Smart Meters

House_Martin wrote: »

They can fit the meter and "promise " to keep it in dumb mode with no live connection to the server.

Are you suggesting an energy company would promise to respect our wishes, then secretly start gathering data about us without telling us? As an 'industry insider' that revelation, if true, would be one for us to flag up to the national media.

House_Martin wrote: »

Ludicrous state of affairs which some idiot( Tory ) politician has foisted on the Utility industry, when even ED Miliband had made them mandatory in 2008
I see they did nt do it with my smart water meter !

Oh my dear friend HM. If you are going to post stuff, please make sure it is true and accurate. Not misleading like the Smart meter campaign.

Could you please indicate exactly what legislation Ed Miliband used to make Smart meters compulsory in every home? You do realise of course that citing Ed Miliband as a champion of something does not really do that thing much of a favour?

Is your water meter really 'Smart'? Or do you mean it has the capability for the meter reader to obtain the current register value without having to lift the meter cover and fish around in six inches of muddy water? A NFC water meter is not exactly 'smart' is it?

House_Martin wrote: »

Ovo will fit the Liberty Secure meter if and when your dumb meter comes to the end of its life.
They can fit the meter and "promise " to keep it in dumb mode with no live connection to the server.
This will cover them when the government realise what a mess they have done allowing Joe Public a say-so in what type of utility, which the suppliers own, are installed in their properties.
Or it could start to operate smart, when the occupier gets smart and "allows it "
Ludicrous state of affairs which some idiot( Tory ) politician has foisted on the Utility industry, when even ED Miliband had made them mandatory in 2008
I see they did nt do it with my smart water meter !

Hi

However, in doing so the utility industry will accept that they will not be able to access or charge the customer under the Smart-metering scheme and therefore lose additional revenue at a rate of at least £500/household.

Now, logically, this is the very same industry that has been billing customers for infrastructure as standard all along ... meters need changing on a regular basis, so meters are changed to a schedule - however, the roll-out of smart meters to meet a 2020 target has upset the normal schedule ... whether the industry see this as an opportunity as a cash cow to farm is a reasonable viewpoint for anyone to take into consideration ...

Now, let's look at the technology ... a meter, with HAN which links to a DCC via a basic mobile phone with an additional remote monitor, so what's the additional purchase cost above 'dumb' meters - maybe £20-£30 per household max (dual fuel) ? apart from that there's the shared infrastructure and service provided by the DCC and that's about it ! ...

So why are we looking at £12-£15billion> - that's around £500/household ? ... well that's simple, it's called time & resource.

Anyone who's had any experience in managing large & complex projects knows that the key to managing the project successfully is to maintain control of the pull strings to keep the project within the agreed scope ... effectively, if the constraint on delivery is resource, then a project can only be delivered within the time that the available resource allows ... however, apply an artificial constraint (say a 2020 deadline) and the result is a requirement for additional resource (sub-contract or train) so the project costs rise ... however, even taking the cost of additional resource into account, it's extremely hard to arrive at an additional cost element anywhere near £500 .. which suggests that the industry has constructed a cash-cow to milk, and the government has fallen for the ploy ...

Now, how is this supported ? ... what is the evidence to suggest that this is the case? ... well in a nutshell some of it it's been said above ...

... will fit the Liberty Secure meter if and when your dumb meter comes to the end of its life.
They can fit the meter and "promise " to keep it in dumb mode with no live connection to the server.
This will cover them when the government realise what a mess they have done allowing Joe Public a say-so in what type of utility, which the suppliers own, are installed in their properties.
Or it could start to operate smart, when the occupier gets smart and "allows it "

So, let's delve a little further ... the smart-meter project is justified against a premise that there will be an overall saving as indicated in a cost benefit analysis and that as a result of the programme, there will be a quantifiable reduction in CO2 emissions delivered as a result of end users being 'more informed' about the energy they use ....

