Smart Meters

I have solar panels and the meter goes backwards on very good days.

No way am I having a smart meter.

Anonymous wrote:

Dave Rice wrote:

I have solar panels and the meter goes backwards on very good days. No way am I having a smart meter.

Lets hope your not with NPower We’ll be installing Smart meters in all npower customers’ homes by 2020. There’s no need to contact us, we’re doing our roll out in stages and we’ll tell you when we’re ready to replace the meter(s) in your home. My meter stops and thinks about it’s next move, on very good days.

John – it doesn’t matter which provider you use, they aren’t compulsory, – you do currently have the option to refuse one.

Even in the hottest summer we’ve never had a negative monthly bill. We did have one that was very low and they queried the reading. I just said we’d been on a 3 week holiday.

Good then JayCee

I have a 2kw solar panel system which pays me more than my energy costs.

If only I had room for a 4kw system, which is the maximum allowed for the ‘Feed in System’.

😥

I don’t have a smart meter, I’m not really against them tbh, however i have a good set up with Npower, where I just input my readings into my phone by a certain date. I update the readings about twice a month, when I think on.

There app is great, but I’d imagine all the bigger companies offers something similar by now. So I don’t see the need for a smart meter, and untill I can be pursued by a big discount for having one I’ll hand tight for now, untill someone can convince me I’m better off.

But as I said I’m not adverse to having one, I don’t see the drawback IF they work, and tbh there isn’t fancy reason why they shouldn’t. Maybe it’s because they are new they are having difficulties.

Ive seem some forums where people say they don’t want the wirless signals 24/7 as they will give their kids cancer etc, but that is the most stupid thing Ive read, but in many forums it’s well a believed theory.  These people must think fairies and pixie dust delivers their Internet lol.

Ed P wrote:

Steve, the main problem is one of security. A smart meter provides an ‘always on’ connection between you and your energy provider. If a hacker gets into that link then you have potential problems ranging from burglars monitoring when you are away, to malware deauthorising your connection on the pretense you have not paid your bills. I’ll take a small bet that insufficient thought has gone into encrypting the connection between your smart meter’s sim and the energy company. I would also worry about the reliability of my phone/broadband connection. I get enough problems with the ‘copper’ bit of my broadband to worry about what automated actions are set in train when my smart meter stops transmitting! I have come to the conclusion that I do not want to take one unless I am offered a large cash incentive. i.e. time of day pricing over and above my day/night rate tariffs. I’m not even sure I want one then as I get all the stats I need from my solar pv management system.

Wow, something on which we can agree. For me the major issue appears to be that the damned things are just totally unreliable, even if the data link issues can be sorted out – a real issue in some cases. SMART meters that show daily consumption closer to life time usage should be disturbing to all. Like you I am not happy with the remote access function, I saw some studies that suggested this was included because about 15~20% of connections were industrial and could be manipulated to smooth out the transient variation in demand – turning down freezers and fridges in shops, easing back on Air-Conditioning, even running up on site standby power plants, etc. Saving of load of ‘useful’ magnitude could be produced, though even those were subsequently disputed. These dodgy figures were then extrapolated to domestic situations without applying any intelligence. Later it dawned on some that most domestic fridges (a) use relatively little power and (b) typically only run for short period of five or so minutes in any hour anyway. The saving generated by load shedding an inactive fridge or freezer is surprising small! Not the wrong anyway ~20% or so estimated for commercial users but less than 1% for domestic users.

Edit: I forgot, to add, most domestic equipment has a longer life than that in commercial enterprises, so how long would it be before they get replaced and become ‘remote controllable’? I have three fridges, 40 plus years old, and two more that are between 3 and 8 years old. The freezer is about 25 years old. Most new equipment has a shorter expected lifespan but claimed cheaper running cost hence less consumption anyway.

So another total bust!

The Duke wrote:

The remote control aspect is an Intresting one. I seen a BBC energy doc some years ago now, and the grid had deals with certain companies letting the grid dial back the companies power, (turn down stuff), to ride out shuddered peaks on the grid. I think this is actually great, and a good use of smart appliances. If they could do this, I’d be happy with a smart meter. I see this as a bonus not a con. As the government is turning off more and more energy sites, the grid is getting smaller and smaller,having to lean on the continent for extra boost. But aparently it’s takes time to do (seconds) and in the at time alliance manipulation on a regional scale would be a good thing.e enough long term manipulation may be good.

Steve, the con is the realisation that doing so with large companies who receive incentives and consume large amounts of power is great. The problem is that it is now clear that residential users do not generate any real benefit. They do not have controllable devices and few if any want to have the house rewired for a negligible <1% national benefit.

Do you have a remote control anything, especially a remote control large power consuming device? I don’t, it would be all off or nothing off at all.