UK energy watchdog slaps down Capita's £130M smart meter splurge UK energy regulator Ofgem is set to disallow current and projected costs of nearly £130 million ($165 million) accrued by Data Communications Company (DCC), the Capita-owned monopoly responsible for the UK's smart meter platform. Ofgem regulates DCC in an attempt to ensure it offers higher quality services and performance …
If smart meters actually did save consumers a worthwhile amount of money then people would be queueing up for them. The reason the rollout is going so slowly is that most people don't want them, because it does not benefit them in any way. Quite the opposite as some unlucky people found out when they were forcibly switched to prepay (ie. remotely had their electricity cut off without due process).
The real purpose of these meters is to allow the creation of smart tariffs where the supplier can analyse your usage patterns and change the prices hourly to make the most money out of you. And of course to try and "incentivize" people into changing their usage patterns, which is a bit sinister IMHO.
In the future they will no doubt be used for rationing electricity when the number of electric cars needing to be charged exceeds the grids distribution capacity. And we'll eventually probably get different prices depending on what you are using the electricity for, one price for heating and cooking, another for car charging, another for general use.
Orwell's predictions were right, he was just out by 40 years.
They don't save anything.
Nobody is sitting there deliberately burning through money for no reason, or through ignorance, if it matters to them.
The ones it doesn't matter to, it literally doesn't matter to. They'll continue to do that.
The ones it matters to have already taken all the reasonable steps, are perfectly aware of their energy usage, manage it, purchase accordingly, etc.
The smart meter rollout has nothing to do with customers saving money. It's to do with electricity companies not having to drive around in a van to read your meter any more (remember that happening regularly? Then you're old like me).
Since I had a smart electricity meter and a smart water meter fitted, all that happened is my USAGE stayed absolutely 100% the same (I have data, will travel) but their billing was forced to be far more accurate (the water bill was 10x more than my actual metered usage, the electricity 3x more than the previous resident that they were charging me on the basis of - I presume because of leaks, but also the "charge based on the size of the house", the previous guy had no care because someone else paid the electricity, etc.).
They lost a lot of money - 1st having to fund the smart meter installs in both cases, and the back-end to read them, but 2nd because they shouldn't be able to inaccurately bill me ever again once it's tied into their system properly. And they don't like that.
My bill for this month should be £65. They are trying to bill me nearer £200. And I will do nothing for this month (the account is in credit because their estimates are so atrociously bad even with me giving accurate readings just before the billing period) mostly because their own meter tells me I don't owe that, so that money will come back to me.
But next month if they expect me to pay more than I used, there will be runctions.
Smart metering is a nationalised function that's been privatised to a bunch of companies with an interest in not billing you accurately so they can earn interest off the surplus. That kind of thing should be illegal.
If smart meters were simply half-hourly meters with one-way comms, then they would be a lot cheaper and some of the arguments around enabling consumer choice would make more sense. BUT, they are not - they are also remote disconnect switches. This makes them a lot more expensive, and also makes them a potential target for nation-state cyber-attacks, so why put it in the spec? (s4.4.3.9 Disable Supply)
I think there are a few reasons (none of them good IMO), one of which is to enable consumer-hostile contracts with energy companies, as an alternative to expensive investment in local distribution infrastructure. For example, you could have a tariff where your maximum "main fuse" rating changes depending on the load at your local substation and on how much you pay. You could have a contract that stipulates that at peak load times, you may not use more than 20A or the meter will open its contacts and switch you off. This is a lot cheaper than installing thousands of new distribution transformers and up-rating underground cabling in every street, which would otherwise be required to support the adoption of EVs and Heat Pumps.
They can pry my Bakolite-encased GEC electro-mechanical meter out of my cold dead hands.
"they are also remote disconnect switches"
Which is a fairly pointless "feature" anyway. If you're not paying your bills and there's a reasonable chance of disconnection, just create a makeshift faraday cage over the meter to stop it talking back to the mothership.
That's assuming your meter actually works anyway, mine doesn't,
Well, for one you might get in trouble for that, and for two, there's nothing to stop it disconnecting automatically after a certain time period of no comms, once they have sorted out the more general comms issues
And as i've said in my other posts, "not paying your bills" is not the only reason why your supplier might want to disconnect you.
Another reason might be "because it is profitable to do so, by way of the balancing mechanism"
If the balancing mechanism is paying less than £100/MWh then the demand reduction won't net the DNO or the retailer much. Fair point that smart meters are not smart and are not there to benefit consumers. If they were, they could switch suppliers in real-time to get the best deal.
Sure, £100/MWh is basically normal wholesale price these days. But Balancing Mechanism prices have often hit £500/MWh, and I would not be at all surprised if they hit £1k next year given how things are going with geopolitics, power plant expiry dates, etc ...
The data is public. Even in the recent cold & still weather, we're only talking about £120. At times of stress, yes the prices can get massive but only for a short period. On 19th July 2022 when temps hit 40℃, a large CCGT tripped out and prices went into the thousands but only for a few hours.
Au contraire.
Friends in the UK utility companies tell me that they've seen accounts that haven't been in comms since the day they were installed.
Technically after a new meter is installed there is a "commissioning" process which establishes comms to the metering company.
Or not.
Various installers (the installation team may be yet another subcontractor) either a)Leave it running b)Stick the old meter back in c)Stick a different meter in that they had "On the van"
There are industry wide databases of gas and electricity meters in the UK. Option B & C stuff those right up. They tell me it's very obvious on the systems they use, suggesting it could be picked up a nightly sweep of the readings, since an in comms meter should produce at least one read a month.
The fun really starts when a prepayment meter (card and key) is swapped for "Smart" prepayment meters, the install fails and the sparks swaps them back to a dumb meter.
And then the customer calls in asking for an "advance" On either type this is a code. The codes are completely different.
And let's not forget how long it's taken for the whole process to realise that about 3% of the UK population h is either visually impaired or flat out blind. The In Home Display (the thing UK con-sumers are shown in the ads) had no support for this group of users built in. You can ask to have speech output as an option. Given low grade speech output can be done with a speaker and an ability to send a square wave pattern to it ( as Castle Wolfstein showed on the Apple II) this wouldn't have been that difficult to build in. Y'know, ageing population and all that?
It also looks like the designers failed to consider that gas and electric meters are sometimes not co-located. E meter in a flat, all gas meters in a "metering cupboard, so one pipe runs into the block), possibly well beyond the comms range from the E meter (and through several solid walls).
One day the UK SM rollout will be taught as a masterclass in how not to do it. Starting with the failure to do a benefit/cost analysis (as they did in Germany) to see if it's even worth the cost. In Germany they concluded it wasn't. There's plenty more decision points that were handled in an equally retarded way.
Absolutely.
I've never lived anywhere that didn't have at least one brick, block or stone wall between gas and electric meters. My current home has the entire building between them, as do the others on the street.
Pretty sure it used to be illegal not to have a solid brick, block, stone or concrete wall between them so that leaking gas would not reach the electric meter.
Co-locating is really new, only since they could both be outside.
Actually it's also a bit overblown.
AIUI the specs is <10m apart IE about 30 feet.
IOW gas meter in a cupboard inside the property, electricity meter in a "Utility cabinet" outside the property.
Basically there are a lot of combinations and TBH it looks like the designers only considered a small group of them*
*Perhaps just the ones the US use, given that's where most of these meter designs actually come from (although they will probably be built in China, along with everything else).
10m in free air, which works just fine if they're both outside on the same side of the house.
Put a double skinned brick'n'block wall in between, add some foil-backed insulation and it's very quickly 0.5m or less.
That said, very few US homes are built that way so I wouldn't expect those designers to consider this - though I believe the insulation part is becoming a lot more common over there.
IOW gas meter in a cupboard inside the property, electricity meter in a "Utility cabinet" outside the property
Lekkie meter and gas meter are about 30cm apart. In separate meter cupboards but then the gas meter door doesn't really close properly (have to hold it shut with a blob of blu-tack!
"Perhaps just the ones the US use, given that's where most of these meter designs actually come from..."
It is more likely that the designs come from Europe: L&G is a Swiss company (with wholly-owned subsidiaries in Europe (covering EMEA), the US, and Australia (covering Asia-Pacific) with manufacturing in India. Possibly (likely) elsewhere as well: I haven't checked. I would not be surprised if some assembly (at least) is not also done in Switzerland.
L&G have at least four of the major electrical 'retailers' in the UK sewn up. It's those who specify the meters, irrespective of who actually installs them: so their 'one-size-fits-all' is what you get here in the UK
Well, for one you might get in trouble for that
If I have a space where the regular meter currently is and I am told that they have to replace that meter. If I decide to line that cupboard with a copper mesh all over before the smart meter is installed (or indeed afterwards), could you please explain how that would get me into trouble? Also there are places where meters are installed but aren't accessible to the Smart Metering Wide Area Network even with extra kit (see below).
and for two, there's nothing to stop it disconnecting automatically after a certain time period of no comms, once they have sorted out the more general comms issues
Is that actually in the SMETS2 Specification? If it isn't then I don't think it can. The SMETS2 meter is actually 2 different pieces of kit, the meter and then on top of that and linked to it, the communications module. They're going to have to replace the 2G/3G comms modules on those meters that have them when those networks are switched off.
One place where I worked the meter was in the basement and the electricity supplier told us we needed a new meter and it would be a smart one. I was put in charge of assisting the bloke (we assumed it would be a bloke) when he turned up to install it. So a bloke turned up for the early morning appointment and we went down into the basement. He was trying to get a signal on his equipment but it wasn't happening for him. I explained that the room in the basement where the meter was probably reinforced concrete with metal paneling behind the drywall walls and a reinforced concrete ceiling. He said they could install the new meter but it wouldn't communicate with anything. He said it never would given the location etc. and we were not unique, there were lots of locations like that where the signal wouldn't reach.
I asked if there was anything they could do such as add an aerial to allow the meter to get a signal? He said yes, normally there were three different types of aerial they could use. After doing some testing he told me that the T1 & T2 internal aerials wouldn't work, so they would normally need to use a T3 aerial which was external. The location of our meter, in the basement in the centre of the building precluded that. We went back upstairs so he had a mobile signal again and after he'd spoken to his HQ he installed it anyway. There it sat, down there in the basement probably wasting a negligible amount of energy trying fruitlessly to communicate with the Smart Metering Wide Area Network.
cyberdemon wrote
"there's nothing to stop it disconnecting automatically after a certain time period of no comms, once they have sorted out the more general comms issues
There is a very good reason this doesn't happen ... given that an estimated 1 in 5 smart meters (S&M's ...) don't actually work reliably, that would be a lot of disconnections ... Would any energy companies actually survive the complaints / loss of funds / media outrage that this would cause ?
-- Chris
It doesn't help that the meter itself (L&G seems to have a (near?) monopoly here: M&MC please investigate) is has crap affordance.The faiure rate (to be fair not usually L&G, but the comms package, or the back-end) is ridiculously high https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cz9zqn77ezno , forcing customers to submit their own readings. I cannot read my meter without using a torch, even in high summer, because the the display contrast is very low and the actual 7-segment digits are made of lines less than the thickness of a razor-blade.
The meter is in a bog-standard exterior cabinet, so the display is a bit shaded, but that is the enclosure for which it should have been designed. And because there is a light-coloured wall opposite it there is actually more light in the cabinet, and less lighring contrast with the area outside the cabinet than usual; both of whichare making the display more visible.
There is a backlight for the display, but it's on a multi-function button. When I turn on said backlight, I have to step through vaious readings - and often the actual reading (units consumed since installation aka "the meter reading") is not actually shown.
There is a reason why - for every £ I have to get "refunded" because of an overpriced Direct Debit I'm forced to have in place that I will never approach on my bill - I put that money back into a solar power system of my own.
I intend to be rid of the electricity as a utility by retirement, and as rid of much of the water utility as I can too (atmospheric water generators, greywater systems, etc.).
