Smart Meter

[jim8flog]

To the people who have smart meters, how many of you keep looking at the display and adjust your habits accordingly? Or is the display in the sideboard/drawer/etc and you just use the smart meter to send the readings?
Not got one so interested to see how they are used

I used mine to compare using the microwave compared to boiling on a stove or in a kettle I also used it to check my usage with stuff left on standby compared to be totally turned off. To decide if it is worthwhile changing my habits . Then OVO sent me FOC some Taipo wifi activated mains plugs so that changed me a lot

I had already changed a lot of my habits e.g. air drying sheets etc rather than using the tumble drier

 

[Crazyface]

I had a free meter installed by First Utility. I couldn't be bothered with their persistence. Only took an hour or so. Only advantage(?) was I didn't have to go into the garage to read the meters. Then they went bust and I was switched to Octopus but the smart meter couldn't talk to them. New meter fitted but it stopped talking after a month. All sorted pretty quickly. All sorts of stats on the standalone display but nothing particularly interesting or useful. Again only real benefit is not having to take readings. But I did get some free or low cost times of day.
However, rather oddly, if I submit a gas reading I can theoretically win prizes

No doubt at sometime they will start introducing differential pricing (ie putting prices up at certain times of the day)

Sounds crap tonme

 

[Crazyface]

Welp all this chitter chatter about this has only put me off, cor this text guessing Is good. Stuff em. Bottle 2 of wine gulped

 

[Neilds]

So, if I am reading this right, a smart meter saves people about 5 minutes a month (ish) when sending in meter readings and that is it. Doesn’t sound very smart to me

 

[doublebogey7]

So, if I am reading this right, a smart meter saves people about 5 minutes a month (ish) when sending in meter readings and that is it. Doesn’t sound very smart to me

Not really, it is currently saving me around £400 on a smart tariff and will actually be saving us all a little as the load balancing that Smart Meters allows will be saving the generator, some of which will be passed onto customers.

 

[Deleted member 21784]

Not really, it is currently saving me around £400 on a smart tariff and will actually be saving us all a little as the load balancing that Smart Meters allows will be saving the generator, some of which will be passed onto customers.

The smart meter alone save me £1232 a year just from allowing me to use the 9p tariff rather than the 28p tariff

That's just me and not what it enables the grid to do with grid balancing

But people can't see wood for the trees when it comes to the environment

 

[larmen]

The grid balancing part seems a bit of a red herring to me.
Even without smart meters they might not know who is using what in real-time, but they will know what they are pushing out at any time.

 

[Fade and Die]

The grid balancing part seems a bit of a red herring to me.
Even without smart meters they might not know who is using what in real-time, but they will know what they are pushing out at any time.

Well it’s nothing new. Because Electricity by its very nature is hard to store, the generators have always had to balance the grid. In the (good) old days when we used fossil fuelled power stations we could just ramp up the output to meet the extra demands in the morning and evening peak… now because of progress we have a less controllable/reliable system using renewable energy sources.
(Obviously going nuclear would have avoided this problem but the country has gone in a different direction)

I am sceptical that smart meters are beneficial to the consumer in the long term, short term sweeteners just to get people on board are just that…Short term. I think it’s much more likely that they will be used to charge people more at peak times… so called surge pricing.

One thing I am certain of is the Electricity suppliers would not be spending £11B on smart meters for our benefit.

 

[rulefan]

One thing I am certain of is the Electricity suppliers would not be spending £11B on smart meters for our benefit.

 

[jim8flog]

So, if I am reading this right, a smart meter saves people about 5 minutes a month (ish) when sending in meter readings and that is it. Doesn’t sound very smart to me

NO. I save about £1000 a year on my car charging costs by having a smart meter

 

[Fade and Die]

To the people who have smart meters, how many of you keep looking at the display and adjust your habits accordingly? Or is the display in the sideboard/drawer/etc and you just use the smart meter to send the readings?
Not got one so interested to see how they are used

Astonishing that people need a bit of bling (probably made in China with a massive carbon footprint) just to tell them the same things that their dads used to tell them “turn that “bleeping”light out” And “put the wood in the hole”

 

[D-S]

Astonishing that people need a bit of bling (probably made in China with a massive carbon footprint) just to tell them the same things that their dads used to tell them “turn that “bleeping”light out” And “put the wood in the hole”

I don’t understand this comment. I have a smart meter and do not have the display plugged in and in sight, it is in a cupboard somewhere I don’t need the device to see what I am using. However, having one installed in the meter box means that I don’t have to submit readings and can benefit from favourable tariffs at certain times - really, what is not to like?

