What a waste!

[moosepig]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8389880.stm

Spend 8 billion quid so that consumers can save 28 quid each a year? Madness!

[SXi Lad]

For £8bn to save £28!?! Crazy fools.

[robinhood21]

There is another thread running Here.

[BSA 500]

But if you read the article the buggers have stated they will recoup the money by charging us to install the meters.Thats nice!

[petersLUFC]

BSA 500 said:

But if you read the article the buggers have stated they will recoup the money by charging us to install the meters.Thats nice!

I'm assuming they're going to charge more than £28?

[soad]

£340 for meter per household...

"Energy suppliers, rather than distribution networks, will be responsible for the roll-out of the meters at a cost of about £340 per household.

They will be able to recoup the cost from customers through higher bills or upfront fees, but competition between suppliers is expected to ensure only some of the expense is passed on."

Edited by soad on Wednesday 2nd December 12:47

[tegwin]

Not fogetting the energy wasted by having to change the meter and dispose of the old one!

[Gargamel]

Forget the consumer piece thats pretty irrelevant.

There is around an ANNUAL £10bn out there to be saved by being better able to predict baseload energy for the grid.

The real saving is all on the infrastucture side.

[mightymouse]

Why do we need to be shown...........
Surely being sensible is the way forward and doesn't cost anything.
More big brother tactics.......
I donot need / want one of these, so please off

[SunderJimmy]

I don't get it. Are we supposed to see that we're using 1.21 jigawatts of power and decide we best turn off the freezer and get salmonella from the Sunday roast?

[Kermit power]

mightymouse said:

Why do we need to be shown...........
Surely being sensible is the way forward and doesn't cost anything.
More big brother tactics.......
I do not need / want one of these, so please off

Read Gargamel's post above yours.

Reporting this with regards to domestic property is a complete red herring. The real benefits come in with the introduction of a complete smart grid, which includes domestic properties, industrial properties, schools, hospitals, basically anything which has an electricity supply, and all the elements of the grid which transport power from the point of production to the point of delivery.

The basic aims of smart grids, of which smart metering is just one component, is to get to as near as possible 100% efficiency in power distribution and use. It's easy to understand the concept of water being lost from the water grid due to old, leaky pipes, and the electricity grid has many similar issues, but they can't be accurately identified and rectified without smart instrumentation.

Believe it or not, we already have electricity rationing in this country. It doesn't impact domestic consumers, but we are increasingly seeing industrial and commercial organisations being told they've had their lot, and they can't have any more. This is a reality today, and energy demand is always increasing.

The amount of power we get to actually power stuff depends on two things. Firstly how much we can produce in the first place, and secondly how much of that we waste in distribution. Smart grids should largely eliminate the latter.