Combined with something like Project Kuiper for Internet (NOT Starlink), I will happily be "off-grid" in a decade or so and then they can do what they like.
Curious.
I am on Variable Direct Debit for both* Gas and Electricity, so I pay each time for what I have actually used. Is that option not available to you?
When 'monthly-fixed' was introduced (IIRC that's at least 15 years ago), I elected to stay on 'quarterly-variable'. My very first thought at that time was that it was a system absolutely made for the suppliers "more-efficient-than-the-public-sector-private-companies" to arrange for a chunk of their borrowing to be provided at zero-interest by their customers,. If took a very long time (not until 2022) for the powers-that-be to get a grip on that: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/energy-bill-direct-debits-letter-to-domestic-suppliers
*Separate providers: monthly (changed from quarterly voluntarily) for Electricity. Still quarterly for Gas: monthly-variable allegedly available, but in practice not so easy (so too much effort). My quarters split the heavy-on-heating months quite well.
"why put it in the spec? (s4.4.3.9 Disable Supply)"
err .. that's the GSME chapter, otherwise known as the gas meter! Disabling a gas supply in emergencies seems like a reasonable thing to be able to do.
And disabling the gas meter in an emergency can be done by ... drum roll ... just turning off the valve that's next to it.
Using the meter's inbuilt facility just isn't going to happen. Just think of the bureaucracy needed to allow (say) the fire service to get in touch with the metering people, give them the details, and have the metering people reliably turn off the correct supply ! Now add in additional bureaucracy to make sure that ONLY the right people (e.g. fire service) can do this to prevent "mischievous" people* having their neighbours turned off ... after all, some of our US cousins think it's OK to SWAT people.
The ONLY valid reason for a remote disconnect on a gas meter is for credit purposes - i.e. to remove the need to physically send a team round to disconnect a supply or fit a pre-payment meter when it can be so much more easily done by getting a judge to rubber stamp a few hundred warrants with a phone call and then just turn them off without notice. Before "smart" meters, they at least had to break in to do it.
It's a bit more nuanced with electricity. With gas, the meter can only disconnect the supply, it must be manually turned back on for safety reasons. Arguably that should apply to electricity as well, but it doesn't. So apart from not paying the bills, the function of the remote disconnect is so that when (yes, I chose "when" rather than "if") we find ourselves in a situation where generation capacity is lacking**, demand reduction by price rationing (a.k.a. surge pricing, putting the per-unit price up to something eye-watering) hasn't persuaded enough people to sit in the dark without any heating or hot food or drinks, then they can implement rolling blackouts like some of us will remember from the 70s.
* In my youth, I was perhaps a bit mischievous. In our village we didn't have mains gas, so all the houses had outside oil tanks. And each tank had a valve on it before the pipework. And some of those tanks/valves were so temprtingly handy to the public highway. And sometimes I'd be walking home at night when it was dark. I think you can guess the rest. I noticed on had it's handle removed on the third visit !
** Like when another dunkelflaute comes along, but we've no longer got enough nuclear, gas, and coal(strike that, we've just shut down the last of our coal stations) power stations to keep the lights on. Looking at Gridwatch, over the last few days, wind had been dropping below 2GW for significant periods - against an installed capacity of at least 30GW.
All gas meters have been fitted with a fusible link to cut off the supply in the event of a fire. It's like the old fusible links in fire sprinkler systems, except when it melts the flow stops rather than starts.
In an old house (and the UK has the most number of houses built before 1919) you wouldn't want to go where most gas meters are located (IE the cellar) while it's burning down.
Gas meters with batteries are a bit different. My friends say some shut down when the batteries failing (naturally it's a non standard type and of course no customer is entrusted to replace it. They don't have the skillz needed). Others leave it running but make a noise.
Top tip. If your gas meter starts making a noise call the gas supplier ASAP. The repair staff are sub-contractors and they don't work 24/7/365
@cyberdemon
"You could have a contract that stipulates that at peak load times, you may not use more than 20A or the meter will open its contacts and switch you off."
I think you are talking about a device called an Overloader. It was 20 amps, but it applied at all times.My mate had one. I know this because I called at his place one time and it was freezing. He couldn't put the fire on as he was cooking and any higher use would turn everything off! Though, you could switch something off and then turn it back on. This mean't he could pay much less back than each quarter than if they had fitted a slot meter. And when the arrears were paid he could either keep it or they would remove it. His choice.
> I think you are talking about a device called an Overloader.
Yes, just like that, except defined in software where the overload threshold is adjustable depending on the time of day and maybe other factors, and is set remotely by the supplier
They can pry my Bakolite-encased GEC electro-mechanical meter out of my cold dead hands
We bought our house in 1997 and it came with the (then) standard rotary meter. *Every* energy company we've had since smart meters were introduced have tried to persuade me [1] to have one. My answer has always been "I'll have one if they become mandatory and not one moment before" because I too realise that there's noting in it for me. I don't leave stuff on when it's not needed so the oft-repeated "you'll know how much electricity you are using" fails (also, I get that info from the PV management system..).
Comes with the bonus that, in summer, I get to watch the dial go backwards - saving me 34p a unit (as opposed to the 19p I'd make on a feed-in tarriff). Or, as I prefer to look at it, banking units for overnight when the PVs are not generating anything.
[1] One kept spamming me via txt, email and phone calls. I told them that, unless they stopped, I'd be moving. They didn't. so I did. Current one isn't bad and has respected it - the Government forces them to ask me once a year (according to them) but their agents obviously read their CRM notes because it usually starts with "I know you don't want a smart meter but we are required to call you once a year. Has anything changed? No? OK - thank you, goodbye"
> in summer, I get to watch the dial go backwards - saving me 34p a unit (as opposed to the 19p I'd make on a feed-in tarriff)
THIS is yet another utterly ridiculous problem, not of smart meters per-se, but of how they can be (ab)used to define an asymmetric pricing system in software.
No wonder they want to force you to get a smart meter, if it means they can charge you twice as much to buy electricity from them as what they will buy it from you for. (Isn't that called Arbitrage, and is generally recognised as a fairly shady business practice?)
I know - I had one, but the UI sucked, so I built my own out of a Hall-effect current clamp, high voltage oscilloscope probe, Digilent Analog Discovery 2, and a Raspberry Pi.
Overkill perhaps - but it lets me see the harmonic distortion on both voltage and current (some nasty flat-topping going on with the voltage), and also estimate the resistance of the mains supply by correlating large load changes (such as my electric shower) with voltage drop.
I had one of those and it was highly inaccurate -
This is amusing me at the moment. I have at least 3 power meters, so happily comparing the results. Thus far, they seem to match and if they stop doing that, I guess I could borrow a calibrated one.
The most fun (or frustrating) part though is the idea that they can 'save money'. My property has 2 suppies, one for home and one for office, mainly for tax reasons and not having to deal with HMRC trying to disallow expenses when working from home. When it's just me at home, I'm using a grand total of.. around 40W. Well, if this PC is turned off. If it's on, it's around 170W, despite being one of those planet-killing gaming PCs, and providing I'm not running Crysis.
So Scotiish Power wants to know about how I'm going to 'save energy'. Not sure I should tell them 'Run a meter bypass so their meter isn't using my energy'. But perhaps demonstrates how 'smart' meters are being mis-sold. Or how they're supposed to stop our grid from falling over. Admittedly I might not be entirely representative of the general UK population given I'm sitting here wearing a thermal undershirt and a sweat shirt, not a t-shirt and cranking the heating up because 'its cold'. Plus stuff like this gives me the chance to show some worked examples to counter some of the guff my partner's kids are being taught at school. Like if the PC fans are blowing out warm air, is that really wasting energy?
My bill for this month should be £65. They are trying to bill me nearer £200.
Bizarrely, British Gas have just told me that they are reducing my monthly DD by £40 because I'm overpaying, even though my current DD was carefully set (by me) to exactly cover my annual use, and is still accurate according to the "smart" meter that sends BG the readings.
Still, if they want to leave the money in my account earning interest I'm fine with that. I'll pay the excess at the end of the year.
It is possible to switch to a Variable Direct Debit with most providers - thereby paying for what you use, rather than some daft estimation. There are no penalties for doing so. Martin Lewis/MoneySavingExpert mentions it at least once a year when discussing energy bills.
Octopus would like to charge me £207 per month, but I pay £0 since switching to VDD because I've generated sufficient solar credit over the course of the "summer" to carry me through. Come February the credit will run out, and I'll simply pay whatever I've used In essence I'm receiving credit, rather than offering it against my will to a cash strapped energy provider...
Smart Meters are a comprehensive waste of money. The cost of energy is so high that only rich people use more than the absolute minimum, and they will never use less. Most people save nothing.
The intrusive bullying to try and get people to accept them was also a disgrace.
Water meters are simply to punish anyone who gardens to make up for the inadequate investment in water supply infrastructure, at a time when they should be encouraging people to grow their own food.
Smart Meters are one of the signature policies that underline the wastefulness, incompetence, malevolence and stupidity of the British government.
£13bn that could have been used for so many other purposes. This sort of thing is why we hate our government in the UK. I guess for every country the reasons differ.
> Water meters are simply to punish anyone who gardens to make up for the inadequate investment in water supply infrastructure, at a time when they should be encouraging people to grow their own food.
Well, you could get a water butt or three and maybe a pump.. It does seem a bit daft to me to use potable water for watering gardens and flushing toilets. But then again not as daft as pumping potable water down a leaky pipe and not fixing the leak!
But Smart Meters, especially for electricity, are far too tempting to use as an alternative to investment in infrastructure, IMO.
For £13bn we could have built all the new 400kV transmission lines that we need, along with a good amount of "medium voltage" (e.g. 33kV) and "low voltage" (230/400V) distribution, which is really creaking at the seams now.
To be fair, it's pretty dead here most Friday nights... :p
...but there are a fair number of people unhappy with the infrastructure projects that are largely to connect London with North Sea wind farms. Especially in an area with frequent power cuts.
A group of those people have valid grounds for concern, and should be listened to, but another group of those people howl at the moon. I don't think that phenomenon is unique to Norfolk...
Let's all huddle around our open fires in our draughty caves.
Pylons are an eyesore—although there are prettier ones that are not much more expensive—but there are also far worse things to deal with in this world.
And, in the end, a row of pylons are easily removed when no longer needed.
They will at the very least, tax electricity used for charging a car at a higher rate than electricity used for other purposes.
It is already the case that electricity at public charging stations is taxed at 20% vs 5% for home electricity, and it is very clear that the way home chargers are being installed allows this to happen in the future.
True, but the EV itself still knows how much charge it's had and when, so implementing a tax on that would be no more difficult than a tax per mile driven, which has already been implemented elsewhere and mooted for the UK. It (or its charger) could also communicate with the smart meter over the HAN, to corroborate the data and do things like bidirectional charging, where you are offered a discount in exchange for an uncertain state of charge
This is all hypothetical technology though - my car doesn't communicate with the smart meter. It would need a Zigbee radio to do that. Maybe it will happen in the future with newer cars, but then I predict a rather large business for 2.4GHz Zigbee protocol jammers that, er, just happen to be switched on next to cars at night.
Your EVSE talks to both your meter and your EV, that's pretty much all it is for..
If you are on a restricted usage tariff and you put the kettle on while your EV is charging, the meter can send a signal to the effect of "please reduce consumption by 10A or else" and the EVSE will pass that along to the EV, which will oblige. If it does not, then your lights go out.
My EVSE doesn't talk to my meter - it is an older model that's not smart compatible. And my backup granny charger doesn't talk either.
I think you might be talking about a "Zappi" type solution (there are other products available that do this too). These are installed in properties with small mains fuses (or where they are looped off their neighbour's supply) where theoretically the main fuse could be overloaded by charging an EV whilst other domestic uses are operating. This works by measuring the current coming into the home with a CT clamp - and is purely for diversity reasons, nothing to do with grid stability or peak time usage. An alternative for these customers is installing a 16A EV charger, though that's less desirable as it's obviously slower than the standard 32A unit.
