Smart meters - what's the current thinking?
Discussion
A500leroy said:
Has anyone thought that they are only free until 2020 and then they are going to charge to fit them ( probably by force if you need a new metre), this is where they will recover the costs of the free ones being fitted now....
The cost is already hidden in current bills just like all the other pointless green s
te subsidies/schemes/expenses (c£6 per year per customer for just the smart meter).V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
The meter is not my property, they can't force me to pay to update something I do not own.
It would make an interesting court case.
Of course they could just stop providing the service without a "complying" meter.It would make an interesting court case.
PRTVR said:
V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
The meter is not my property, they can't force me to pay to update something I do not own.
It would make an interesting court case.
Of course they could just stop providing the service without a "complying" meter.It would make an interesting court case.
V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
The meter is not my property, they can't force me to pay to update something I do not own.
It would make an interesting court case.
Of course they could just stop providing the service without a "complying" meter.It would make an interesting court case.
PRTVR said:
V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
V8RX7 said:
PRTVR said:
The meter is not my property, they can't force me to pay to update something I do not own.
It would make an interesting court case.
Of course they could just stop providing the service without a "complying" meter.It would make an interesting court case.
Basically it's down to the consumer not the house owner or the supplier if the meter transmits readings - and so it f
king should be!Next step for the Government is to offer incentives to supply data similar to paperless billing I suppose.
There is much wibble being posted in here but it is late and I am recovering from a rather heavy new years eve so feel free to quote elements of this out of context to suit various arguments.
1.They can't force you to have one.
Correct-ish. They have to fit them to every home by the end of 2020 and there are regulations and potential fines for failing to do so.
The 2020 date was set when the industry expected the systems to be installed full pelt from 2012. Various delays and slippage mean that 2020 is as likely to be the completion date as Corbyn being PM.
Technically, they can seek the power of warrant to enter and force fit the meters but no supplier is daft enough to want or ask the government to allow this as their customers would just bugger off to another supplier. The way to successfully rollout something like this is for people to actually want them.
Also, you can just say no, utter the words 'I refuse to have a smart meter' and that is it. You are allowed to refuse, it is the (current) law.
2. The bin lorries are spying on me.
False-ish. Smart water meters and some advanced meters used for businesses have reader vans that collect the data by driving down the street and collecting it.
The smart meters going into your home will not be read that way, you have a comms hub that transits the data over the mobile phone network (a specific new network being built just for smart meters).
3. They're harvesting my data the bds.
False-ish. The meter reads data in 30 minute blocks but the government have defined that data as belonging to the consumer and therefore the suppliers can only default you to daily reads or monthly reads.
They are not allowed to take your half hourly data without your explicit consent. Failure to comply lands them in the st due to data protection, deletion of data and the information commissioner, etc.
4. They'll fit it when I'm out the crafty sods.
False. They have a code of practice called SMICOP - smart meter installer code of practice. This sets out that you must be told about your appointment in advance, must have it explained to you what will happen, be told how many people are coming and have at most a four hour time slot for doing so.
They need you in to install the in home display, check you're not hooked up to a dialysis machine or anything that needs continous power and check your gas appliance safety, prior to them working on the gas.
It is massively onerous on them and ultimately is going on our bills as it increases their operating costs but its the regs and they have to follow them.
5. This is the thin end of the wedge, they'll charge us more at peak times.
Well, yes - tough st. Get a time machine go back to when they spanked all the north sea gas money and tell Maggie T to build a load of nuclear power stations so we would not be so reliant on price sensitive crap like gas that means our energy at peak is met by expensive means that causes suppliers to lose money at peak.
It swings both ways, I'm on a free Saturday electric tariff and I hammer the st out of the oven and washer/dryer etc all day and it saves me £20 a month (on the times I can be arsed).
I also eat a lot more slow cooked roasts because it costs nothing to have the oven all day making sweet, sweet meaty goodness.
The other reason that smart is massively important (and the failure to install enough meters will become a problem) is the smart grid. As a country, we sail quite close to wind in terms of energy reserve capacity so our energy security is a risk. We don't have blackouts and brown outs yet but the building of a smarter grid network that allows both access to controlled shut down or load limiting of power and the turning on of distributed generation (like everyones Pv panels elsewhere, etc) will do a lot for keeping the lights on.