 

[Fade and Die]

I don’t understand this comment. I have a smart meter and do not have the display plugged in and in sight, it is in a cupboard somewhere I don’t need the device to see what I am using. However, having one installed in the meter box means that I don’t have to submit readings and can benefit from favourable tariffs at certain times - really, what is not to like?

Well if you do not have it plugged in and in sight then it wouldn’t apply to you would it?

 

[Alan Clifford]

Well it’s nothing new. Because Electricity by its very nature is hard to store, the generators have always had to balance the grid. In the (good) old days when we used fossil fuelled power stations we could just ramp up the output to meet the extra demands in the morning and evening peak… now because of progress we have a less controllable/reliable system using renewable energy sources.
(Obviously going nuclear would have avoided this problem but the country has gone in a different direction)

I am sceptical that smart meters are beneficial to the consumer in the long term, short term sweeteners just to get people on board are just that…Short term. I think it’s much more likely that they will be used to charge people more at peak times… so called surge pricing.

One thing I am certain of is the Electricity suppliers would not be spending £11B on smart meters for our benefit.

I don't know how local electicity cables work. Is there a big cable coming up the street with lots of little cables hanging off it going into the houses? Or do the individual cables to the houses come all the way from a sub-station?

 

[Fade and Die]

I don't know how local electicity cables work. Is there a big cable coming up the street with lots of little cables hanging off it going into the houses? Or do the individual cables to the houses come all the way from a sub-station?

The first one. Big cables running down the street. Smaller ones tapped off it.

 

[Alan Clifford]

The first one. Big cables running down the street. Smaller ones tapped off it.

That is analogous to the water supply configuration. The water meter is in a hole in the pavement in front of my house. Why can't the electricity company do the same I wonder?

 

[Fade and Die]

That is analogous to the water supply configuration. The water meter is in a hole in the pavement in front of my house. Why can't the electricity company do the same I wonder?

It sort of does, only the leccy doesn’t like moisture so it gets positioned in cupboards or the like… Same principle though, it measures how much of a thing flows through it.

 

[jim8flog]

That is analogous to the water supply configuration. The water meter is in a hole in the pavement in front of my house. Why can't the electricity company do the same I wonder?

Water meters are totally mechanical

It would require a lot more waterproofing to have electric meters undergound than on a wall in side or outside of the house

 

[Bunkermagnet]

Well it’s nothing new. Because Electricity by its very nature is hard to store, the generators have always had to balance the grid. In the (good) old days when we used fossil fuelled power stations we could just ramp up the output to meet the extra demands in the morning and evening peak… now because of progress we have a less controllable/reliable system using renewable energy sources.
(Obviously going nuclear would have avoided this problem but the country has gone in a different direction)

I am sceptical that smart meters are beneficial to the consumer in the long term, short term sweeteners just to get people on board are just that…Short term. I think it’s much more likely that they will be used to charge people more at peak times… so called surge pricing.

One thing I am certain of is the Electricity suppliers would not be spending £11B on smart meters for our benefit.

They aren't, we are the ones paying for it with a factored in levy. The smart meter is just another way they can cut costs by needing less staff.
For years, I had a mechanical meter that gave 2 rates controlled by the time of day and it physically switching.

 

[Bunkermagnet]

I don't know how local electicity cables work. Is there a big cable coming up the street with lots of little cables hanging off it going into the houses? Or do the individual cables to the houses come all the way from a sub-station?

3 phase cables, red blue and yellow. Each house will in turn recieve one of those.