> I think you might be talking about a "Zappi" type solution
Sort of. What I am saying is, every modern smart meter and EVSE has the capability to implement this type of "solution", and it looks to me like the intention of the powers that be is to move more people onto this (with or without their consent) instead of upgrading the electricity supply infrastructure.
> purely for diversity reasons, nothing to do with grid stability or peak time usage
That's where you are missing the point. I am worried about "distribution" here; i.e. your local 11kV substation and the cable under your road, not national generation/transmission. Mass adoption of EVs and Heat Pumps means that the old "diversity" argument breaks down, because the peak has widened significantly if it takes hours to home-charge an EV and hours to heat the water tank / bedrooms. There's no way that anyone's local substation and existing cabling could cope with everyone having heat pumps and EVs, because that would mean something like 50A per house, for several hours per day. The cables are rated to no more than 400A and serve 20-40 houses, but you only need 10 EVs on charge (and nothing else) for them to be overloaded. It would cost hundreds of billions (at a wild guess) that the UK and the DNOs don't have to upgrade this for the whole country.
Basically, I do not trust our privatised DNOs as far as I could throw them, and I fully expect them to cheat on their obligations to deliver a fit-for-purpose supply that will cope with the phasing out of Gas. They will keep the old infrastructure going as long as possible (and replace it only like for like when it fails) instead of upgrading it, they will try to "adjust consumer habits" via smart meters, and if that fails, turn consumers off via smart meters.
Your should worry. The LV cable supplying half the houses in our street runs under our garden (we are at the closed end of a cul-de-sac). And the cable dates from 1937, now over 85 years old.
When originally installed, it supplied the whole road. And if/when 'our' part of it fails, the current view of such easements should mean that the feeder for the other half of the street takes over. Temporarily that is a simple matter of inserting two fuses, but ultimately that transformer and the cable serving that half of the street (also 1937 unsurprisingly) would need uprating/replacing.
For reasons too complex to go into, we investigated that possibility a few years ago and were quoted £40k for the wiring part – which is loose change for the DNO. Additionally they would also save by no longer replacing the now-failing original junctions to the individual properties. Those are steel-cased and pitch-filled, and are now prone to water ingress. Each replacement is currently carried out at emergency-work rates, of course.
The transformer itself will be time-expired (oil-cooled with currently-grandfathered fire-suppressant) within the next few years. That serving our half of the street has already been replaced (pointlessly IMHO) already!
It doesn't, and doesn't need to, use any form of communications signal for that ! Some (most ? all ?) chargers have the option of putting a simple current clamp round the meter tail so it can measure the current you are pulling from the mains. Tell it what you main fuse rating is (or any other limit) and it can manage things itself - if drawn current is above the threshold, reduce charging power.
Of course, if you want to maximise utility of a combined solar PV/battery/EV charger setup then it's a bit more complicated as the charger will need to communicate with the solar/battery manager to determine the optimum time and charge rate.
For good measure, communicating with the meter isn't even needed (or indeed used) to optimise against electricity cost - and IIRC the spec inconveniently left out the functionality to do this properly ! With things like Octopus's smart tariffs, the actual per-unit cost is provided via the internet in advance (the day before, for the full 48 charge periods of each day). So all the "smart" meter needs to do is totalise the usage at each price point - it doesn't need to record nearly 1500 readings per month, they don't need to transfer all these to a massive database and store it all for goodness knows how long. All they need is a total for each price for each billing period - and that could be done decades ago with mechanical meters (OK, only 2, or sometimes 3, charge rates with "Economy 7" and similar schemes).
True, but the EV itself still knows how much charge it's had and when, so implementing a tax on that would be no more difficult than a tax per mile driven, which has already been implemented elsewhere and mooted for the UK.
Road charging is another one of those government solutions looking for a problem, or being wilfully misrepresented. Both ICE and EVs already have a tax per mile driven, ie the price/duty paid per litre of petrol and KWh consumed. The more miles driven, or the bigger/less efficient the 'engine', the more tax paid. But like the way 'smart' meters have been misold, the only rationale is to implement demand manage and introduce differential taxes based on the time of day people drive. So the kind of 'surge' pricing that's currently infesting swathes of the service industry.
but the EV itself still knows how much charge it's had and when
But it doesn't know where that elecricity came from, so won't know if it has already been taxed, or was generated tax-free by your own personal solar panel or wind power, or came 'free' from a charger in a company car park. You also need to allow for possible V2G return of power to the grid, which would have to trigger a reimbursement of any tax paid (but would not necessarily know what that tax rate was).
You don't need a smart meter for that. Meters that allow you to do that sort of thing have existed for at least 40 years. In the past the options were an Economy 7 or similar meter, and a meter attached to a separate circuit that could be turned on and off remotely by the electricity supplier which was usually connected to storage heaters, but could also be connected to a car charger or other type of battery charger.
True, in fact it's very difficult to get a smart meter in "Economy 7" (In England, "White meter" in Scotland).
Apparently you need a "5 wire" type, which is not something most customers would check.
My friends tell me switching a customer on E7 to a smart meter is a massive PITA.
Apparently you need a "5 wire" type, which is not something most customers would check.My friends tell me switching a customer on E7 to a smart meter is a massive PITA.
This is one of those things that puzzles me about the lack of smarts in 'smart' meters. Guessing the problem is homes with E7 are typically wired with seperate circuits for water and storage heaters back to the teleswitch. So cometh the hour, there's a <clonk> and the meter/teleswitch energises those circuits. Given the selling point of 'smart' meters is some ability to turn on/off stuff in times of high or low demand, I would think this is a feature that should be encouraged.
But 'smart' meters seem pretty dumb still, and lack the ability to signal to any connected devices. So ok, if they can't handle switching spurs on/off, they should be able to signal outlets at least, but that functionality doesn't seem to exist. So people then have to look at using time switches instead and remembering to adjust those if/when tariffs change, and there doesn't seem to be a simple way to do that via a 'smart' meter. Even though that capability is supposed to be in the 'smart' meter-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_meter
Wi-Fi (readily available), wireless ad hoc networks over Wi-Fi, wireless mesh networks, low power long-range wireless (LoRa), Wize (high radio penetration rate, open, using the frequency 169 MHz) Zigbee (low power, low data rate wireless), and Wi-SUN (Smart Utility Networks).
Which is part of the FUN! I'm having trying to design a 'smart' home. Basic idea is simple, so have grid, solar, stirling engine and generator as inputs, then switch stuff based on supply/demand/ToD. But then challenges like wired vs wireless signalling or even just multi-colored cables to indicate what spur. Can't use red cables, have to use grey. Why? Building regs/code. Or trying to use standard stuff used in a lot of commercial building's heating/power management in a residence. Can't do that, that distribution panel isn't code/building regs for residential properties. My fault I guess for wanting to design a power network much the same as I would a data network. Shame there's no concept of VLANs either..
You can use red cables, there is no regulation requiring grey. It's just that grey is what nearly all such cables come in - and economies of scale mean that other colours are more expensive (and may even be special order).
I agree the bit about using a commercial panel which doesn't meet the BS to be a "consumer unit" is an issue. However, nothing to stop you having a compliant CU for the basic power distribution, and mounting a second box directly above/below/to the side of it to house control gear (relays etc.) to switch the circuits after they've left the CU. In fact, that's how I'd do it - I wouldn't want the hassle of mixing bus-bar fed distribution devices with non-bus-bar switching devices, two much hassle with all the individual wires that would inevitably by passing the sharp edges of the bus bars. Of course, switching at the load end removes that issue, but is less desirable with increasing load counts (but then we don't have lots of night storage heaters these days). In any case, apart from things like the immersion heater, a lot is now going to "smart" localised control anyway.
AIUI, "smart" meters should be able to signal to connected devices via the HAN. But I'm not aware of anyone doing it. As I've mentioned in another post, Octopus don't even use the smart meter for control in their smart tariffs - the electricity cost information is send out via the internet the day before, and people have put together systems to use it internally with IFTTT.
You can use red cables, there is no regulation requiring grey. It's just that grey is what nearly all such cables come in - and economies of scale mean that other colours are more expensive (and may even be special order).
Yep, I get the feeling that sometimes 'building regs/code' are sometimes used to fob off crazy ideas I want to consider. But coming from a telecomms background, I've always preferred physical speparation to logical. And color coding cables was an issue then, eg I could have any color thick-wire Ethernet I wanted, as long as it was yellow. Got a bit expensive special ordering plenum rated cables, but avoided potential issues with minions getting their vampire on and tapping into the wrong LAN.
But that also means I'm giving my designers challenges, like wanting to use DC where possible given there's a lot of DC capable devices and appliances on the market now, and most of the generation will be DC. Why use inverters when they're just something else that can go wrong? Plus things like fridges, washing machines can be a lot more reliable, if they don't have their own transformers and inverters to fail. But also a code thing. Appliances designed to run just fine on ships and yachts DC power can't be used in residences. But the house is on a floating slab, so it's a boat.. Downside is inspectors might not agree and then expensive rework.
However, nothing to stop you having a compliant CU for the basic power distribution, and mounting a second box directly above/below/to the side of it to house control gear (relays etc.) to switch the circuits after they've left the CU.
Yep, that's the idea, although it's becoming more of a rack(s) than a box. A little frustrating though when the demarc should be the CU, and what I do beyond that is my problem. Or my designers problem.
Of course, switching at the load end removes that issue, but is less desirable with increasing load counts (but then we don't have lots of night storage heaters these days). In any case, apart from things like the immersion heater, a lot is now going to "smart" localised control anyway.AIUI, "smart" meters should be able to signal to connected devices via the HAN.
Yep, but challenge then is a lot of the HAN kit assumes wireless, and worse, inserting cloudybollocks in the middle, or marketing carp like being able to turn on my lights via a mobile phone app. I don't want to depend on a 3rd party for control, especially when in a grid power cut, Internet & mobile connectivity is going to go dark. The 'smart' toaster refuses to make toast, or the 'smart' coffee machine won't give me coffee because the Internet is down. So much for progress. Then there's just the general challenge with domestic wireless, which could be range, or just that foil-backed insulation panels in walls, ceilings etc just don't play nicely with wireless.
The heaters are also a bit of a misnomer, ie they're only night storage because that was the intent when things like Economy 7 were introduced. Now, with things like domestic solar, they're just energy storage.. Which is something we're currently spending billions on, although grid-side because that's how people will make profits via arbitrage. But hook solar to a well insulated hot water cylinder and consumers get 'free' hot water, and that's cheap because a resistive heating element costs <$30 and doesn't care if it's being fed AC or DC. Consumer night storage heaters aren't necessarily great for space or visually, being basically brick warmers, but if you've got classic hot water radiators or central air, they can get heat from your hot water store.. Which is also cheap given it's just the rad, and some thermostats and pumps.
Which is also where some 'energy efficiency' regs get a bit silly. I grew up in a home with a hot water cylinder, which was in an airing cupboard. Which also doubled up as a warm place to let yeast do it's thing for bread and beer making. Currently though, hot water cylinders are consider 'inefficient' because they 'waste heat'.. But only if you let that go to waste. Otherwise any heat is just going to escape into a home, and warm it.
But this is also one of those rich vs poor arguments. The house I'm working on can be 'smart' and very energy efficient, but only because it is being designed from the ground up that way. If someone's in an 'energy efficient' new home, they can't because they just don't have the space to install a decent sized heat store, or may not have access to roofs for solar, or gardens for heat pumps.
I could have any color thick-wire Ethernet I wanted, as long as it was yellow. Got a bit expensive special ordering plenum rated cables, but avoided potential issues with minions getting their vampire on and tapping into the wrong LAN
Now you are showing your age. It was (just) before my time, thin ethernet (a.k.a. 10base2) had taken over in the sort of businesses I worked with back then.
But hook solar to a well insulated hot water cylinder and consumers get 'free' hot water
Yes indeed. And roll on a few years, a lot of people are going to be scratching their heads where the **** to put a HW cylinder in their modern shoeboxes designed on the basis that a combi gas boiler is the best thing since sliced bread.