Of course, people see demand management and think huge swathes of poor people will lose power just so Boris and Cameron can use some power to spit roast a pig or whatever but it would be businesses first before domestic customers that got cut. It already happens today.
Some large companies get paid to not use power at certain points to manage demand. It is cheaper to pay a company not to use power at peak than it is to produce it. There is a market there already that people are just not aware of. Turning off one factory with the consumption of a 1000 homes is much better/easier than knocking off the said 1000 homes.
Not that say it won't ever happen, if the stbhitdbthe fan it'll be 3day weeks and candles again... with all the Russian pipelines, middle east chaos, frack attack, etc God knows where our power will come from. But anyway...
6. They're doing it to milk us like cattle and at night wires will come out of the meter and connect me to the matrix through the socket in my neck.
Shhhh....we don't talk about that bit
1.They can't force you to have one.
Correct-ish. They have to fit them to every home by the end of 2020 and there are regulations and potential fines for failing to do so.
The 2020 date was set when the industry expected the systems to be installed full pelt from 2012. Various delays and slippage mean that 2020 is as likely to be the completion date as Corbyn being PM.
Technically, they can seek the power of warrant to enter and force fit the meters but no supplier is daft enough to want or ask the government to allow this as their customers would just bugger off to another supplier. The way to successfully rollout something like this is for people to actually want them.
Also, you can just say no, utter the words 'I refuse to have a smart meter' and that is it. You are allowed to refuse, it is the (current) law.
2. The bin lorries are spying on me.
False-ish. Smart water meters and some advanced meters used for businesses have reader vans that collect the data by driving down the street and collecting it.
The smart meters going into your home will not be read that way, you have a comms hub that transits the data over the mobile phone network (a specific new network being built just for smart meters).
3. They're harvesting my data the b
ds.False-ish. The meter reads data in 30 minute blocks but the government have defined that data as belonging to the consumer and therefore the suppliers can only default you to daily reads or monthly reads.
They are not allowed to take your half hourly data without your explicit consent. Failure to comply lands them in the s
t due to data protection, deletion of data and the information commissioner, etc. 4. They'll fit it when I'm out the crafty sods.
False. They have a code of practice called SMICOP - smart meter installer code of practice. This sets out that you must be told about your appointment in advance, must have it explained to you what will happen, be told how many people are coming and have at most a four hour time slot for doing so.
They need you in to install the in home display, check you're not hooked up to a dialysis machine or anything that needs continous power and check your gas appliance safety, prior to them working on the gas.
It is massively onerous on them and ultimately is going on our bills as it increases their operating costs but its the regs and they have to follow them.
5. This is the thin end of the wedge, they'll charge us more at peak times.
Well, yes - tough s
t. Get a time machine go back to when they spanked all the north sea gas money and tell Maggie T to build a load of nuclear power stations so we would not be so reliant on price sensitive crap like gas that means our energy at peak is met by expensive means that causes suppliers to lose money at peak. It swings both ways, I'm on a free Saturday electric tariff and I hammer the s
t out of the oven and washer/dryer etc all day and it saves me £20 a month (on the times I can be arsed). I also eat a lot more slow cooked roasts because it costs nothing to have the oven all day making sweet, sweet meaty goodness.
The other reason that smart is massively important (and the failure to install enough meters will become a problem) is the smart grid. As a country, we sail quite close to wind in terms of energy reserve capacity so our energy security is a risk. We don't have blackouts and brown outs yet but the building of a smarter grid network that allows both access to controlled shut down or load limiting of power and the turning on of distributed generation (like everyones Pv panels elsewhere, etc) will do a lot for keeping the lights on.
Of course, people see demand management and think huge swathes of poor people will lose power just so Boris and Cameron can use some power to spit roast a pig or whatever but it would be businesses first before domestic customers that got cut. It already happens today.
Some large companies get paid to not use power at certain points to manage demand. It is cheaper to pay a company not to use power at peak than it is to produce it. There is a market there already that people are just not aware of. Turning off one factory with the consumption of a 1000 homes is much better/easier than knocking off the said 1000 homes.