So, in July 2009 the EU mandated requirements which involved smart-meters ... this requirement was for member countries to perform an impact assessment for the provision of smart-meters to assess what proportion of households would benefit from smart-metering, with a further requirement to provide smart-meters to 80% of the households assessed to provide a benefit by 2020 .... obviously a little mischief going on somewhere here ... how exactly does that translate to all houses by 2020, or even all houses being offered by 2020 ?

Now, let's look at energy market developments since the 2009 mandate, which must have been based on prior data, so let's assume the data was 2008, a decade ago ... Well, just the introduction of LED TVs & lighting has had a huge energy reduction effect, far more than the smart-metering predicted impact, yet both the carbon reduction and cost benefit analysis for smart-metering which have been conducted over the intervening period have pushed this aside ... smart-meters will still save what they were going to save because we'll all be educated ... but we've been educated, we've already purchased the tech, so unless there's a considerable amount of double-accounting going on, both the carbon reductions and energy bill savings promised by the project are now implausible .... so, let's go a little further: in 2008 there we're almost no homes in the UK with solar PV, now there's going on a million, so where are the saving adjustments here ... low carbon generation from solar farms was unheard of, so has the change in carbon intensity been factored in ? ... oh, now there's domestic scale batteries on the horizon, so is there any idea on what effect this will have on the smart-meter justification ? ... I have an idea, but does the utility industry, and if they do, would it be in their interests to flag it up to the government ?

Now, let's look at the cyclical effect of compressing a project ... it may not be on anyone's mind at the moment, but .... to date meters have been replaced to a schedule with appropriate resource being employed. Up comes a one off time compressed & front-loaded replacement demand, followed by ?? ... almost nothing until the replacement cycle tsunami hits .. repeat, recycle, repeat ... so looks like boom & bust to me ... £billions of waste (or is that cash cow milking?) every boom cycle until someone somewhere figures out what the plan is, and probably has been all along!

Conclusion .. Although a logical step in energy management when originally conceived, the combination of applying an artificial deadline of 2020 created an unnecessary cost premium which doomed the project to failure on cost/benefit grounds. Additionally, the failure in understanding which led to targetting 100% of households instead of 80% of those which would benefit (possibly <25% of total ?) has added additional & unnecessary complexity & cost ... in targetting correctly, the industry could probably have met the 2020 deadline utilising it's own existing resource. Add to this the rapid expansion demand-side embedded generation and the advent of domestic storage and the entire justification for the project falls apart ...

The pause button should be pressed and a rapid rethink is needed before even more consumer money is wasted on what has rapidly become a £15billion 'white elephant' ...

If blame lies anywhere, it's probably not with UK politicians or their supporting departments, they've simply been naive, after all they may be good at talking, but not that bright! .... no, if the finger- pointing needs to be orientated, then it needs to be towards the industry and it's vast lobbing machine for continuing to drive the project though self-interest ..... It would be far more efficient for us all if we were just asked to write our £500 cheques directly to energy supply industry's shareholders ...

HTH - (On behalf of 'Joe Public')
Z

EachPenny wrote: »

I agree with your well argued post, except for the bit I've highlighted.

Unfortunately the project is not doomed to fail. In the standard government-led project approach, when things start going belly-up rather than taking logical decisions about re-scoping the project the response is usually:
1) Throw additional money at it.
2) Adjust the objectives of the project in order to restore a positive cost/benefit outcome. Ideally by incorporating some new intangible benefit and allocating some implausible (large) economic value to it.
3) Attempt to convince everyone the project still makes sense by running a misleading PR campaign.
4) Counter any criticism of the project (and especially point 2 above) by invoking the 'climate change' argument and branding any opposition 'climate change denial'.

Hi

I'd classify the inability of any project to meet objectives as failure ... a project which needs to be cancelled isn't necessarily a failure, it may be that the context in which it was defined has changed (which is largely the issue with smart-metering), however, in continuing with a failing project, or worse still, delivering that project in the knowledge that it will significantly fail to meet it's objectives highlights the failure of those responsible. Individuals & corporate bodies should therefore be held to account in these situations ... either through the ballot box, the board-room or sanction ...

HTH
Z