I grew up in a home with a hot water cylinder, which was in an airing cupboard. Which also doubled up as a warm place to let yeast do it's thing for bread and beer making.
And also good for keeping things like towels nicely dry.
Currently though, hot water cylinders are consider 'inefficient' because they 'waste heat'.. But only if you let that go to waste. Otherwise any heat is just going to escape into a home, and warm it.
Absolutely. Not only that, but combi boilers have their own inefficiencies. For example, some can take ages to get hot water out from cold - hence the availability of devices like Combisave which is a thermostatic valve to restrict water flow until it reaches a certain temperature, which avoids the usual situation where the occupant runs the hot tap at high flow to waste a lot of water and a lot of heat while the boiler takes ages to get up to full temperature (it takes longer if you draw all the heat out running the "not hot yet" hot tap direct to the drain).
We have a couple of rental properties. 14 years ago now I fitted a thermal store in one of them, and while it was empty I was able to do some measurements by running it off the immersion heater for a few days and take lecky readings to see how much energy was being used. Even though it's in an unheated garage under the flat, it's standing losses are just 80W - I built an insulated cupboard around it. Around the same time I bought the property next door which still has a combi boiler. In "ECO mode" it goes cold and can take a full minute to supply anything even resembling warm water. With ECO mode off, it's standing losses were around 160W - based on gas meter readings over a few days and converting using the calorific values given on the bill. OK, to that mostly still goes into the property, but it's still higher losses than my "inefficient" thermal store. And the thermal store also runs the heating - so the boiler doesn't have to sit there short cycling for many hours/day.
Yes indeed. And roll on a few years, a lot of people are going to be scratching their heads where the **** to put a HW cylinder in their modern shoeboxes designed on the basis that a combi gas boiler is the best thing since sliced bread.
Yep, this seems to be a problem with a lot of modern homes. Cram in as many bedrooms as possible, then beds+2 for bathrooms, slap on some insulation and a combi boiler and flog it as an 'energy efficient' home. Downside, often very little in the way of storage space. Then again, I've had friends who've sacrificed an 'en suite' to install hot water cylinders & turn that into an airing cupboard. Worst is for people living in apartments who often can't do much with energy efficiency. I'm becoming a fan of US-style central air, but that requires enough room in floor or ceiling voids for the duct work, which can be impossible or just very expensive to retrofit.
In theory, apartment blocks should be good candidates for communal heating, but the incentives and subsidies typically favour things like solar to make money for the building owner via export tariffs. Or the communal heating is seen as a cash cow to make money from residents instead of providing a benefit. Government(s) could mandate things like that though, especially for social housing.
And also good for keeping things like towels nicely dry.
Yep, just mine sometimes ended up smelling of bread or beer. But those are nice smells!
...the occupant runs the hot tap at high flow to waste a lot of water and a lot of heat while the boiler takes ages to get up to full temperature (it takes longer if you draw all the heat out running the "not hot yet" hot tap direct to the drain).
Yep. I've become a fan of kitchen hot water dispensers. Counter top ones are cheap, as are larger capacity under-counter versions. 'Instant' hot water if like me, you're happy with instant coffee or just having near-boiling water for cooking. Another good use case for solar, or if 'smart' meters were really smart, heating the water when tariffs are low. Alternatively, just use a time switch so there's hot water around cooking times.
And the thermal store also runs the heating - so the boiler doesn't have to sit there short cycling for many hours/day.
Yep. One simply cannot defy the laws of physics. Water's great because of its specific heat capacity, so the energy cost of heating water from typical cold mains temperature to desired working temp is more expensive than if the water is already heated via solar or a heat store. Which then leads to additional fun, like if hot water is >60C, having mixers or thermostats to then lower it to a safer temperature. Plus things like finding a washing machine that still has a hot water feed instead of just a cold input. But that's less of an issue given washes are typically 30C and use less water than old machines might.
I also think the short cycling in combi boilers is a feature intended to induce faults and then help generate a lot of money from service contracts and repairs. But bigger problem given precarious energy supplies is that when there's a power cut, combi boilers just won't work. It's pretty tragic that despite our dependence on reliable & affordable electricity, pretty much all government policies do the opposite.
> bigger problem given precarious energy supplies is that when there's a power cut, combi boilers just won't work.
I see a gap in the market here for a special kind of long-running, low-power UPS that provides the earth-referenced, sinusoidal mains waveform that is required by modern condensing gas boilers and circulation pumps.
I see a gap in the market here for a special kind of long-running, low-power UPS that provides the earth-referenced, sinusoidal mains waveform that is required by modern condensing gas boilers and circulation pumps.
Downside is sizing the batteries I guess for the worst-case scenarios like a black-start condition.. Which is also the general risk with our creaking energy supply. So if there's a black-start mid-winter, which is the probable case.. A lot of people may have no heating or hot water for maybe a week. A few days would be more manageable, but that assumes utilities like gas & water can keep running during a power cut.
It could have a changeover-input for a generator, which could be powered by a tank of propane (or even from the natural gas supply that we are assuming will continue).
But, if gas and water do not continue, then we are into an apocalyptic (WWIII, zombies, etc.) scenario, for which this sort of thing might be relevant i.e. it's no use having a generator for power and heating if everyone else doesn't, and they can see that your lights are still on and your security is not enough to keep them out.
>> My friends tell me switching a customer on E7 to a smart meter is a massive PITA.
The old eco 7 meters stop working soon, so BG keep pestering me to have a smart meter fitted in its place to keep EC7........despite have stopped EC7 when we had the gas boiler fitter and moved to a single tariff (but still 2 readings)
When they talk about savings that's their savings not yours and those "savings" come from not having to build as much peaking plant because they use said smart meter to charge you like a wounded rhino and hence perform load shedding all on your own. The original "price signal", never mind if it's a bit cold and/or you're a bit poor etc.
Funny as I just received an email from one company that wants to come and read my meter.
Which is quite strange as I had a smart meter installed last month, I can see the data from that in my OVO account, and OVO still haven't managed to bill correctly for that first month and "estimated" the bill despite having a whole page of readings for every day of that month - and the estimate is 3x what I actually used.
Now I have "Morrison Data Services" wanting to read my smart meter (which kind of defeats the point of a smart meter?) unprompted. It appears genuine and they are using the email I provided OVO (I use unique emails for everyone).
I wouldn't mind but for 2 years after moving in, I tried to get OVO / SSE to remove my ancient radio teleswitch meter (on a three-rate meter including storage heating system) and replace with something vaguely modern (I ripped out all the storage heating day one and consider it pointless for my use). They were singularly uninterested in doing so until last month despite the fact that the radio tower that runs that system is about to die / be decommissioned permanently.
Then suddenly, it was "urgent" they get in to do it all.
They've now done that and it works - I can see accurate readings on my account. Oh, if you exclude the fact that they still have the heating meter on the account that I don't actually have any more.
What they don't do is actually use the numbers they're recording for billing me. Which will turn into an argument in another 3 weeks because that's their "8 week" deadline for how long it takes for the smart meter to actually work, according to them. The chat-help-lady was quite unhelpful about that and wouldn't do anything about a 3x bill until that 8 week after installation is up, despite confirming the latest daily readings to me.
I see a return to my Sunday "write a letter of complaint" hobby in my future.
I don't object to the principle of smart meters, but once fitted this is an IT project and data errors, mis-billing, manual re-reads, etc. shouldn't be happening and should be easily correctable as you LITERALLY HAVE A DEVICE SENDING YOU DATA DIRECTLY.
When this settles, I actually plan to move to another provider, but that's a pain in the butt while you still have a 3-rate meter on your account and when I was a horrible non-standard package anyway. With a SMETSv2 meter and a plain tariff, I can leave these people behind in the 80's where they belong.
Your problem is right there, OVO. I've heard so many horror stories of their appalling customer service I'd never consider them as an energy supplier whatever golden carrots they dangled in front of me.
The worst one I heard was due to OVO making an administrative error and having a locksmith force entry into a property that wasn't even using OVO as their supplier and installing a pay as you go meter. The unfortunate occupants couldn't even use the meter as they weren't the "named" customer OVO believed lived there so OVO refused at every touch and turn to talk to the real occupants of the property, leaving them without any energy at all. As I recall the ombudsman got involved and OVO was very heavily criticised.
"As I recall the ombudsman got involved and OVO was very heavily criticised."
And thats part of the problem right there. They should have been heavily find, AND forced to pay heavy punitive compensation.
The whole story is even worse; this happened AFTER bailiffs had attended on a prior occasion to fit a meter, in turn weeks after Rachael Holgate had been trying for weeks to inform SSE/OVO that they were not her supplier. But SSE/OVO refused to discuss it with her as she was not a customer... When the media contact OVO, their response was
"We’re very sorry to Mrs Holgate for the inconvenience caused. We’re attempting to reach Mrs Holgate to apologise and provide a resolution". You'd be forgiven for thinking that surely they would have an address and phone number...
Its about time we had real watchdogs, with teeth, and chief execs recruiter from a consumer background and not an industry background.
And thats part of the problem right there. They should have been heavily find, AND forced to pay heavy punitive compensation.
And who do you think would pay those fines? It'd be mainly customers through higher prices and possibly staff through less generous renumeration packages. Fines are just a business expense like any other.
In this case since a fine would be specific to one company it does make it more difficult for them to compete in the market for customers and staff so there is some incentive for them to address the issues. Nonetheless it's 'us' who pay, not the company.
OVO for the last 24 months has continued to bill someone at my address who does not live there, as far as I can tell does not live there, and they have the wrong MPAN anyway. I keep getting increasingly aggressive bills for a "John" whose MPAN actually codes for some meter somewhere in Manchester. Needless to say my emails to them have been ignored to this day... whatever, not my problem.
Perhaps, though that would require them to issue a CCJ against someone who doesn't, and has never lived at the address claimed, so we'll see what happens! At this point there's nothing I can do besides complain to Ofgem who are famously useless with this kind of thing so I'm just waiting to see how long it takes an actual human to realise they've probably mixed up the address somewhere.
It didn't stop OVO from sending bailiffs to the house I mentioned above, nor stop them from subsequently sending in a locksmith to break in while the owners were out and fit a pre-pay meter. Even after that OVO wouldn't admit their mistake and refused to engage with the real owners of the property. Seeing how incompetent and nasty OVO are, I'd be keen to resolve the issue with them sooner rather than later, but how you communicate with such a bunch of wasters is anyone's guess. OVO seem to have a habit of blindly escalating even when they are completely in the wrong.
As I recall, someone on the same street had tried to switch to OVO but OVO had fat-fingered the house number and inflicted all this grief on random strangers further up the street, switching their house without consent to OVO and then the whole cascade of trouble that followed. Due to the name being wrong OVO just wouldn't engage with the real owners of the property. None so deaf as those who don't want to hear.
The CCJ is trivial - simply one of a thousand entries on a spreadsheet, all of which OVO will swear under oath during a phone call are persistent non-payers who've refused all attempts to manage the situation, and the judge will rubber stamp them and OVO have the warrant. Then they can come and break into your house to change the meter - or just switch you to pre-pay without notice leaving you with no lecky at all as you won't be able to apply any credit to the meter that is registered against someone else.
I would be sending letters by registered (or at least recorded) post to their registered company address, and marked for the attention of the chief executive. Set out the problem and the attempts you've made to fix it. Make sure you keep your copy, and proof of delivery (I've noticed Royal Mail only seem to keep it online for a few months). That way, if (or as seems more likely, when) the brown stuff hits the fan, you can show that you have done all you can to deal with the problem. Courts take a dim view of big organisations that go out of their way to not fix problems even when the customer (or in this case, innocent victim) has tried hard to deal with it.
They are literally the only place that supported the "Superdeal" three-rate radio teleswitch meter tariff that I inherited with that property.
That's now dead and I'm on a smart meter with Economy 10. Still not great, but at least standardised, portable and vaguely useable.
