Smart Meters ITV Tonight

[Richyboy]

BlackLabel said:

"No-one's noticed, but the Tories are quietly killing off the smart meter revolution
ROSS ANDERSON
PROFESSOR OF SECURITY ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/...

Oh thank the lord, someone sees fking sense. Why on earth would you give a company remote access to your energy supply. Npower doubled billed me for two years, threatened me with legal action and debt collectors; not too mention the hours and hours on the phone to sort it out. No compensation, no apology; just your be happy to hear we've closed your case. British gas before that I had problems with. They can shove that smart meter up their arse.

[Mr GrimNasty]

The problem is that a large proportion, if not all, of the vast expense of this ludicrous scheme has already been incurred and consumers will be footing the bill anyway, even if the meters never leave the stockpiles in the warehouses.

[andy43]

Prof writing for the Telegraph said:

But how can a government kill a £20bn programme without getting roasted alive by the lobbyists? Easy: split the industry. Let companies who don’t install smart meters charge their customers less.

And do it quietly in the middle of an election – when the lobbyists have no access to anyone. On June 9th it will be a done deal.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

Mr GrimNasty said:

The problem is that a large proportion, if not all, of the vast expense of this ludicrous scheme has already been incurred and consumers will be footing the bill anyway, even if the meters never leave the stockpiles in the warehouses.

+ free loft insulation, free wall insulation etc etc. When I say free, I mean at vast expense to everyone.
All thanks to socialist governments of the time.

[Rovinghawk]

Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

+ free loft insulation, free wall insulation etc etc. When I say free, I mean at vast expense to everyone.
All thanks to socialist governments of the time.

In fairness, there's a visible benefit to that stuff.

[hyphen]

footnote said:

BlackLabel said:

"No-one's noticed, but the Tories are quietly killing off the smart meter revolution
ROSS ANDERSON
PROFESSOR OF SECURITY ENGINEERING AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/consumer-affairs/...

Yay!!! Result!

Here's hoping that's the end of Daft Meters.

British Gas rang me a while ago and said they were doing my area and if I wanted one, I said no thanks.

[Dr Doofenshmirtz]

Rovinghawk said:

Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

+ free loft insulation, free wall insulation etc etc. When I say free, I mean at vast expense to everyone.
All thanks to socialist governments of the time.

In fairness, there's a visible benefit to that stuff.

True - but it was anything but free for the consumers, whilst key businesses got rich off the back of that little green initiative scheme.

[rodericb]

Megaflow said:

Tuna said:

Please let it be so.

Edited to add:

I've just had an email from EON. Apparently the meter fitted only two years ago is being 'phased out' and will be replaced for free by a smart meter.

Hmmmm....

The original meters cannot be transferred between suppliers, I'd guess the new one they are fitting can be.

why is that?

[Otispunkmeyer]

Matthen said:

Jazzy Jag said:

Cold said:

That will be £19825.17 please

High Electricity consumption!!

How are the crops in your loft coming along?

Also impossible, whoever programmed them needs to be sacked.

Typically mid size houses have 100A fuses. So, max draw 100A @ 230 V = 23,000 W or 23KW -

a 23KWh * 24 hours = 552 KWh/Units * 0.13p = 71 quid. It would have been the simplest thing to add in a line of code that throws an error rather than outputting obscene numbers.

Its not just those meters with poor coding, the calcs they perform to send you your bill are also lacking in my experience. With NPower, our gas meter rolled over (back to 0000) and this landed us a massive bill !! I think I worked out that even a steel mill wouldn't have used that amount of gas for its slab furnaces in a week and they are on all the time! Clearly impossible for a 3 bed house to use that amount and yet...

[Mr GrimNasty]

Rovinghawk said:

Dr Doofenshmirtz said:

+ free loft insulation, free wall insulation etc etc. When I say free, I mean at vast expense to everyone.
All thanks to socialist governments of the time.

In fairness, there's a visible benefit to that stuff.

It's all small beer compared to subsidizing useless wind/PV anyway and what that has done for the rest of the electricity generation/supply markets.

Bills are only going up, massively - the government can only keep blaming the power companies so long before the truth comes out - this is why the power companies are actually welcoming the investigation into the market!

[Sheepshanks]

Richyboy said:

Npower doubled billed me for two years, threatened me with legal action and debt collectors; not too mention the hours and hours on the phone to sort it out. No compensation, no apology; just your be happy to hear we've closed your case.

Hmmm...we had trouble to the extent that I would never again use Npower. But they did settle at heftily under what the true bill should have been AND paid compensation. I didn't help matters by not noticing their charging was wrong for almost a year.

It wasn't a massive issue in itself - they merged day and night electricity readings - the hassle was how many attempts they took to fix it.

[Tuna]

Otispunkmeyer said:

Its not just those meters with poor coding, the calcs they perform to send you your bill are also lacking in my experience. With NPower, our gas meter rolled over (back to 0000) and this landed us a massive bill !! I think I worked out that even a steel mill wouldn't have used that amount of gas for its slab furnaces in a week and they are on all the time! Clearly impossible for a 3 bed house to use that amount and yet...

Years ago when I was working on 'phone billing software, we had a wall of shame, with phone bills that other companies had generated that were clearly ridiculous. Billing is a non-trivial problem, but yes - there's wrong and there's wrong

[edh]

I'm on npower's list for "doesn't want a smart meter, please don't call again.."

Can't see why anyone would want one.

I've read a bit about the security controls, they seem OK, but I see no reason to give power companies more control of my supply (and my pricing). This is all for their convenience / profit and we are paying for it!

[turbobloke]

edh said:

I'm on npower's list for "doesn't want a smart meter, please don't call again.."

Can't see why anyone would want one.

I've read a bit about the security controls, they seem OK, but I see no reason to give power companies more control of my supply (and my pricing). This is all for their convenience / profit and we are paying for it!

[FiF]

turbobloke said:

edh said:

I'm on npower's list for "doesn't want a smart meter, please don't call again.."

Can't see why anyone would want one.

I've read a bit about the security controls, they seem OK, but I see no reason to give power companies more control of my supply (and my pricing). This is all for their convenience / profit and we are paying for it!

ì
Lol, I was supposedly on the British Gas list of people who doesn't want a smart meter. Didn't stop them ringing me up a couple of weeks later at 9:30 one morning to offer one, after being reminded of the supposed situation they were so efficient they rang me up at 4pm the same day presumably just to make sure. I think the afternoon caller wasn't impressed with the response. Polite but :ahem: firm.