QOTW: Do you have a smart energy meter?

[mercyground]

good idea in principle. Will enable better grid usage and predictions. Future meters are apparently going to be able to turn off non critical stuff if there is too much load on the grid.

However what we got from 1stgen meters was (isaidabadwordhere) and badly implemented. Zero security and no certification (all gas/elec meters had to have a sign off saying they read correctly. afaik the new "smart" ones do not.)

V2 meters might get better but tbh. i'm not changing nor will i be forced into it. I do my readings monthly anyway and log them to make doing comparisons on new tarrifs easier.

its same old crap tbh. a good idea taken over by people with ulterior motives and mangled by project manglement teams.

:edit: lol censorship also if ppl had more solar on their houses we'd end up with microgrids that could help balance things better instead of those damn great windturbines that are just an eyesore and jacking up our bills.

[flearider]

never will I have one of these in my house .. I know how much I spend per week ..and it's been that way for yrs and I'm happy with it
it's just another form of control so when we get the brown out's again they can just switch you off .saves them more money cost's us more .. silly really

[Unique]

i don't have one, but it sounds interesting. why are some people saying they really don't want one? what are the downsides?

do you need to pay to get them, and do you get the gadgets to read the usage or does it link to an app or wifi?

i don't have nest or anything like that but i'm interested in getting one for the central heating, one that can make it different temperatures in different rooms by remote control valve things


personally i pay a lot for gas and electric as i have so many gadgets etc, but i don't go wrong turning stuff off to scrimp pennies as i'm not that poor. i'd rather have one less thing in life to worry about. on the other hand i like a good deal and if this can help then great. i don't go leaving things on unnecesarily or going mad with the heating, and perhaps i don't have it on enough at times, so i may have a better balance and use it more if i knew how little it was costing. i just have a DD set up and pay the same each month

only downside about a meter install is the time it takes when i wouldn't have electric working at home, and if it affected my homeplugs, although i should perhaps look to see if i can get someone to run ethernet between rooms instead (thick stone walls are good for sound isolation, not good for wifi)

[DanceswithUnix]

i don't have one, but it sounds interesting. why are some people saying they really don't want one? what are the downsides?

Some people are just weirded out by the fact the electricity company can see what you are doing. Small motor switching on and off, that's the fridge. Larger motor on for 40 mins with larger heating load at the start, that's a washing machine.

One real downside is that an old meter like mine that is nearing end of (20 year?) life tends to have a bit of friction and read a bit low. I would expect a smart meter to be way more accurate so they will charge me more for my usage, which is fair but not in my favour

do you need to pay to get them, and do you get the gadgets to read the usage or does it link to an app or wifi?

i don't have nest or anything like that but i'm interested in getting one for the central heating, one that can make it different temperatures in different rooms by remote control valve things

Remote control valves? Thermostatic valves have been around for decades and are excellent. I had all the bedrooms fitted with them by a plumber and it wasn't that expensive and made a massive difference to how comfortable the house is in winter as now the heat is mainly sent to the downstairs.

personally i pay a lot for gas and electric as i have so many gadgets etc, but i don't go wrong turning stuff off to scrimp pennies as i'm not that poor. i'd rather have one less thing in life to worry about. on the other hand i like a good deal and if this can help then great. i don't go leaving things on unnecesarily or going mad with the heating, and perhaps i don't have it on enough at times, so i may have a better balance and use it more if i knew how little it was costing. i just have a DD set up and pay the same each month

only downside about a meter install is the time it takes when i wouldn't have electric working at home, and if it affected my homeplugs, although i should perhaps look to see if i can get someone to run ethernet between rooms instead (thick stone walls are good for sound isolation, not good for wifi)

I don't think homeplugs should be affected. Ethernet cable is good though, a job I keep putting off & I even bought the cable.

[Iota]

No, I don't have a smart energy meter, and unless legislation changes to make it mandatory, that is how it will stay.

Pretty much this, I'm not seeing the requirement for having one, except for making it easier for an energy company to try and control peoples usage (or remotely disconnect you if you disagree with the bill).

I do my readings monthly anyway and log them to make doing comparisons on new tarrifs easier.

I do the exact same thing, keeping a spreadsheet isn't hard and helps when renewals come around for switching providers. Also, I don't mind overpaying slightly and earning a preferable interest rate on that money they owe ME, compared to having it sat in my bank account

[JLew]

I only know two people who have had them installed.
One is a older couple who never go much outside of their average - so for them it's fairly useless.
The other is someone who cant get a cell phone signal near his home, much less inside a box tucked inside a wall that blocks even WiFi from passing through it. British Gas knew he had no cell coverage yet they still installed it, Now they are saying they will be installing a cell repeater on his roof to help get the thing working. For him it has been useless getting this too. I have been offered this but I wanted to know if I could query it from my computer on a regular basis to know if Economy7 would be good for me (I have solar panels so, other than winter, I need no power during the day). Sadly I was told it was a locked ecosystem that only the energy supplier could pull data from. Again, No use to me so I turned down getting the system put in.
When I look at how most of this is working, it looks like it's just a money moving exercise. More money from consumers is going to move to Capita. Under Delivered, Too late, 5 times over the original cost, Equipment that will need to be replaced as soon as you switch providers (SMETS1 cant migrate from one supplier to another!). It should be a crime that a spec agreed about 4 years ago (I could be mistaken on that) will not be implemented until late 2018 (unless it is pushed back AGAIN).

Personally I love the idea of SMART meters, but the DNO should have been assigned the role, and it should have happened during the normal replacement process.