Once I have the account sorted to reflect reality (8 weeks max, I'm told) then I will migrate to Octopus or similar.
I have be trying to reduced my monthly directly debits to Octopus for about a year. They keep raising them every 6 months or so even where I have a credit about 2 months average of bill. You can change your monthly amount, but only by an amount. I have to monitor every 2 months to change amount to keep to stupid a credit limit.
I tried to get OVO / SSE to remove my ancient radio teleswitch meter (on a three-rate meter including storage heating system) and replace with something vaguely modern (I ripped out all the storage heating day one and consider it pointless for my use).
Ah, well, that demonstrates a combination of technofetishism with disjointed government policy. So those ancient radio teleswitches were a simple solution to demand management. Very simple toneburst flipped some relays to send power to cheap resistive heating elements. Convenient way to sink surplus energy during off-peak times. Now, we have the same problem, ie what to do when electricity supply exceeds demand. Currently windmill operators get paid millions in 'constraint' payments, or chase billions to install 'grid scale' energy storage systems like large batteries.
But storage heaters do exactly the same thing. If only there was a way to selectively turn those on & off, so instead of spaffing those millions in constraint payments, people with storage heaters could just get free/cheap electricity instead. Problem is that although homes with storage heating have already decarbonised, there has been disincentives to recognising storage heating as being 'green'. So fewer homes have energy storage, and a lot of new homes don't have the space to fit a cheap, simple hot water cylinder. Unless of course you've got a 'green' home, in which case using solar for heating makes a lot of sense, because storage heating is far, far cheaper to install and maintain than more compex solutions like heat pumps.
"Now, we have the same problem, ie what to do when electricity supply exceeds demand. Currently windmill operators get paid millions in 'constraint' payments"
The problem we have now, for the most part is a constraint in the transmission network between the generator and the consumer. So asking the consumer to 'waste' some free electricity doesn't help at all. In fact it makes things worse.
The problem we have now, for the most part is a constraint in the transmission network between the generator and the consumer. So asking the consumer to 'waste' some free electricity doesn't help at all. In fact it makes things worse.
That depends I guess. Problem is government insanity and efforts to decarbonise heating and transportation are shifting the entire demand model. So solutions like good'ol Economy7 to sink off-peak energy could still sink surpluses. But as you say, the profile is being shifted to make what was once off-peak demand peak with people wanting heating and charging their EVs. Energy wouldn't be 'wasted', especially if it's something simple like heating water. If I've got hot water, I don't really care what time of day it's heated, other than the cost under the current pricing model.
Biggest challenge I guess would be how responsive the comms could be between 'smart' meters and grid management, along with creating a 'fair' system. Octopus already has some creative tariffs to incentivise or penalise their customers. Biggest advantage to the consumer though is cost & simplicity. Hot water, radiators and a pump is a whole lot cheaper than alternatives like combi boilers and heat pumps.. But then installers and servicing companies wouldn't make as much money.
All UK smart meters have a remote disconnect facility that allows the consumer electricity supply to be turned off. This facility is mandated by the government. The smart meters would be cheaper to produce is there was just a wire link instead of the relay.
UK governments realize that there will be times when there will insufficient electricity supply (eg a cold calm winters night) as the UK has become too dependent on non-constant generation (principally wind) and the electricity demand is expected to rise due to heat pumps and EV charging. The smart meters remote disconnect will allow the government to ensure that only the "non-important" people shiver in the cold while they and their friends are comfortable.
Unless I am forced, I will not have my meter replaced by one of these smart meters.
Icon for what should happen to lying politicians (about 99.99% of them) ======>
It isn't the government that wants 'smart' meters, but parasites like Crapita. More on that in the article about how much they're adding to our energy bills, and also here-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq52382zd1no
Energy smart meter issues creating north-south divide
The cost of installing smart meters across Great Britain is estimated to be £13.5bn, according to the government. There are 36 million such devices in England, Wales and Scotland - but recent government figures show 3.5 million of them are not working properly.
So.. that's £375 per meter, and £1.3bn to replace the faulty meters. Oh, and another large chunk of cash to replace the old meters that rely on GSM. But then the Bbc gets a bit.. weird-
As a rule of thumb, smart meters in the northern region designed to connect to the radio signal have two small indicator lights on the communications hub, fitted to the top of the smart meter. The hubs fitted to smart meters in central and southern regions, receiving the cellular signal, usually have five of these indicator lights.
Err.. right. So the 'north-south divide' is poor northerners being deprived of 3 LEDs? Puzzled why the Bbc makes a point of the disparity in LEDs, other than perhaps what happens when arts grads try to do tech stories.
But I've also been pondering the usefulness of meter readers. There's been a spate of house explosions, and I've been wondering if those have been due to people fitting meter bypasses to their gas supplies because of the extortionately high gas prices. One advantage of meter readers is they may be able to detect people running bypasses before the fire service does.
I assume the reason the Beeb mentions the LEDs is so that the plebs can identify which one they have..
Indeed - we will still need meter readers (more like meter police), even moreso with the high prices and remote disconnects, it is becoming ever more tempting to bypass the meter for some. That and the data communication seems to be one thing that the "DCC" struggles with.
It's not about the number of LEDs, that's just the way of identifying the type, it's that Crapita will ONLY supply meters that use a cellular network in the south and ONLY supply meters that use a radio network in the north and Scotland. This means that if you happen to live in a Scottish town that can't get a decent radio signal but has decent cell service you end up with a dumb meter because they won't even think of fitting the cellular version due to 'demarcation'
It possibly made sense to someone when they first cooked up the idea many decades ago, due to network availablity, but OFGEM should have spotted there was a way to boost take up at some point
Unless I am forced, I will not have my meter replaced by one of these smart meters.
You will be forced.
We are being forced to take a smart meter because our older "dumb" meter is reaching EOL, and we are not being given an alternative. I'm not a happy bunny on that subject, but there does not appear to be any choice in the matter.
Oh there is a choice. The regulations (here: https://smartenergycodecompany.co.uk/the-smart-energy-code/ but they're a weighty old document set) specifically allow you to refuse to have one. It will make your energy supplier Very Unhappy because nasty Ofgem will come and talk to them about it but you are allowed to refuse to have a smart meter fitted.
Not that I think it's a good idea to refuse. There is an awful lot posted in forums by people who have very little understanding have how smart meters, the SEC or the energy industry in general work and generally get quite shoutily wrong.
> Not that I think it's a good idea to refuse. There is an awful lot posted in forums by people who have very little understanding have how smart meters, the SEC or the energy industry in general work and generally get quite shoutily wrong.
I wonder if you are talking about anyone on this forum, mr coward?
If so can you please fill in what you think we (or perhaps I?) have got so shoutily wrong about these things? I certainly understand "how the meters work" (as an electronics/firmware engineer who has seen the insides of them and read the spec) and I have had a good amount of exposure to the energy industry... So that leaves the Smart Energy Code, perhaps?
Forgive me for being skeptical about governments and industries setting out codes and then actually abiding by them...
Oh there is a choice
There won't be. The choice will be to have a smart meter that's been configured to dumb mode, or no supply at all. They aren't buying any non-smart meters, so if you long after a good old reliable Ferraris disk meter, you won't be getting one.
And of course we'll need to trust them when they say they'll pinky swear they won't switch it back to smart mode either deliberately or "accidentally".
I am refusing a smart meter on the basis that there is no mobile phone signal here (yes, in the Britain of 2024, 3 miles from a National Highway). I am finding that there are a lot of people who design systems on the assumption that there will be a signal, and then cannot get their heads round the idea that THIS PLACE DOES NOT HAVE URBAN INFRASTRUCTURE.
They haven't tried to force the issue yet, but when they do, you will be able to hear the fighting from wherever you are. We will not be merciful.
The smart meters remote disconnect will allow the government to ensure that only the "non-important" people shiver in the cold while they and their friends are comfortable.
And the Democrats are going to take your guns, Elvis was taken by aliens, crop circles are real, and Qanon will soon start unveiling pedophiles. You think the government is cooking this up in some hare brained plan to oppress you? What would they get out of it? How does making "non-important" people cold benefit them? And the *government* are doing it? Not energy companies, you're specifically calling out government to go after you and make you cold...
Its far easier to just continue with dumb meters and charge poor people lots of money for energy - rich people don't worry about the electricity bill. Why disconnect people when you can either persuade them to voluntarily self-disconnect themselves to avoid huge bills, or get themselves in to big debts?
I applaud all these smart meter refusniks for their passion, but they haven't thought it through - they don't want a smart meter so they can't be overcharged or disconnected, but pretty soon tariffs will go from rewarding people who shift their usage with time of use tariffs, to penalising those who remain on non time of use tariffs.
I mean - that will happen regardless, the unit price for non time of use tariffs depends on the predicted usage of those customers, and the cost of obtaining it. If the only people left on non time of use tariffs are strident "I will use energy between 4-8pm as I goddamn please" people, that energy is going to be super expensive to obtain and non time of use tariffs will become correspondingly expensive. In essence, people on time of use tariffs will pay the fair cost for their energy, and people on the non time of use tariffs will pay for expensive energy for people who refuse to time shift.
More power to you, stick it to the man by paying over the odds for electricity.
> How does making "non-important" people cold benefit them?
It prevents the entire electricity grid from collapsing if there is insufficient generation.
Third world countries often have rolling electricity blackouts due to insufficient generation. The UK can of course do that, by turning off parts of the grid, but that would affect everyone in an area.
Smart meters allow the blackouts to be targeted to individual houses.
The UK has got rid of it's big reliable coal power plants, and the reliable nuclear fleet is aging out and retiring. Simultaneously, the government is pushing for electric cars and electric home heating (heat pumps).
This leaves the UK massively reliant on gas power stations, using half imported gas. There is a lot of wind and solar on the grid, but neither are reliable sources of power - you can't decide to turn them on during a calm wind-less evening.
I get where you're coming from but that's not what that that text means. The HAN interface is the radio interface within the home as opposed to the keypad on the meter. A supplier can turn of the energy supply by sending a SR7.2 service request to the device.
In reality that functionality is locked behind serious RBAC and ahs never been used. Outside of an emergency it's unlikely it would ever be used.
Rosie
"Back in 2012, the government created a legal obligation for energy suppliers to make sure they completed the rollout of smart meters by the end of 2019. Subsequently, it pushed back the deadline three times, first to the end of 2020, then 2024, and then 2025. As of February 2023, the government launched a consultation on plans to have smart meters installed in 80 percent of homes and 73 percent of small businesses by the end of 2025."
They should, by now, realise that there's a substantial customer resistance, that they've got about as far as they're getting, that it was a Bad Idea and they might as well quit while they're behind.
I suppose what stops this from dawning on them is that it looks just like so many other HMG projects - behind schedule and over budget - that they think that with time and budget it will get there in the end if they really want it.
What I find irreconcilable is the fact that the Government is putting hard-deadlines to the electricity suppliers to get smart meters installed, but they are still saying to customers that they can refuse having a smart meter installed. How is this supposed to work?
If a smart meter only did what they state the customer benefits are, i.e. provide accurate readings remotely, I would be all for having them installed. But there seem to be so many hidden agendas, like remote disconnect, forced capacity rationing, remote conversion to pre-pay, and seriously bad rectification of any errors that the supplier makes that impact the energy supply, that I will resist having smart meters being fitted to my house for as long as I can.
I've already had the "When can we do the smart meter installation you've booked" lie, when I have not booked one, the "Your meter has reached end of life", when they won't tell me what the end of life date actually is (which they have to do by law), and probably several more where as soon as they mention "smart meter" I say "no thank you", and just hang up.
I am waiting for the ultimate "we will have to cut the electricity to your house if you don't have a new meter fitted", which they already have the power to do, but not yet exercised.
We also see in the various tariffs that the cheaper ones require you to have a smart meter, and if you really don't want one, you end up paying more for your energy.
