will do the minimum that the existing does. It will supply electricity and provide you with the ability the read how much on the meter unit itself. So zero loss in functionality, you can still read it, compare it to what your bills tell you and submit manual readings if you wish.

That in itself removes pretty much every objection to having one.

Then you start getting the benefits.
An IHD which allows you to see those readings without going to the meter and gives real time reading to allow you to optimise if you wish too.
Readings which are sent to the supplier every 30 minutes so you don't need to give readings (still worth validating them at bill time though)
Access to more tariffs aimed at specific use cases (e.g. EV car users) which means you can get cheaper electricity.
Access to cheaper electricity schemes suppliers run to avoid high use at certain times or cheaper rates when there is lower usage.

Yes, there are the odd cases where they can't be connected to the smart meter system, but that doesn't stop it working as the meter you have today.

If your meter is end of certifiable life then they have to change it. Make that process as easy as possible and enjoy the benefits. You will be no worse off if it runs as a dumb meter in the worst case.

SAC2334

Smart meters are not like a traditional meter . On the electric smart meter they have anti theft devices built in which detect and record and send information to supplier if the lower cover is removed which releases a carbon pad from touching contacts so it know s when its removed . Removing lower cover is the tradional way to bypass .The gas meter also has a sensor to detect when the gas meter is removed which is also the traditional way to steal gas 

 Similar device is in place   for the upper cover which houses the modem
.Suppliers will not completely shut down the modem as it needs OTA updates to function correctly , all they can do is say they will not use the meters relaying usage for auto billing and just rely on the occupant to send them in. 
On the plus side smart meters open up the way to cheaper smart tariffs from Octopus Energy such as Tracker , Agile and other tariffs designed for EV charging , solar panels and battery storage .

OP if you take the time to glance through the sections on Octopus Tracker and Octopus Agile you may be tempted to join us  and be very keen to get smart meters installed ASAP , like I and many others have on here .

BarelySentientAI

SAC2334 said:

Smart meters are not like a traditional meter . On the electric smart meter they have anti theft devices built in which detect and record and send information to supplier if the lower cover is removed which releases a carbon pad from touching contacts so it know s when its removed . Removing lower cover is the tradional way to bypass 

Who needs to do that if you have a spoon handy?

[Image removed by Forum Team]

SAC2334

BarelySentientAI said:

SAC2334 said:

Smart meters are not like a traditional meter . On the electric smart meter they have anti theft devices built in which detect and record and send information to supplier if the lower cover is removed which releases a carbon pad from touching contacts so it know s when its removed . Removing lower cover is the tradional way to bypass 

Who needs to do that if you have a spoon handy?

[Image removed by Forum Team]

Wow, I ve seen some lash ups but nothing as bad as that .a live spoon !. I think that photo will be deleted pretty soon 

MeteredOut

Will a fork work? Asking for a friend