Smart Meters
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So, start by replacing those meters which are difficult to access, or do as the Germans are doing and target the higher consumers.House_Martin wrote: »If anything in the world needs automating its an old analogue meter buried away behind the washing machine.
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I have the experience of 20 years battling my way to try and get to meters where the occupiers have never ventured in years to know the truth.You can t possibly have any experience of my job, nor me yours, whatever that was
The problem with the smart meter programme is it is setting out to achieve 100% take up and because of the way people always work to targets, the energy companies are picking the low-hanging fruit regardless of need. Conning little old ladies into having a smart meter fitted 'because they have to' or that it will 'save you money' is a scandal.
And how many years will the Sangamo Weston analogue meter go on accurately recording consumption without needing any maintenance work? A quick once over when its certification expires and it is good to go for another 10 or 20 years.House_Martin wrote: »There is nothing as nicely made as an electric meter as an old Sangamo Weston dial meter. Its so complex and expensive to make compared to an IC stamped out in seconds in South Korea for the innards of an electric smart meter but its certainly more reliable. I ve only found one faulty in 20 years
Meanwhile, a box of electronics has a limited lifespan and is rarely repairable when things go wrong. And if 'stamping out' IC's (by no means the only components required) is so cheap, why are smart meters so expensive? You also conveniently ignore the costs involved in setting up and maintaining the data transmission and storage networks."In the future, everyone will be rich for 15 minutes"1 -
HiSo, start by replacing those meters which are difficult to access, or do as the Germans are doing and target the higher consumers.
The problem with the smart meter programme is it is setting out to achieve 100% take up and because of the way people always work to targets, the energy companies are picking the low-hanging fruit regardless of need. Conning little old ladies into having a smart meter fitted 'because they have to' or that it will 'save you money' is a scandal.
And how many years will the Sangamo Weston analogue meter go on accurately recording consumption without needing any maintenance work? A quick once over when its certification expires and it is good to go for another 10 or 20 years.
Meanwhile, a box of electronics has a limited lifespan and is rarely repairable when things go wrong. And if 'stamping out' IC's (by no means the only components required) is so cheap, why are smart meters so expensive? You also conveniently ignore the costs involved in setting up and maintaining the data transmission and storage networks.
Couple of points spring to mind in support of the above ...
Germany seems to be applying the EU directive as it is written, this is exactly what I meant in the earlier post ... the UK Government/DECC/BEIS/Ofgem have simply 'gold plated' some pretty straightforward and sensible points which were meant to help promote energy efficiency, likely having taken weighted consideration of the UK energy sectors views without taking regard of their vested interests as other countries have.
The EU directive itself doesn't require 100% coverage of smart-meters, it doesn't even require the 80% target which the UK seems to be so obsessed with ... the target to aim for is 80% of those assessed to benefit (in terms of cost benefit analysis/potential energy saving) from having a smart meter ... it's obvious to anyone outside vested interest & government circles, target those who would need or benefit from having the technology, so that's what we should be doing .... a 'one-off' targetted & limited scope special project to roll out the technology, costing a fraction of what we're spending then leave it to the industry to replace all other meters within the standard replacement cycle which we all pay for anyway.
I agree that the way that smart-meters are 'sold' is a scandal as smart-meters cannot by themselves save anyone anything ... just look at the number of complaints/comments we're starting to see mentioning this ... just think what the situation would be if the cost of supply/installation hit the energy bills as a line item up-front & not hidden over many years through amortisation & claimed to be 'free' or 'no cost' ... trading standards &the ASA would have a field-day, as it is they don't even seem to be awake!
Costs ? ... £500+/household for meters which cost a mere fraction of that with overheads hardly changing, so it comes down to direct labout at an inflated hourly rate & piggybacking an existing data network - someone, somewhere is making a LOT of money!
Decent background info to above on smart-meter roll-out which everyone should take note of here - Smart Metering - (1). Introduction: What's it all about ?
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle
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The last paragraph of the above link re-inforces what some of us having been saying for months (if not years):
Quote: Installation Consensus
General consensus amongst many technical groups and sources at the moment seems to be for those definitely interested in having smart-meters installed to allow the SMET2 standards and early supply batches to settle and allow installers to run-down delivery commitments and stocks of SMETS1 units which are not fully compliant. Unquote
FWIW, usage monitoring can be useful. I have a £25 ‘Silver Dot’ monitor that records gas usage every 15 minutes. My boiler is Opentherm controlled and graphing usage this Winter has shown that turning down the thermostat if I am out and about for LESS than 3 hours results in me using more gas than if I had left the heating at it’s daily target temperature. I am not trying to open up a debate about the pros and cons of turning or not turning down heating: what I am saying is that for my boiler; my heating system and my boiler controls, the cost of getting my property back up to temperature exceeds the cost of keeping it at the same set temperature. Other boilers; heating controls and homes etc may well give a different result.
Sadly, nothing that smart meters offer today will give me similar usage information in a graphical form.0 -
99.9999999 lol % of energy users could nt give a monkeys about GRAPHS recording the ups and down of energy meter usage s.If it keeps you happy, then thats good,The last paragraph of the above link re-inforces what some of us having been saying for months (if not years):
Quote: Installation Consensus
General consensus amongst many technical groups and sources at the moment seems to be for those definitely interested in having smart-meters installed to allow the SMET2 standards and early supply batches to settle and allow installers to run-down delivery commitments and stocks of SMETS1 units which are not fully compliant. Unquote
FWIW, usage monitoring can be useful. I have a £25 ‘Silver Dot’ monitor that records gas usage every 15 minutes. My boiler is Opentherm controlled and graphing usage this Winter has shown that turning down the thermostat if I am out and about for LESS than 3 hours results in me using more gas than if I had left the heating at it’s daily target temperature. I am not trying to open up a debate about the pros and cons of turning or not turning down heating: what I am saying is that for my boiler; my heating system and my boiler controls, the cost of getting my property back up to temperature exceeds the cost of keeping it at the same set temperature. Other boilers; heating controls and homes etc may well give a different result.