Think about it for a moment.
Smart Meter cost (equipment+install+fees) is £450-£1,150, Most of those are Smets1. So if you decide to switch providers 4 times this year, then you potentially cost the system £1,800-£4,600.. To save an average of £350... If you really want to "Save" some money in all of this, buy some shares in Capita as they are going to be making a lot of money off of us for years to come.

[Andi-C]

I have one, I've no issues with the technology. This smart meter has more use to me than a smart speaker !

[GinoLatino]

No, if you plan to save electricity, why add a device that consumes it and just tells you how much.
I just evaluate how much a device consume and decide based on that knowledge how I can use it without impacting my bill.

[Output]

No, and considering the problems that have been reported to date with them, I hope things stay that way for as long as possible.

[peterb]

I have so called smart meters. The indoor display is useful for monitoring whole house consumption, and has modified my energy use slightly. However the energy supplier at the other end is less smart and quite often doesnt get a reading - whether that is their system or poor cell coverage (shouldn't be, I live in an area where cell coverage is good - there is a very big repeater tower half a mile away) so I put it down to the supplier's infrastructure.

They are more dumb meters with pretensions to cleverness.

[Wh00pS]

Nope, don't have one and have no intentions of getting one.
I was reading somewhere about Canada who were amongst the first to introduce smart meters and now are the first to start removing them.

[Wh00pS]

Also a short funny film on smart meters.
https://takebackyourpower.net/smart-attack-hilarious-smart-meter-short-film/

[Saracen]

i don't have one, but it sounds interesting. why are some people saying they really don't want one? what are the downsides?

do you need to pay to get them, and do you get the gadgets to read the usage or does it link to an app or wifi?

i don't have nest or anything like that but i'm interested in getting one for the central heating, one that can make it different temperatures in different rooms by remote control valve things

Firstly, smart meters should be viewed as a completely differenent issue to smart-house gadgets, like Nest, or controlling your heating. A smart meter simply replaces your gas or electricity meter, or both, and gives you a pretty colour display with some usage info. From your perspective, it has no other effect on your home. It does not impact on, benefit or negatively affect things like Nest, at all .... and as far as I'm aware, won't integrate in any way.

Of course, for your utility company, it means they remote-transmitted data about your usage, and no longer have to mess with estimated billing, or sending a guy round knocking on your door every other billing cycle to read the meter.

They are not good, therefore, for job prospects for meter readers.

Someone asked about objections. One, and even for me it's minor, is data transmission. After all, you are entitled to instruct them to be set to transmit once per month, that being a 'minimum' for billing purposes.

One objection I have is that any comparison of current usage, while I'm away, compared to 'normal' usage patterns would tell anyone at the utility comoany with access permissions when my home is unoccupied for a period. Turning the transmissions down to one a month pretty much eliminates that.

What else?

On principle, I object to giving ANYONE data about my lifestyle unless EITHER :-

- i decide, for my reasons, to do so, or
- there is an overwhelming need or reason.

So, I don't see this issue as "Why not have one" but rather, "Why should I have one"?

It's not for me to justify why not, but for the utility company to justify to me why I should. So far, in the 20 or so lying and bullying letters I've had, there has been a complete absence of a single convincing benefit.

The one thing they offer is a pretty display panel telling me I can see what I'm using. Well, I put my own meter in about 10 years ago to do that, so it's not going to tell me anything I don't already know.


But what we do have is a hugely expensive and entirely unnecessary national program that WE, the consumers, are going to end up paying the multi-billion pound bill for. And for what? So companies can start pricing power by demand-shaping .... it'll cost you more to boil a kettle at peak times.


Oh, and don't forget the nightmare "meter install went wrong" accounts. People ending up with unsafe homes because 'allegedly' of meters poorly installed. How could that happen? Because, according to consumer groups, the program is being rushed, to meet political targets. The result is huge numbers of 'meter changers' being given barely enough training, and very little real-world experience, before bring sent into our homes.


Then there's the inability of most meters to survive a change from one utility company to another without dropping back to "dumb" mode. What stupidity, especially as government is simultaneously advising us all to compare and switch. They went ahead with the necessary infrastructure not in place.

I mean, really, what world-class bureaucratic moron thought that one up?


At an absolute minimum, I want my meter changed ONCE.

And they changed mine two years ago, from an old (30 years) mechanical thing to a modern LCD display thingy (for leccy) and in recent years, they've changed the gas meter twice. How many flipping meter changes do I have to have new meters?



Sooooo .... all told, the relevant question for me is not "Why not" but a complete absence of justification for "Why do it?"

At least for now, it's at the consumer's discretion. My answer is hell, no .... unless they can convince me why I should. And lying to me about my 15-month old meter needing changing because it's old, or bullying me, or even simply failing to point out it's my choice won't endear the program to me.

They're trying to con me into it, and I resent that.

[mikeo]

Was going to get one. But as there's no CELL signal in the kitchen (where the electric meter is) it was a no-go.

[excalibur1814]

They've called me but I simply do NOT want a cell signal on, in the house, all day and night long. Microwave me insides 'no thank you'. My mobile spends most of its life on flight mode etc. If you can change the upload to every 8 hours, or even once a month, I'd have no issue with that.

[Euphonium]

I don't have a smart meter and I will not voluntarily take one.
I see no advantage in them to me - I already know plenty about my usage.

The key disadvantage that I see is that smart meters will eventually allow the energy companies to change the price of gas and electricity on an hourly basis so they can jack the prices up when renewables aren't producing well, rather than invest in enough capacity to meet peak demand.