What really gets me is that I have seen talk of a new generation of smart meter that they want to switch to which will grade and switch individual circuits or appliances in your house so that the supply company can choose which of the devices you have they can turn off when they need to shed load at periods of insufficient supply (and probably so that they can charge different devices at different tariffs, such as higher prices for charging your EV to compensate for the loss of road fuel duty). And this is before they've completed the roll out of SMETS2 meters! If that is really on the cards, and not a conspiracy theory, they should pause the current roll out until they have worked out what the real end-goal is meant to be.
I think they are waiting for a critical mass of installed smart meters before they make them mandatory. It's actually pretty hard for them to forcibly cut people off when they still number in their millions.
The idea of having secondary or auxiliary loads is already in the SMETS2 spec (5.4.10). So they will still be SMETS2 meters, just of, er, a different type...
That kind of proves my point that Smart Meters _will_ be used for load shaping (if not full blown load shedding) because they can avoid the need for load shedding (which is done at substation level and is highly inconvenient for important customers like businesses) by switching off customers who don't, er, matter.
(having auxiliary loads that they COULD disconnect first may in theory be a good thing for you IF these loads are genuinely auxiliary and not important to you, but in practice that's unlikely as if so you would already have switched them off!)
Supplementary Question (as we seem to have some knowledgable types around):
How robust/protective are the PSUs for the "smarts" in the meter? Having had electonic equipment taken out by mains voltage yoyo-ing up and down as the grid attempts to restore power it would not seem a good idea for meters to be susceptible to such events. (ISTR that a type of PSU often used in household electonics does not react nicely to the mains repeatedly switching on and off in short order).
TIA
...as soon as they mention "smart meter" I say "no thank you", and just hang up.
Thank God, I was starting to think that I was the only person repeatedly saying no to these infernal contraptions.
I don't want a smart meter for a number of reasons.
1) I don't trust them.
2) I don't trust the energy companies and stories here only reinforce that.
3) I live in a radio shadow, we have very poor connectivity with no choice with mobile 'phone networks and everyone here is hooked up to satellite TV through force majeure. Despite this I was told last time they tried to get me to install a smart meter "Oh, our maps say that you have a good connection," I was too polite to tell her to come and see for herself.
Which is where the distrust of the meters comes from. I won't take the risk of the meter failing and then being sent an estimated reading. Climbing on a ladder and reading the meters by hand is a small price to pay for getting my real use through to the energy company.
3) I live in a radio shadow, we have very poor connectivity with no choice with mobile 'phone networks and everyone here is hooked up to satellite TV through force majeure
Likewise.
O2 (and MVNOs) - signal OK upstairs, [pathetic elsewhere (thank goodness for wifi calling..)). Vodabunny - haha. 1/2 a bar (at best, on a sunny day). 3 - no signal at all. Where the meter cupboards are - no mobile signal at all. If they have a 3m airiel, they *might* get a usable signal if it's on the right side of the house (meter cupboards are on the left side of the house)
(And as for TV - there's a gurt great hill with a hotel on it between us and the closest mast. The next closest is behind a big ridge of hills to the south. Even with a masthead amp the TV signal is poor to non-existent. Especially when it rains (which it does, a lot. Because of the big range of hills to the south penning up the sea winds so that they drop their rain on us..)
So, when we moved in, it was a choice of Sky or no TV (no freesat then).
The "remote disconnection" etc are all there.
However, the ultimate real reason for "smart" meters is going to be real time variable peak demand pricing.
The more people want to use electrickery at the same time, increasing demand, they ramp up the price and fuck everyone over. They'd make Kenneth Ley and Jeff Skilling (ENRON) proud.
The energy market equivilant of Ticket Master's "surge pricing".
Citizens need to ask Just how is a meter smart?
For the consumer There is nothing smart about the meter.
For government planners, being able to en masse remotely reduce consumption from a control room does look smart.
Being able to command hoards of ev’s & heat pumps to stop consuming when the wind stops to reduce payments for foreign feeds does look smart
Waking in the morning to a cold house and partially charged car that won’t make that round trip drive you’ve got that day is not smart, missing that interview 2 hours away as you’ve got to charge your car an extra hour that should have happened whilst you slept is not smart.
I’d have gladly got a remotely read meter that wasn’t capable of remote disconnect.
I don’t want to participate in the stupidity that government has bought into.
Let’s see how this winter goes.
If it’s cold and we compete for feeds from our foreign neighbours energy companies may go bust.
Also we will be competing for food due to the floods in Spain & Morocco.
Literally dark times ahead.
In my lifetime, the meter replacement cycle was based on the length of time the calibration was valid. You can look that up here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/schedule-4-uk-nationally-approved-electricity-meters. For most models of analogue (rotating) meters it is no longer than 10 years. In my experience (50+ years of home ownership) the consequent replacement cycle was more observed 'in the breach' than compliant. When it happened, like as not a refurbed meter would be installed, IIRC new meters went into new houses. - we never had a replacement that was new-out-of-the-box. I am told that the 'policy' (whose I do not know) is that analogue meters are no longer being refurbed (could be just not enough business?). Since Crapita is involved I don't care to look into the ethics of that situation.
Likely you will be told that you cannot have a replacement analogue meter because 'none are available'. That's sort-of-true (but that truth is absolutely contrived, IMHO): but you may find that, if you fight your corner hard enough you can. But don't then try chasing a different Tariff...
I went looking for actual figures on how much energy they are saving, which they would know for sure by now. To me it seems very simple. You look at the energy used by a household in the year before having a smart meter compared to the year after having a smart meter. No one is collecting those figures and I strongly suspect it is because they don't want to know the real numbers. What they are doing is comparing average smart meter households with average non-smart meter households. Much easier to fudge those figures. What is an average household? One bunch of statistics I did find was:
"Supplier A shows electricity consumption reductions of 3.70%. Supplier B, Supplier C, and Supplier D show 1.12%" From this they concluded "The pooled estimates are -3.43% for electricity". Creative mathematics.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/64831d59103ca60013039c7a/energy-supplier-review-of-smart-meter-energy-consumption-impacts.pdf
They are trying so hard to find a saving of 3% from having a smart meter but it just doesn't exist. 3% would be pathetic anyway, given what has been spent. There are no savings because people already know that electricity costs money and have already made their lifestyle choices. A smart display, languishing in the drawer of oven manuals and washing machine restraining bolts, is doing nothing.
Other commenters have mentioned the real reason for smart meters is remote disconnection. Don't forget remotely switching the meter to pre-pay without a court order (or even notifying you first, in some shocking cases).
Smart meters could have been a benefit to consumers. Octopus run events where you can get paid to reduce your energy consumption at certain times, which is only possible with smart meters. Instead they created machines with features that no sane person would want. They've lied constantly about the benefits and allowed Crapita to steal from us all. Pretty normal for a UK gov project.
The idea behind smart meter energy savings isn't the overall kWh's reducing (indeed they are expected to increase as EVs and heat pumps come online), but smart tariffs encouraging usage in 'quieter' periods of the day when there's excess wind or solar for instance.
Octopus via the Agile tariff has already about 500k customers, and their various other 'smart' tariffs have another 1.5 million. This is a sizeable force on the grid, so much so that if you pay attention to the UK grid frequency, you can see when all of the EVs switch on and off on tariffs like Octopus Go.
You might not like tariffs like this but you're effectively going to be paying more to operate on a non-half-hourly meter as your usage will be assumed to meet one of the standard Ofgem curves. Based on my internal metrics, my electricity bill is down about 30% from what it would be compared to operating on a standard tariff. I do have an EV - so I've compared to something like Economy7 with the car charging in the cheap overnight period - but even on days without an EV I'm able to shift things like my dishwasher, tumble dryer, etc to overnight slots where I get cheap leccy. The next step is to add a home battery to arbitrage further on this cheaper electricity.
Clearly, none of the architects of smart meters considered my wife - who will only put on the washing machine (or other large appliances) at a time convenient to herself, and screw the cost of leccy at that time. Trying to convince her it will save £10s a year is going to be met with a negative response.
She also doesn't like the machine running at night since the vibrations from the spin cycle resonate up through the floor.
Unless you are unfortunate enough to be rationing your power use, smart meters won't change the behaviour of people who only want to do things their way.
(Icon to illustrate the response)
She also doesn't like the machine running at night since the vibrations from the spin cycle resonate up through the floor.
I must get some microwave popcorn in, I think it's going to be "interesting" when the first cases hit the courts.
We've got the fire services and the government telling us not to use tumble driers (and other appliances) when not around to put out the fires - and another bit of government tells us to run tumble driers (and other appliances) at night when we're asleep. So when do we get the first court case when someone died because they followed government instructions (the latter, not the sensible former) ?
We're lucky in that we can't hear or feel our neighbour's machines, and I'm pretty certain they can't hear/feel ours, but as I write this I can hear that our washing machine (different floor, opposite end of the house) is on a spin cycle. If I were in (say) a flat and a neighbour disrupted my sleep with a spin cycle or tumble dry then I'd be telling them to stop, then telling them in "unequivocal terms" to stop, and if necessary going for an injunction. Given how many people live in close packed terraces and flats, I can see this becoming a serious problem.
Clearly, none of the architects of smart meters considered my wife - who will only put on the washing machine (or other large appliances) at a time convenient to herself, and screw the cost of leccy at that time
In summer, we do it when the PV battery hits 50% full..
However, some things are not amenable to load shifting - cooking, running fish tanks or ponds, running servers etc etc..
"The idea behind smart meter energy savings isn't the overall kWh's reducing" - but that is exactly how they are being sold in the UK. Every single advert for smart meters for the last five years has focused purely on one point - it will reduce your energy usage. They never explain how, which is not surprising, as they won't.
I'm an Octopus customer because their customer service is incredible. Moved into a new house and after 2 weeks EDF had failed to change the name on the account and I had no electricity. Was with Octopus for 40 minutes when their engineer arrived and got the electric working.
I forgot the thing I hate the most about smart meters - the use of an actor playing Albert Einstein in the adverts. The use of famous dead people to sell things is pretty offensive, as they cannot consent to it. The use of a famously intelligent person to front the UK's roll out of smart meters is way over the line. Everyone involved, including his estate, should be ashamed.
That's the problem with getting "smart" marketing people to sell a technological development.
It was the same with HS2, they banged on about the speed and ludicrous cost savings for execs who'd have their chauffeur driving them anyways, when the real issue it needed (and was designed) to resolve was overall capacity (mixing freight, frequent stoppers and non-stoppers on the same tracks crucifies capacity, even if you put in loops)
It's dynamic pricing and the ability to shift load that's the benefit of smart metering. Trouble is, that needs the user to invest in automation. A solar/battery system that your energy supplier manages, like Octopus Intelligent Flux, and the real benefits of home solar and distributed generation/storage start to be gained. If you don't trust 'em, get your home automation to manage it instead.
To be fair to the proponents of HS2, the banging on about speed rather than capacity was mostly ignorant politicians or ignorant journalists. It was not HS2, who did try to get the capacity message across. But speed is sexy!!! and capacity is boooooring. Sexy sells, boring doesn't.
Even some journos speciailising in transport were guilty of it - but they may have been victims of Edotorial policy. I do recall a couple of them as lone voices in the wilderness.
> Every single advert for smart meters for the last five years has focused purely on one point - it will reduce your energy usage. They never explain how, which is not surprising, as they won't.
But but it must be Smart cos Albert Einstein says it is, and he's Smart, right?
the regulator said it remains concerned that DCC has become over-reliant on the use of external consultants, including for roles that are primarily business-as-usual and undertaken regularly.
The regulator has misunderstanding of the economy. The reason companies have to use consultants is because these skills are not available for employment. The fact that the roles might seem BAU and undertaken regularly is irrelevant. This is always only singled out when resource is provided by small business - if it is supplied by big consultancy, then it is "kosher".
Whilst this is true for many companies I used to work for DCC and know it is not entirely true for them.
