Everyone seems to want to shove you onto a smart meter

chris73 wrote: »

My reasons for not having a Smart Meter are two fold, firstly down to the risk that we may see a 'tiered' electricity charge introduced, where we are penalised with a higher rate tariff during periods of high demand, such as in the Evenings, or during sudden colder periods in the Winter months, when the grid is stretched or more generation has to be brought online or when there is no wind for the wind turbines!.

I believe such a system is already implemented in some other Countries, where they pay more for the Electricity used during high demand periods such as 5PM than say, 10AM when demand is lower.

This type of charging works a bit like Economy 7 does at the moment with peak / off-peak periods, but more of them, spread out during different periods of the day, so between 7AM and 3PM and 9PM - 11PM you might be charged 12p per kw/h but between 3pm and 9pm that may increase to 17p per kw/h. It may not even be that structured, different tiers could be remotely kicked in at will by the Grid or Energy Companies in relation to the real time demand.

Since I work full time, the majority of my energy is used when i'm at home during the Evenings, and so why should I be effectively penalised with higher energy costs for working for a living, and being at work when energy is cheaper?. I'm also not keen on leaving washing machines / tumble dryers timed for use during the night or when the house is unoccupied in order to take advantage of any planned cheaper periods, due to the very real and media documented fire risk.

Some may say, that tiered tariffs will never happen but nobody on this forum or even the energy companies themselves will give you a written guarantee of this, but one thing is certain, if they are introduced the one thing which will be needed to do it will be meters which can read multiple tariffs and smart meters can do this, as we have a 'seasonal' meter at work which log can units of Electricity used, during Winter / Summer months and Weekday / Weekend periods and charge different rates accordingly!.

There is no way that multiple tariffs can be logged with a single tariff digital credit meter, and no chance whatsoever with the older spinning wheel / dial type meters, so if there is even a 5% chance of multiple tiered tariffs being introduced at some point in the future then I would prefer to reduce that 5% risk down further to 0% by keeping an old school dumb meter, and take my chances on any legacy tariff.

chris73 wrote: »

They have also got to somehow claw back the £27 Billion loss of duty and VAT revenue as more and more people stop buying petrol and diesel in favour of using Electric Cars, I suspect that one way that this will be done is by increasing the VAT levied on Energy from the current 5% on domestic use to the full 20% on the Energy used by the Car Charging system and log two different readings - domestic and car use with different rates of VAT on each. There is no chance that Electric Car owners will still be charging their cars for 12p / 13p per KW/H as they do currently when this shortfall has to be addressed, as its being kept cheap in order to entice people to changeover - just like they did with diesel cars back in the day, and I can see a point eventually where those with Electric Cars will look back fondly on their ICE cars of yesterday and reminisce about how much cheaper they were to run.

The second reason for not wanting a smart meter is because its what the Glubberment want us to do. If you believe that the Politicians really do get up in the morning and only act in the best interests of 66 million complete strangers then you are deluded! because they aren't Saints or your Mum!, and so if something is rolled out and sold to you as being in our best interests then suspect the complete opposite!.

We have also not had the cost of rolling out these Smart Meters added to our bills yet, which no doubt will be another treat in store in the coming year or so.