Not that say it won't ever happen, if the s
tbhitdbthe fan it'll be 3day weeks and candles again... with all the Russian pipelines, middle east chaos, frack attack, etc God knows where our power will come from. But anyway... 6. They're doing it to milk us like cattle and at night wires will come out of the meter and connect me to the matrix through the socket in my neck.
Shhhh....we don't talk about that bit
stewjohnst said:
eliot said:
I think I read that the DCC is now ready - which is the central reporting point for the smets2 meters.
But no manufacturers are currently making certified smets2 assets that are approved for use so you won't see a smets2 meter installed for a few months yet realistically. te though!!stewjohnst said:
They have to fit them to every home by the end of 2020 and there are regulations and potential fines for failing to do so.
you can just say no, utter the words 'I refuse to have a smart meter' and that is it. You are allowed to refuse, it is the (current) law.
"Current" being the key wordyou can just say no, utter the words 'I refuse to have a smart meter' and that is it. You are allowed to refuse, it is the (current) law.
stewjohnst said:
Utter tosh.
If you haven't got anything worth saying, why post a page of dribble?Re lack of supply/smartgrid - futile, the problem is a lack of economically viable despatchable reliable supply caused by over subsidisation/reliance of not commercially viable renewables (wind/solar).
Discontinuation of any further solar/wind and rapid fossil fuels/nuclear development are the answer, not expensive over-complicated lashed up measures that will fail to cope anyway.
V8mate said:
I'm not sure to what extent Elec Cos 'have' to fit them. I'm with one of the 'challenger' suppliers and I can't get a smart meter from them even if I wanted one.
"Even now the official roll-out has started, and although energy companies have been asked to take 'all reasonable steps' to install smart meters in every home, you should still be able to refuse a smart meter"http://www.which.co.uk/consumer-rights/advice/do-i...
The emphasis being reasonable steps - the law does not force the supplier or the consumer to get us all 'fitted up' by 2020 contrary to what has been spouted off in this thread!
Mr GrimNasty said:
stewjohnst said:
Utter tosh.
If you haven't got anything worth saying, why post a page of dribble?Re lack of supply/smartgrid - futile, the problem is a lack of economically viable despatchable reliable supply caused by over subsidisation/reliance of not commercially viable renewables (wind/solar).
Discontinuation of any further solar/wind and rapid fossil fuels/nuclear development are the answer, not expensive over-complicated lashed up measures that will fail to cope anyway.
Mr GrimNasty said:
stewjohnst said:
Utter tosh.
If you haven't got anything worth saying, why post a page of dribble?...an expensive over-complicated lashed up measures...
The challenge now is that everyone is balls deep financially and withdrawing now is going to be a very expensive exercise.
You could achieve most of the benefits of the smart rollout without the tech if you could just educate the masses about energy and its use so they at least be could be arsed to send in a meter read and consume responsibly.
We live in a world where people complain/think energy is expensive when it costs 3p to boil a kettle for a cuppa - at the same time they're probably sipping on a £3 latte
Also worth noting that the Competition and Markets Authority investigation is minded to give suppliers the right to half hourly data so if you don't trust the suppliers, get on the phone and opt out.
dickymint said:
The emphasis being reasonable steps - the law does not force the supplier or the consumer to get us all 'fitted up' by 2020 contrary to what has been spouted off in this thread!
True, perversely though, the regulator isn't defining what 'all reasonable steps are' so expect paranoid suppliers trying to avoid the bull whip by sending you emails, calls, letters, texts, etc. Trying to prove they've covered all bases when you've failed to be in for the visit. As per my post above - as an exercise in making a supplier excel at alienating customers, this is a winner
We have had regular TRIAD periods in work at peak late afternoon/evening times over this past Nov/Dec, where we are given 1 days notice & put on a penal electricity tariff which is 450 times higher per kWh than the normal rate.
Is there anything to suggest that this type of grid management will never be extended to domestic customers? I see it as inevitable & will resist the move to a smart meter for as long as possible.
Is there anything to suggest that this type of grid management will never be extended to domestic customers? I see it as inevitable & will resist the move to a smart meter for as long as possible.
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