Octopus insisting we have a smart meter

ApolloHubble

Octopus keeps insisting our meter will stop working soon and we need a smart meter. What will happen if we don't agree?

MeteredOut

Short term, likely nothing - you can put them off for quite a while.

Long term, if your meter passes its certification date and you still refuse, they can get a court order and terminate your electricity supply. Unlikely you'd ever let it come to that, but possible.

Is there a specific reason you don't want a smart meter? With a smart tariff, my whole of house electricity tariff has averaged around 13.5p/kWh for the past year.

la531983

Also short term they could take you off whatever fixed rate you are on (if applicable and if the terms of that fix mean you have to have a smart meter) and place you on the likely more expensive standard rate.

QrizB

I see today's RTS thread has arrived

@ApolloHubble you'll find a dozen or so recent threads about radio teleswitch (RTS) meters of you browse the recent pages of this forum. They'll answer most of your questions.

RedFraggle

Are you on economy 7

mmmmikey

ApolloHubble said:

Octopus keeps insisting our meter will stop working soon and we need a smart meter. What will happen if we don't agree?

The law requires Octopus to fit a replacement meter. If you don't agree then you'll be responsible for a lot of unnecessary time and effort on Octopus's part hassling you mercilessly to get one which has a cost associated with it. Ultimately that will find it's way to other customers bills by way of increased standing charges. Realistically it won't happen, but in a just society you would be branded an antisocial anarchist and shunned by your friends. So best just get one installed  

On a more serious note there's been an awful lot of bad information about smart meters on the internet and in reality the benefits now massively outweigh any downside. If you have any concerns, just ask....

Qyburn

ApolloHubble said:

Octopus keeps insisting our meter will stop working soon and we need a smart meter. What will happen if we don't agree?

Nobody knows how every single installation will behave. Your wording "our meter will stop working" suggests they think you have an RTS meter. If you do there are almost endless possibilities, some of which could possibly be discounted if you describe your meter(s), tariff, heating system.

Newbie_John

If you're on Eco7/Eco10 tariff then it will simply stop working and you'll pay higher rate at night.

If your meter is very old it may be overcharging you as it may not be working correctly.
You lose all the perks of smart meter:
-access to TOU tariffs
-better understanding of electricity costs - you'd be able to tell how much each setting on dishwasher/washing machine cost
-ease of finding faulty devices
-unable to take part in savings sessions

It really is like not willing to switch from landline to mobile phone, short term you not losing anything - you can still make calls - but one day you won't be able to.

Gerry1

Newbie_John said:

If you're on Eco7/Eco10 tariff then it will simply stop working and you'll pay higher rate at night.

Wrong and wrong again.

Your digital watch won't suddenly stop working if you don't set it by the Greenwich pips. Nor will it tell you it's permanent daytime.

Your RTS E7/E10 will behave similarly, just as it did when Droitwich went off the air because of a failure or maintenance.

It might be a minute out by Christmas (except that the switch-off will have been extended to the end of the year, and probably into 2026 as well).

Ildhund

I don't think you can justify this, Gerry. There are almost as many different RTS configurations as there are RTS customers. The RTS will not necessarily store any sort of schedule: in its simplest form, it receives a signal to switch on and does nothing else until it receives another one to switch off. When the signal stops being broadcast on 30 June, this simple RTS just won't do anything. Others may have a fail-safe mechanism, e.g. if no signal is received for 24 hours, switch off. Or possibly, but perhaps less likely, on. I've said it before: no-one knows what will happen with any particular RTS.  

MikeJXE

ApolloHubble said:

Octopus keeps insisting our meter will stop working soon and we need a smart meter. What will happen if we don't agree?

To be honest I can’t see what the problem is 

I have been with Octopus since I moved in 2 years ago and was getting similar messages which I ignored until they said my certification had ran out so I set up a smart meter install, It went very well except couldn’t do the gas as too far way. 

It didn’t bother me as I had always submitted readings on the 1st of the month and I still do that for both 

Octopus started billing me for electric on the anniversary of fitting the smart meter which I didn’t like as it messed up my spreadsheet 

A simple email to Octopus to explain my situation and they agreed to bill me on my readings of 1st of the month 

I can’t fault Octopus Energy