Sadly, nothing that smart meters offer today will give me similar usage information in a graphical form.
They are only interested in one thing..How much ! and smart meters will get the correct answer..correct 100% of the time and banish the hated word "estimate " from a bill forever.0 -
House_Martin wrote: »99.9999 % of energy users could nt give a monkeys about graphs recording the ups and down of energy meters.If it keeps you happy, then thats good
They are only interested in one thing..How much ! and smart meters will get the correct answer..correct 100% of the time and banish the hated word "estimate " from a bill forever.
That could be achieved with a £25 Silver dot meter reader that doesn’t require anything more than an internet connection and 2 AA batteries.0 -
Targeting any group, high users, suspect fiddlers, hard to access etc is a very inefficient way of replacing meters.So, start by replacing those meters which are difficult to access, or do as the Germans are doing and target the higher consumers.
The problem with the smart meter programme is it is setting out to achieve 100% take up and because of the way people always work to targets, the energy companies are picking the low-hanging fruit regardless of need. Conning little old ladies into having a smart meter fitted 'because they have to' or that it will 'save you money' is a scandal.
And how many years will the Sangamo Weston analogue meter go on accurately recording consumption without needing any maintenance work? A quick once over when its certification expires and it is good to go for another 10 or 20 years.
Meanwhile, a box of electronics has a limited lifespan and is rarely repairable when things go wrong. And if 'stamping out' IC's (by no means the only components required) is so cheap, why are smart meters so expensive? You also conveniently ignore the costs involved in setting up and maintaining the data transmission and storage networks.
Our local DNO s usually run the meter replacements but some government idjit had a brainwave and said lets make the smart meter roll cost 11 billion instead of a fraction of that by getting all these different suppliers, over 50 of them to flit about installing one meter in a town, then another in another town 25 miles away then drive back 50 miles to a depot then go home.
When the local DNO s replaced all the old paper token prepayment electric meters for key meters they swarmed down the same streets replacing everyones meter regardless of who the supplier was.The whole project was over in a year or two.
Then they withdrew all the token cards to flush out the fiddlers, oddballs and weirdos who would nt allow access to their flea pits..job done.
That is how to do it !
We don`t need to copy the Germans except in their attitude to efficiency .
Secure Liberty smart meters are not expensive, approx 2500 Indian Rupees each, less bought in bulk numbers0 -
HiHouse_Martin wrote: »Targeting any group, high users, suspect fiddlers, hard to access etc is a very inefficient way of replacing meters.
Our local DNO s usually run the meter replacements but some government idjit had a brainwave and said lets make the smart meter roll cost 11 billion instead of a fraction of that by getting all these different suppliers, over 50 of them to flit about installing one meter in a town, then another in another town 25 miles away then drive back 50 miles to a depot then go home.
When the local DNO s replaced all the old paper token prepayment electric meters for key meters they swarmed down the same streets replacing everyones meter regardless of who the supplier was.The whole project was over in a year or two.
Then they withdrew all the token cards to flush out the fiddlers, oddballs and weirdos who would nt allow access to their flea pits..job done.
That is how to do it !
We don`t need to copy the Germans except in their attitude to efficiency .
Secure Liberty smart meters are not expensive, approx 2500 Indian Rupees each, less bought in bulk numbers
Targetting ... a blanket roll-out makes absolutely no sense at all - replacing perfectly good & serviceable meters where the technology isn't a priority simply pads out the roll-out for everyone and ensures that the project ends-up costing a fortune in sub-contracting costs ... identify (that's what the EU required all member states to complete years ago), target (also the EU intent) and roll-out to 80% of households which would/could benefit before a deadline ... that's all that needed to be done in the initial 'special expenditure project' phase, the remaining installations could be done for no additional cost within existing replacement schedules as necessary.
£11billion ? ... check out the costing history in the article referenced previously - it's likely to be much more that that! ... anyway, the government simply consulted the energy industry & assisted in the project cost estimates, if they choose to run the project inefficiently it's down to the project managers within the industry itself - if there's anyone to take the flack it's the industry, DECC/BEIS & Ofgem are simply playing 'naive' pawns being taken advantage of, before ranking individuals being offered lucrative 'revolving door' positions later in their career development! ...
Regarding meter costs mentioned, that's in the ball park of what you'd expect to pay, but likely towards the top-end, after all what would a solid-state meter and a basic mobile phone cost in bulk .. that's all they are!
HTH
Z"We are what we repeatedly do, excellence then is not an act, but a habit. " ...... Aristotle1 -
House_Martin wrote: »They are only interested in one thing..How much !
Absolutely, and it would cost less if they weren't paying for the fitting of smart meters which they are variously being told are 'free' and 'at no extra cost'."In the future, everyone will be rich for 15 minutes"1 -
But in my experience, estimates - along with direct debit charges - tend to work in favour of the energy company.House_Martin wrote: »99.9999 % of energy users could nt give a monkeys about graphs recording the ups and down of energy meters.If it keeps you happy, then thats good
They are only interested in one thing..How much ! and smart meters will get the correct answer..correct 100% of the time and banish the hated word "estimate " from a bill forever.0 -
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