The reason they have to use contractors for routine roles is the contract with the government gives an incredibly short cancellation period of the contract (less than 30days I think) which is incompatible with employees so they must take them at consultant rates
To re-iterate what others have said, the remote disconnect functionality was presented as "demand management" many years ago. I distinctly remember reading about this... on El Reg.
Packaged, as I recall, a "safety measure" to allow "rolling reconnection" to the grid following a major incident, such that 20million properties all coming back on-line at once, after a grid failure, didnt cause a further grid failure. There was also a report? that stated it allowed selective disconnetion, on an individual or area-wide basis, such that rolling power restrictions could be enacted if (when) demand exceeded supply, a not remote possibility as at the time iirc we were within 2% of grid capacity.
Well that's clearly bollocks, because for the minor end of "major incident" it's dead easy to put the switches at the distribution transformers i.e. the little 11kV-> 400V (230V) substations, and switch them on one-by-one.. Or for the major end of major (i.e. "BlackStart"), do it at transmission level.
The kernel of truth in there, I personally believe, is "selective disconnetion, on an individual basis such that rolling power restrictions could be enacted".
I.e. when the blackouts start happening, consumers and businesses could pay a voluntary levy to not be disconnected during a blackout. They could pay anything they liked, but when the grid is under strain, they will be disconnected in the order of "how much they paid divided by how much they are using" until the grid is stable again.
The Mafia used a business model just like this, it worked well..
Crapita are, unsurprisingly, unfit to run the DCC.
I have 2 meters installed, about 100m apart, neither LoS to a Telefonica cell site (this is the Soith area obvs). Both have T2 antennae.
One commissioned on the second attempt (once I'd seen the WAN light reliably indicating connectivity).
There have been 3 attempts at the other one, I thought I'd got a commitment to put a T3 antenna on it, but DCC decided nope because "my address doesn't have coverage". All attempts to plead that their coverage modelling is clearly wrong as I have a functional meter fall on deaf ears.
I have not route for redress as I don't have a direct relationship with the DCC and the Ombudsman can only seek a remedy from the energy retailer, who cannot influence the DCC either.
Clearly not only Crapita but also the contractual arrangements aren't fit for purpose.
Clearly not only Crapita but also the contractual arrangements aren't fit for purpose.
With Crapita the two go hand-in-hand. The only parts of that organisation are the contracts team and finance. One to write deceptive contracts and the other to screw as much money out of the sucker^W customer as possible.
(We used to have them as an outsource 'partner'. My team was the QA that would go over any solution that they presented with a fine toothed comb and cut out all the little optional extras that had somehow crept into the fine print..
I wasn't their favourite person.
Many (most) of the early smart meters communicate using the mobile network 2G protocol.
2G is due to be eliminated (in favour of 4G and 5G) sometime around 2030. This means millions of smart meters will need to be replaced.
Not to mention the current screw up about using some other wireless protocol (not the mobile network) if you live north of Birmingham.
...and then there's the millions of smart meters currently installed which don't actually work!!
Yup.....billions of cost (not mentioned in the article) needed to replace obsolete and defective smart meters.
"Smart meters" - a project which sounds like another of those "cunning plans" fashioned by Baldrick!!!
And you've missed out that even for those meters that actually work, and don't rely on a network due to be axed in the coming years, and ... The actual service life for them is significantly shorter (10 years vs 20 years, but I could be wrong), so the actual costs of the meters is higher due to the need for more frequent replacement.
Your electricity meter has a model / type number and a date certification of on it. There is (or was) a lengthy PDF document on moneysavingexpert that listed the different types and how long their certification was valid for. Mine is certified until 2039. Once your meters' certification expires, they can legally force entry and replace the meter. Obstructing them or trying to protect the meter will likely land and you in trouble. Last I heard, such warrants were only being issued where the provider could show the meter certification had expired.
I agree with most of the comments above. They might save you money but if you're being charged at a lower rate because you have a smart meter but that's disingenuous. If you want to reduce your electricity costs, you should find find ways to use less of it but there are limits.
Two questions. 1: Can they legally force entry without notice (and i don't just mean the usual "your meter is due to expire soon / has expired, please please take a smart meter otherwise your readings could be inaccurate", I mean they should need to explicitly say words to the effect of "if you do not respond to this letter within 6 weeks to agree a time to replace your meter, we will break down your door at your cost")
2: If such a notice arrives, can I legally demand that they install a replacement dumb meter, not a smart one?
From what I have read, you can no longer request a dumb electricity meter. The manufacturers of the old electro-mechanical meters are no longer allowed to certify them, so they cannot be fitted. And all of the distribution companies actually had to return all of the old-style meters they had in stock for destruction.
What you can ask for is for a smart meter to be placed into dumb mode. This has to be done if you request it (although you may have to get Ofgem involved), but the problem here is that once the meter is in, there are probably ways to remotely convert it into either smart mode, or even to pre-pay mode without anybody having to enter the property.
I don't think the same is true with gas meters. About 18 months ago, we had our gas meter fail (it restricted the gas supply such that the boiler would not stay lit), and it was replaced with a like-for-like dumb mechanical gas meter, so it seems that you can still have these fitted.
When it comes to energy supply, there are always means for either the distribution company to enter a property, mainly on the grounds of safety. If you have a problem with your property that puts the electricity supply itself at risk, or is causing a gas leak, then entry can be forced. But unless the risk is immediate, they have to get a warrant, and they also have to give you some warning. The problem is that the decision about whether there is a significant risk is made by the people on the ground. I personally know of at least one situation where a pensioner was accosted on their doorstep late at night by an overly officious gas worker who wanted to enter the home because the worker said that that there was a gas leak and wanted to turn the gas supply off, and they were trying to do it for about half a dozen properties in the same vicinity without having any real evidence of whether there was a leak in the property or not, or whether the leak was in the supply itself.
The problem was that they either could not or would not show any ID that proved that they were with the incumbent gas distribution company (they were a sub-contractor, I understand), so this pensioner refused them access, and told them to come back either with a warrant, or with proof that they were representing the gas company, or if it was a real emergency, with a police officer.
I understand that the problem actually turned out to be with the supply outside any of the properties, but it was a sobering reflection of how poor the state of this part of the energy supply sector is.
And all of the distribution companies actually had to return all of the old-style meters they had in stock for destruction.
An odd thing I heard from an installer replacing the meter I had at an old property was that some of the Bakelite meters were being refurbished. Apparently some listed buildings had to keep those old-fangled meters. No idea if this was true, but I know the rules around Grade-1 listed buildings can be very strict when it comes to trying to modernise fixtures & fittings.
Oh yes.. (I work for an organisation involved in that sector.)
Yep, it was one of the fun aspects of network design. Like installing fibre into a bank. Ok, the bank. Which involved a rather more complicated statement of works and method statement, and the field engineers needing a very long drill. Luckily they had their own experts, but other clients were less fortunate so additional costs on their side to make sure installations didn't break the listing rules. Taught me that although there are some very nice listed buildings, the conditions can be very restrictive and make things very expensive.
>What you can ask for is for a smart meter to be placed into dumb mode. This has to be done if you request it (although you may have to get Ofgem involved), but the problem here is that once the meter is in, there are probably ways to remotely convert it into either smart mode, or even to pre-pay mode without anybody having to enter the property.
There is no such thing as "Dumb mode" for smart meters at present (https://smartenergycodecompany.co.uk/modifications/managing-sec-obligations-and-the-consumer-s-right-to-refuse-a-smart-meter/). Any supplier or fitter that says there is, is lying to get you to accept a smart meter.
They are planning on 2026 for a proper dumb mode for meters, but until at least then you are legally allowed to refuse a smart meter.
"Dumb" gas meters are allowed as there is a (tiny) potential explosion risk with putting ANY electronics around a gas pipe, and feeding the gas supply THROUGH the electronic device.
If you were forced to have a smart gas meter and there was an explosion, both the company that fitted the meter AND the government would be legally on the hook for forcing such a device to be used.
can I legally demand that they install a replacement dumb meter, not a smart one?
I got response from customer support of one of the providers. They said that they can install a dumb meter without problem. I asked for specific details what meter would it be, and after a lot of back and forth I eventually got an answer that it will be a smart meter with smart functions turned off. So basically there is no option to install dumb meter or the customer support lied to me.
Legally you can put a device in your cupboard that "co-incidentally" just blocks all signals at XYZ frequency for maybe 1-2foot around itself.
Dur to the limited range, the device wouldn't fall foul of various radio spectrum laws. The meter would just think it has no signal.
The alternative is you can legally encase a smart-meter in tin foil to block the signal. Just have to google which bits emit a signal, and fold the tin foil so can still do meter readings!
I suspect the entire smart meter programme started out very well intentioned (Accurate billing for consumers, accurate consumption figures for suppliers/generators for example), and then 'morphed' into something much more complex with a much higher commercial focus (tarrif flexibility, competition, traditional post-pay meters for those in good standing and pre-paid 'topup' meters for the rest and so on).
As an engineering grunt, and knowing* how close to the supply running out we are and how close to grid max. capacity we are, I completely see the idea behind the 'remote disconnect' from the network resilience POV - it's so much easier to restart segments when there is no load, and more or less mandatory during a truly 'black start' of the grid....ever tried to start your car when it is gear (think about it if you're not a 'manual'/'stick-shift' user!). Another thing is that if the frequency deviates from nominal too much, all sorts of things start to go wrong, some of them loud, dangerous and expensive. Fancy replacing a switchyard and/or a bunch of multi-MVA infrastructure transformers 'coz there were operated out of spec for too long? Some of these bits of kit have a replacement lead-time of months, not days.
The major thing I disagree with is that smart meters save the consumer money. The thinking appears to have been that if we show people how much energy they are using (nat. gas or electricity), and what it's costing them in real-time that people will economise...completely forgetting that most end-user domestic consumers do not give two hoots...."I want my big TV and games consoles at all times, and my EV fully charged.. I don't give a fuck if someone else has to miss out so I can use as much as I want.'
To me, smart meters are a well-intentioned academic exercise that has been hijacked for other purposes by many different stakeholders each with their own agenda. It probably started out as a transmission network tooling but - just like the www - is now solely for commercial purposes.
* Not my field, but I am very well read
Accurate billing for consumers
So the consumers would not overpay? Non starter.
accurate consumption figures for suppliers/generators
They already know that. Maybe not down to the particular house.
tarrif flexibility
How to get more money out of people under guise of creating savings.
competition
They can only compete on who can cut more corners. There is no true competition and can't be in that sector. It's all based on privatising profits and socialising losses. This sector should have never been run by corporations.
One driver behind smart meters was ability to spot patterns in energy usage so that law enforcement could be tipped where possible weed farms are located.
Civil servants think cost plus is a transparent value for money way of determining contracts but fail to understand how the organisations playing that game earn mega bucks from jacking up the costs.
Need Cisco switches, they quote the mrp and negate to mention the often steep discounts available that a group like capita enjoy from buying at scale.
Often those discounts are rebates upon delivery or perhaps credits on future orders.
However they do it the end customer is shafted.
I first encountered it inn~2005 when computer centre where bidding on something and our procurement guys where gushing about it.
They wouldn’t accept that they where getting diddled as the smaller companies quoting where ~ the same ball park but their offices and lunch was less swanky when procurement turned up for the solution presentations.
They really think "cost+" is an effective procurement model? Still? In the face of decades of evidence to the contrary?
FFS, as a new wet-behind-the-ears grad in the mid-70's I worked on a "cost+" defence contract. It was obvious to anyone looking at it that is was a licence to print money, enhanced by the fact that the decision by an incoming government not to cancel the project was on the basis that >50% of the work would be UK-sourced. So ridiculous amounts of money were spent creating components that could be bought off-the-shelf for 1/10th of the money spent developing them. And to full MIL-Spec.
Add in the innate inability of UK Gov to avoid constantly changing the requirements.....
See: the civil service paying £5000 to "rent" Microsoft surface pros for 4 years. thats 1,000,000 surface pros @ £5000. i.e. 5 billion pounds spaffed on 8gb PCs with really shitty slow SSDs..vastly underpowered for what was needed!
