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Smart meters - what's the point?

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  • walshiesleftfoot
    walshiesleftfoot Posts: 1,208
    Like Martin CAFC I work in The industry as a meter reader. Iaitch it’s not compulsory to have a smart meter. Smart meters are like Marmite some people love them others hate them . Yes they have to be read and inspected . Regardless of what type of meter you have they have to be inspected every now and again . The meter position stays the same but it’s best  to  put the device that shows you how much energy you use close to the meters . One tip please have it plugged in as some people love to bury there smart meters and you can get the readings of the device that tells you how much energy your using 
  • snowinberlin
    snowinberlin Posts: 807
    walshiesleftfoot said:
    Like Martin CAFC I work in The industry as a meter reader. Iaitch it’s not compulsory to have a smart meter. Smart meters are like Marmite some people love them others hate them . Yes they have to be read and inspected . Regardless of what type of meter you have they have to be inspected every now and again . The meter position stays the same but it’s best  to  put the device that shows you how much energy you use close to the meters . One tip please have it plugged in as some people love to bury there smart meters and you can get the readings of the device that tells you how much energy your using 
    Is marmite the right phrase because generally we are a country of moaners and will object to anything new whether its a good idea or not, looks at HS2 for example

    Take the Olympics, before it happened people used to moan about how it was a waste of money and should be scrapped, it was a roaring success so alot of people are just objectional, it's a British trait
  • AddicksAddict
    AddicksAddict Posts: 15,791
    snowinberlin said:
    HardyAddick said:
    Saves the power companies the expense of employing loads of meter readers and we are paying for it. Nothing smart about it.

    surely if they had to employ these people they would also pass that cost on?
    If they didn't have them already, but they do, so when they un-employ the meter readers, they don't pass on the savings to us, they pay out higher dividends.
  • AddicksAddict
    AddicksAddict Posts: 15,791
    cafcpolo said:
    hoof_it_up_to_benty said:
    cafcpolo said:
    hoof_it_up_to_benty said:
    cafcpolo said:
    On the flip side of all the comments, I've got one and actually like it. Doesn't do anything for me now but with some keen monitoring & adjusting of usage early doors of getting it I've knocked off about £150 from my annual bill.
    I'm not really clear how it helps given how little info it provides? The one I had was useless.
    What did yours give you info wise?
    Just daily usage when it worked. No real useful breakdown on appliances etc....
    Mine provides real time usage split by gas & electric and the cost associated with it. Daily cost is in there too but also last 6 months history, so you can drill down to the hour (not that I’ve needed too).

    The main benefit I had from it was checking the current usage when certain appliances / heating was running, etc so I could based on that. Small example being that in the morning when I drink tea constantly, it worked out cheaper for me to boil a full kettle once and use the keep warm function I have on it compared to boiling only what I needed 5 or 6 times.
    That doesn't appear to make sense.  It should take more energy to keep, say, five cups of water at, what?, 90deg then boost it up to 100deg each time you want to make the tea that to raise one cup to 100deg from 20deg five times.  There's a massive temperature difference between water at 90deg and the air around it at 20deg so the water will be losing heat quite rapidly and needing a lot of energy to keep it warm.  Even if it does actually work, you'd be even better off getting a large Thermos and putting the boiling water in that and then putting one cup at a time back into the kettle.
  • snowinberlin
    snowinberlin Posts: 807
    AddicksAddict said:
    snowinberlin said:
    HardyAddick said:
    Saves the power companies the expense of employing loads of meter readers and we are paying for it. Nothing smart about it.

    surely if they had to employ these people they would also pass that cost on?
    If they didn't have them already, but they do, so when they un-employ the meter readers, they don't pass on the savings to us, they pay out higher dividends.
    That sounds like a general gripe about our over capitalist economy, we sold all our social wealth to private companies and too much of our money goes into the hands of private equity and hedge funds rather than back to the people it should serve
  • StigThundercock
    StigThundercock Posts: 3,722
    cafcpolo said:
    StigThundercock said:
    The spin was that they help us know how much energy we're burning and how much it's gonna cost us, so we can "have more choice" and save money and "be all environmental and that".
    Truth closer to saving admin and effort and money for the delivery companies.
    If the technology exists and implementation is competent then obviously it's all good.
    In practice, the first gen meters mostly aren't up to switching providers, that other great pillar of consumer choice we've been brow beaten about for so long.
    Providers are under some regulation that they've got to install meters everywhere possible - regardless of the 1st gen meter inbuilt obsolescence thing.
    Seems there's a 2nd gen meter that is programmable for the real world but if our provider, BG, is anything to go by, they're not obliged to provide a 2nd gen meter but are permitted to determine which tariffs we can choose if we "refuse to have a meter" even if that meter may not be any sort of sensible.
    Apparently both generations communicate our consumption to the provider by the cellphone network, ergo they need electrical power.  No problem, obviously, on the electricity mains consumption.  Nobody is putting their name to how said gadget gets its power supply when your gas mains meter is in a box on the outside of the house that very obviously doesn't have a live electrical supply anywhere near.  Methane + air + spark = much fun.  Sort that little conundrum then, Offgen, BG, anybody?
    Yet another central government 'great idea' half thought through and swept in to being on a tide of your money hosed into private hands with zero accountability.
    The gas meters have batteries that give them enough power to send its reading to the electricity meter which sends them on to the energy companies / meter reader.
    All fine for the life of the battery, then what?  Who gets to renew them?  Even the best mobile phone battery discharges in a matter of days.
  • cafcpolo
    cafcpolo Posts: 3,811
    StigThundercock said:
    cafcpolo said:
    StigThundercock said:
    The spin was that they help us know how much energy we're burning and how much it's gonna cost us, so we can "have more choice" and save money and "be all environmental and that".
    Truth closer to saving admin and effort and money for the delivery companies.
    If the technology exists and implementation is competent then obviously it's all good.
    In practice, the first gen meters mostly aren't up to switching providers, that other great pillar of consumer choice we've been brow beaten about for so long.
    Providers are under some regulation that they've got to install meters everywhere possible - regardless of the 1st gen meter inbuilt obsolescence thing.
    Seems there's a 2nd gen meter that is programmable for the real world but if our provider, BG, is anything to go by, they're not obliged to provide a 2nd gen meter but are permitted to determine which tariffs we can choose if we "refuse to have a meter" even if that meter may not be any sort of sensible.
    Apparently both generations communicate our consumption to the provider by the cellphone network, ergo they need electrical power.  No problem, obviously, on the electricity mains consumption.  Nobody is putting their name to how said gadget gets its power supply when your gas mains meter is in a box on the outside of the house that very obviously doesn't have a live electrical supply anywhere near.  Methane + air + spark = much fun.  Sort that little conundrum then, Offgen, BG, anybody?
    Yet another central government 'great idea' half thought through and swept in to being on a tide of your money hosed into private hands with zero accountability.
    The gas meters have batteries that give them enough power to send its reading to the electricity meter which sends them on to the energy companies / meter reader.
    All fine for the life of the battery, then what?  Who gets to renew them?  Even the best mobile phone battery discharges in a matter of days.
    Well they are supposed to last ten years and if the energy company wants readings then I guess they'll have to send an engineer out to replace them. 

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