Smart meters - what's the current thinking?

[jmorgan]

AMG Merc said:

Hi Guys, don't want to trawl back...

EDF Energy have been pushing for a date to change one of our electric meters to a smart meter. Only benefit seems to be remote readings - so no more dirty boots in the hall I suppose. Question is, at this point in time, do I need to comply or can I refuse?

Also, one of our meters is an old Economy 7 - dual rate. As the provider doesn't seem to offer dual rates, am I right in assuming they just add the two readings together to calculate my bill?

Cheers

We have an economy 7 meter. They just take the two reading off us.

[Snake the Sniper]

AMG Merc said:

Hi Guys, don't want to trawl back...

EDF Energy have been pushing for a date to change one of our electric meters to a smart meter. Only benefit seems to be remote readings - so no more dirty boots in the hall I suppose. Question is, at this point in time, do I need to comply or can I refuse?

Also, one of our meters is an old Economy 7 - dual rate. As the provider doesn't seem to offer dual rates, am I right in assuming they just add the two readings together to calculate my bill?

Cheers

When you say one of your meters is E7, how many do you have? Ideally, they'd be removing all your meters (if practical/possible etc etc) and combining them into just one meter/one tariff. That meter may be three phase or single phase, depending upon your set up. So it may not be that simple..... Could you post a photo up of the meter set up?

[Blue Oval84]

AMG Merc said:

Hi Guys, don't want to trawl back...

EDF Energy have been pushing for a date to change one of our electric meters to a smart meter. Only benefit seems to be remote readings - so no more dirty boots in the hall I suppose. Question is, at this point in time, do I need to comply or can I refuse?

Also, one of our meters is an old Economy 7 - dual rate. As the provider doesn't seem to offer dual rates, am I right in assuming they just add the two readings together to calculate my bill?

Cheers

They won't be willing to change the E7 one yet as it's not a straight forward exchange (there is no Economy 7 Smart yet).

If I understand you correctly you're saying that both of your meters are billing on single rate? If so, your account won't be marked as eligible for that meter, but you could request that the E7 meter is replaced with a Smart meter billing in single rate, it definitely should be possible for their processes to manage that.

You can however refuse the installation if you want, it's optional.

Personally I'd hold off until next year when they should all be running on SMETS2 - which is the fully inter-operable standard allowing you to change suppliers etc.

[Snake the Sniper]

Blue Oval84 said:

snip(there is no Economy 7 Smart yet)snip

There is, and has been for ages. I can't say if EDF are fitting it or not though....

[triple5]

Snake the Sniper said:

Does the KWh register on the IHD read as zero too? Or just the cost one?

Ok can confirm the IHD displays the output in KWh when showing the cost as Zero....thanks.

[Snake the Sniper]

triple5 said:

Ok can confirm the IHD displays the output in KWh when showing the cost as Zero....thanks.

Glad it all works as it should!

[Mr GrimNasty]

Program about these on ITV 7:30 tonight, no idea if it's for or against or down the middle.

[andy43]

Mr GrimNasty said:

Program about these on ITV 7:30 tonight, no idea if it's for or against or down the middle.

Discussed on breakfast telly this morning.
Upshot is they aren't free, during the interview the MD of one of the big six said he was quite happy to admit that contrary to their advertising the meters aren't free, and that in reality £11 billion was being added to utility bills.
Which is nice.
£11 billion. Based on 27 million households in the UK that's about £400 per household if my pisspoor maths is correct.

Edited by andy43 on Thursday 2nd February 18:40

[Blue Oval84]

andy43 said:

Discussed on breakfast telly this morning.
Upshot is they aren't free, during the interview the MD of one of the big six said he was quite happy to admit that contrary to their advertising the meters aren't free, and that in reality £11 billion was being added to utility bills.
Which is nice.
£11 billion. Based on 27 million households in the UK that's about £400 per household if my pisspoor maths is correct.

Edited by andy43 on Thursday 2nd February 18:40

You realise that your existing traditional meters aren't free don't you? The cost of fitting and maintaining them is added onto your energy bill. As usual, it sounds as though the journalist was interviewing the wrong person (why be truly insightful when you can just engage in a bit of energy company bashing?).

Surely it would have been better to have had someone from the government on the show, and ask them why exactly they thought it was a good idea to force energy companies to spend their customer's money... They could have presented their business case and why they thought it was a good value project.

• Those free light bulbs suppliers were giving away a few years back? The cost was added to bills.
• The Warm Home Discount (free money put on vulnerable customer's accounts)? The cost is added to bills.
• Installation of free insulation and other energy efficiency measures in low income homes? That's right, added to bills.

I could go on...

The government has been spending your money via your energy bills for years now on all sorts of initiatives.

On the point of your maths though, I doubt very much that the £11 billion is net cost. I imagine that's gross.

In the industry we genuinely believe we will make some savings (meter reads, exchanges, reduced debt, better accuracy leading to reduced costly complaints etc) which will offset the gross cost. The business case is still negative from a financial view point though, just not as bad as £400 per household (my company is certainly not expecting a net cost of £400 per customer at least!)

[Mr GrimNasty]

Like everything related to 'climate change' it is a pointless ruinously expensive exercise.

(The costs are broadly transparent and in the public domain and genuinely eye watering, I posted details before.)

[andy43]

Traditional meters don't get thrown into landfill within months of them being installed - that's where the first tranche of smart meters will end up.
I've had just one meter replaced in nearly 30 years, and that was only because they were upgrading the gas supply pipework to every house on the street.
Man on telly said 11 billion. I just googled it - it appears to be correct.
Insulation initiatives, FITs payments, light bulbs etc - they either save energy or create it. I'm not sure smart meters achieve either to be honest. Silly idea. Put the money towards a power station or thicker jumpers or something.

Edited by andy43 on Thursday 2nd February 21:18