Thats like 3x the retail price. AND they had to return them all after 4 years!
"FFS, as a new wet-behind-the-ears grad in the mid-70's I worked on a "cost+" defence contract. It was obvious to anyone looking at it that is was a licence to print money"
I too was a wet behind the ears engineer on a cost+ contract back than. As someone pointed out at the time, it was NOT a licence to print money.
The costs were audited by the MOD on a monthly basis, and that "+" (the profit) - was 5%.
At that time you could get more "profit" by putting your cash into a Posts Office Savings Account.
We were told by the cretins at the leccy we had to have a smart meter because ... Reasons. We told the engineer not to connect it to the mothership which is permitted . He said no point in having the meter. The reasons cited are all lies. You are not the first. And off he toddled leaving the old meter in place.
Zero benefit to me for a smart meter.
Plenty benefit for the leccy company who can turn my power off
Plenty benefit for the police who can see if I am at home and therefore my alibi is false.p
Tin foil is literally your friend. Simply wrap the parts emitting a signal.
OR you can legally put an old AM radio or other device "accidentally" emitting interference at EXACTLY the right frequency to block all signals for 1-2 foot around itself.
Due to limited range of interference, its perfectly legal!
Tin foil is literally your friend. Simply wrap the parts emitting a signal.
Or it isn't. Like tin foil is used as insulation backing, in which case it'll quite happily block WiFi whether you want it to or not. Had a few times when I've helped friends with WiFi in their homes. Quick removal of a socket cover and peering at the insulation, and there's your problem. Then helping them install repeaters, which can be additional FUN! having to first install Cat5 or 6 cabling to connect those repeaters. And occasionally shouting at installers that think installing non-plenum rated cabling inside voids and spanning fire breaks is a good idea.. Which it really isn't.
Going to get buried...
I used to work for DCC and know this report is not entirely fair on them
The reason they have to use contractors for routine roles is the contract with the government gives an incredibly short cancellation period of the whole contract (less than 30days I think) which is incompatible with employees so they must take them at consultant rates.
It does have massive issues in other areas (and certainly didn't pay me way above market) and the whole smart meter philosophy has virtually no benefits.
In fact the only true benefits I could establish are
1) remote switching off (which is essentially illegal)
2) time based pricing (which will become relevant as renewable energy becomes more prevalent)
3) smart meters should theoretically be able to trace leaks and stolen energy down to streets in a real time basis. Though they haven't got anywhere near getting this one right
4) no need to manually read meters. Which can only really stop if #3 is implement because meter readers should be able to point out obvious cases of bypassed meters
Time based pricing is here for anyone who wants to sign up to the right tariff, but you do have to be privileged enough to be able to afford solar panels and a battery to make use of it. I confess that's what we've done, but our solar set up is too small to charge an electric car *and* run our house, even in the peak of a UK summer. (Come to that, we can't afford an electric car and are keeping our 20+ year old banger running.... we spent our spare money on our solar and battery setup.)
The government uses contractors, for plausible deniability.
Essentially you have a third-party workforce thats constantly changing, so there is no 'bulk' pattern where you can just call im Joe Smith to testify what he's fitted and when.
You can have 20-30 electricians fitting meters in just one medium sized town alone. Then they move on....new workers etc.
make the paper trail so complex, that whenever you fuck up, there's no-one to whistleblow.
4) no need to manually read meters
We have a standard dumb meter and haven't had a manual meter read (other than by me) since we moved here in 1997. The old concept of having a nice (invariably) man come round to leer at your SO while scratching their butt went away long ago..
I recall seeing a video once of some guy that owned a detached house in the Cotswolds banging on about how he had such a cheaper cost of electric because he could charge his two Tesla powerwall batteries off the grid at offpeak times and use the mains electricity sparingly, removed his gas boiler to switch it for an electric one, charge the electric car using the stored energy from his solar panels (located in the very large gardens surrounding his property etc). The amount of privilege oozing out was just immense - houses in that area cost c. £1m plus, and also the capex costs of all of the gadgets and cars is just not realistic for the average man on an average salary.
What about the apartment dwellers that can't afford to buy a detached house, where are they expected to place their storage-batteries and solar panels?!
What about those that can't shift dinnertime to after the electricity peak of between 16:00 and 19:00?
What about those that do not have the facility to charge at home -at present they are exposed to additional VAT and costs per KWH for using public chargers.
The model for pretty giving away electricity at non-peak times can't be sustainable, what happens when/if we get to a situation where a larger number avail themselves of the cheap electricity - it shall be cheap no more, and no doubt the power companies will find a way to extract more cash, perhaps, as we have seen in Texas, for Oasis tickets and O'Neil's in Leicester Square, through (winces) dynamic pricing.
Same capita that pretends to make "third party" tv shows that never get aired for the BBC.
Then the BBC is allowed to give them 10s of millions per show. Kickbacks to the Director General and BBC board of directors obviously. And legally the BBC doesn't even have to account for ANY of the money used from license fees. They can just refuse point blank to give ANY data, not even a total of pricing etc.
Capita doesn't even MAKE a lot of these shows. they just claim they did, get their fee and do kickbacks. prove me wrong.
You are made of cheese. Prove me wrong.
Monkeys have 6 toes. Prove me wrong.
xyz123 is my legal name. Prove me wrong.
Fuck off kid, that's not how it works.
You spout a load of bollocks, the onus is on your anus to prove it.
html anchor tags work here if you want to link us up to the source of your "wisdom".
For my sins, I worked in British Gas in what was then known euphemistically within the company as the Debt Bureau. Ok, it was back in the late 1990's, but as with all businesses of this size, Corporate Management style and ethos is darn near impossible to change direction radically, Oil tanker ships and Titanic comes quickly to mind.
Firstly, Thatcher and later, Major's Tell Sid privatisation share promotion missed several things which came back and burnt them badly, mostly by stopping British Gas from competing on open and futures market price in the hope that other power suppliers would come in and take away their customers to provide real competition to a privatised monopoly. This led of course to massive corruption as "agents" (i.e., Door to Door salespeople) signed up home owners, their dogs or anyone or no one in particular, changing the power suppliers of many homes and businesses, taking the large commissions and running, spending months on holidays in the sun, before returning to the UK and repeating the process with another supplier. The hassle that too many people had in finding out who their true supplier was and how to get back to the one they wanted took up most days a week. Some cases where single properties had been signed up to several different suppliers by different agents within a short period of time were a particular nightmare for everyone involved except the agents themselves who were getting a sun tan.
And of course, there were the c*ck ups, like as mentioned by some others, the joint metering on blocks of flats, down to individual meters. It had to happen, and it did. one evening , just before the 8:00 pm close down time in a shadow team, we started getting calls through from one particular address. It didn't take long to realise that Transco had gone in and removed a meter for non usage, and taken the main joint meter in error. I phoned up Transco, to suggest that they get someone in to get it sorted and was told it wasn't important and it would be done next day. I advised him that I had actually seen the names of the residents of that block, many of which were known to me from reading newspapers, I then suggested that if and when the CEO and Transco executives ever went before a House of Commons or Lords committee it may not go well. The subsequent a*se kicking from the board room down to lower levels would get more painful until it reached the person who thought the next day would be acceptable. Hint was taken.
To confirm one other point, to work out the Direct Debit, the computer system and program would work out the previous years billing, weather predictions included, approx. exchange rate changes (oil and gas is priced in $US), plus a fancy algorithm, bit of guess work and the value divided by twelve. The customer would then phone up shouting that the increase was stupid, we were rogues, thieves and other such imprecations. We had to quickly check our then base systems, check up readings, ask if there had been any many changes in circumstances (babies. new gas heated swimming pool etc.) work out the actual cost and change the payment levels back to normal. Wasn't absolutely perfect, but it seemed to work out. And of course we had people in the summer months wanting the excess built up (to go on holiday, etc.) and forgetting that the winter would mean higher bills to pay off instead of balancing out over the year.
Would I trust Centrica (British Gas) or any of the main providers with the ability to turn off power at will to any one house or area, while leaving the vulnerable or important (hospitals, surgeries and so on) supposedly safe - Nope! Do I hope that some smaller providers return to the market with a more substantial cash base, Yes! Can I see that happening? Nope, for many reasons. Mostly to do withy the stupid policy of relying on solar and/or wind without a back up of nuclear or gas.
[Not a lotta people know this: Centrica is the main company holding British Gas the power supplier to homes and businesses and BG the supplier of gas and electricity to British Gas. It may be considered by some that it is convenient that not many know there is a difference. ]
[Not a lotta people know this: Centrica is the main company holding British Gas the power supplier to homes and businesses and BG the supplier of gas and electricity to British Gas. It may be considered by some that it is convenient that not many know there is a difference. ]
Yep. This is one of the problems with 'deregulation' and the subsequent financial engineering that allows residential supply entities to plead poverty whilst stuff like this happens on the generating side-
The Beatrice Offshore Windfarm has become the fourth windfarm to have received more than £1 billion in subsidy payments. The landmark was reached in just its seventh year of operation, suggesting that it could reach £2 billion over the course of its subsidy agreement.
A nice investment for SSE, but consumers are seeing no benefit. But 'British Gas' has always been hard to keep track of, eg BG Group became part of Shell and a fun flow reversal going from exporting LNG to the US to importing it. And like you say, Centrica is 'British Gas', except it isn't because other 'British Gas' entities or trading names are available. But whilst deregulation has been great for the remains of the CEGB and 'British Gas', and M&A consultants, it's been pretty much a disaster for consumers, as evidenced by our ever increasing energy bills and an energy infrastructure that's edging ever closer to collapse.
And ironically I've just had a call from a poor sales person trying to convince me of the 'benefits' of having a 'smart' meter installed. I was quite suprised that they opened pushing the 'benefit' of being able to have it as a pre-pay meter, and not being able to tell me what compensation there'd be for faults. But I knew the answer to that one already, namely 'none'. Hardly suprising given the number of faulty meters that have already been installed. They also seemed a little put out when they did the 'we're recording this call for training and quality' spiel, and I told them 'So am I'. Now there's a bunch of online transcription services, it makes converting to text & sending to Ofgem a whole lot easier..
Which I may just do. I'm curious if stressing the 'benefits' of pre-pay vs direct debit is a policy shift because metering/billing systems just aren't working. Or consumer energy billing companies are just finding more customers sliding into debt due to ever increasing energy costs and wanting to de-risk that by encouraging customers onto pre-pay services.
And ironically I've just had a call from a poor sales person trying to convince me of the 'benefits' of having a 'smart' meter installed. I was quite suprised that they opened pushing the 'benefit' of being able to have it as a pre-pay meter, and not being able to tell me what compensation there'd be for faults.
So I'm now the proud owner of a 'smart' meter. Figured I might as well get one just to be able to comment from experience. It's an Aclara model, and currently seems to be working.. Well, at least until I see my bill.
However.. It comes with my owners manual. Prominently titled "Your smart Pay As You Go" meter. Top up your way. And then "A helpful guide to your Pay As You Go" smart meter. Which is somewhat disturbing given that may be a heavy hint towards the future of 'smart' metering. So people will be swicthed to PAYG, whether they want it or not, and Scottish Power can't be accused of slamming because you 'chose' to install a PAYG meter, didn't you? But a complaint off to Ofgem in that regard.
Otherwise it's interesting how the design might not suit people with disabilities given the process to actually do PAYG stuff isn't very user friendly. And as suspected, it's not really that 'smart' and unlikely to save me money. So far, it's confirmed I actually have a 3KW kettle, and wasn't miss-sold a 1KW EU 'energy saving' kettle instead. Or I can watch my PC spin up the turbines when I launch Crysis. It's one of those strange things that people still seem to assume that a games PC with a 1500W PSU and RTX cards will draw their peak power constantly. But nothing 'smart', or I didn't already know, because geek that I am I already have power meters.
So about the only benefit is the internal display does have WiFi, it isn't trying to piggy-back off mine and it's working. For now, at least.
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