Smart meter firm EDMI asked UK for £7m to change a single component

What benefit is a smart meter? I have said no and still say no. I am not convinced it is of any measurable benefit to the consumer. To spend £11bn, at no cost to the consumer suggests it is of more benefit to the providers of our energy in the homes. It enables them to regulate, control, ration remotely and we have all seen the press articles warning of looming energy shortfalls with demand for electricity outstripping supply within a decade. Any reasonable person would say no to allowing a third party cut off or reduce power to your home remotely.

How do customers save anything.

I have never understood how getting a smart meter saves customers ANYTHING.

I had a smart meter intalled a couple of years ago by EON. They gave me a seperate device to monitor my usage. Never looked at it a lot, just sits in the kitched gathering dust.

A year later I changed to Sainsbury (British gas), Guess what. It stopped working EXCEPT for giving me the meter reading and NOW I have to have someone READ my meter!

Why. Because when they started rolling out smart meters they had not set-up all the infrastructure.

Talking to my mate A Yorkshire Electricity.

All the readings go to a central hub and are then farmed out to the suppliers. BUT if you change supplier they apear to be unable to re-direct the meter reading to the new supplier. (that bit was not written yet) So that is why I now have to have a man to read my "Smart" meters.

The ONLY cost benefit for smart meters that I can think of is fo rthe suppliers because they no longer need bodies to read the smart meters, just get if from the data feed.

Why would I save a single penny? I mean what is this "smart" meter supposed to do. Magically reduce my household power bills?

As I do not have Economy 7 (does it even still exist?) the power costs the same anytime of day!

I explained to a colleague why smart meters weren't the best thing to happen to electricity since Faraday and he was amazed. He said that he thought these meters were supposed to be able to save him money automatically. I pointed out that he would have to make changes for these things to save him any money. He said there was no chance he'd be saving anything as they turn off lights they're not using, only boil enough water for the cups they're using, use a timer in the shower to save water/gas, turn the tv/router/dvd/Gru Ray fully off as opposed to standby etc.

He's told his supplier to sod off after that when they've told him they'd like to come round and install a Smart Meter. I think there will be a very small percentage of people this will actually help but not enough to make a difference.

There are those (a small number of people) like him who do the utmost to use a little power as possible who will save nothing.

There are those (a slightly larger number) who will use this to lower their power consumption.

There are those who will get a meter installed and after playing around seeing what uses what will go back to their previous habits.

There are those who will have it installed and do sod all with it and never change their habits.

I've had several phone messages left (home and mobile) asking if I want one

When a person finally got me direct I said no, and was assured I'd be removed from the list. Time will tell.....

The physical facts haven't changed, so to save significant amounts use devices that heat less often (look at the label for the wattage). 2000W thing for an hour is 2 units, etc. Washer, dishwasher, heating boiler, cooker, kettle, hair dryer and so on. If it heats air or water it's going to cost. Anything that uses tens of watts is nowhere near as significant, but if you think you'll get a saving from changing it (LED lights, if you have a lot of halogen spotlights it's worth it as it's 50W against 5W per light etc) then do.

Worrying about phone chargers is pointless if your house is draughty and electrically heated.....

Numbers in the article don't add up

£11bn for the project. 53 million meters to install. That's £207.55 each.

So, how did the project cost come to £7bn originally, when they were looking at £390 extra per meter?

It doesn't compute.

Unless they mean that the £11bn is what was predicted to be charged to the government, and £390 is what they expected to get back from households to pay that off?

Used to have an OWL

There's a sensor to clip onto the cable and a remote display to show you how much electricity is used. It was good for a few weeks to determine where my costs were going, but after that it turned into a way of telling when the oven was pre-heated...

Makes me chuckle

I know some ex-EDMI bods, and they've been screaming about this nonsense for years. 2014? That's late to the party...

Its all about energy rationing

its the infrastructure needed to charge you more for using less, rather than build more infrastructure, same as water meters.

when it comes to a smart meter I wont be taking one optionally unless theres an actual benifit to me.

I know how much energy I use, I know what my bill will be and all on my old mechanical meter that works a treat. It presents no security concerns to me, it does not allow anyone any direct control over any "smart" devices in my home (other than everything on or off).

The people designing these can not get the functionality right let alone security.

secure?

Is there some serious, open, detailed security analysis of these things? If not, then history tells us they *are* vulnerable. Presumably they use embedded 'secret' keys? And how is all that managed at the other end? Also, lots of other standard questions on proprietary ‘security’...

My Ideal SmartMeter

Would be one that changes supplier automatically to the cheapest supplier, without penalty, and without a lock in period.

In an ideal world if my smartMeter decided that those five hours on ScottishPower were good value, but there's a cheaper tarrif if I moved to VirginElec and then, perhaps tomorrow, it would flip to LincolnLeccy for half an hour before deciding that OrkeyPower is better value and so on...

Then I could see the case for one.

Incompatible meters

It makes me wonder what the true cost of the roll out will really be.

I had two smart meters installed just over a year ago replacing my 20 year old ones. I am in the process of changing energy providers as my fixed price deal is coming to an end, and the new provider will be installing two new meters, as there is no interoperability between the two company systems.

What a huge waste of time and resources and ultimately MY money as they seem to have rushed the whole thing without working out common standards etc!!

Beware the Linky

In France, consumption and pricing is by KW. Typical tariffs are 6KW, 9KW, 12KW...

The problem with the Linky is that it doesn't understand the start-up surge demands of equipment like electric motors. So you could have a 9KW tariff, be using half that, but when the spin cycle starts up on the washing machine there's a microsecond of higher demand and .... click. Darkness.

The "cure" is to upgrade to a higher rated tariff. Which costs more in the standing charge and also in the per unit charge.

They're also said to be extremely poor at coping with direct lightning strikes. As I have a mile of exposed conductor three phase coming to the house (very rural!), not only is my 230V really 218V (dropping to around 190V with the kettle and the heater on), the exposed wires are a lightning magnet. The current mechanical meter from 1964 sinks several direct hits per year. The usual result is the disjoncteur (A 650mA trip) cuts out. No equipment damage, living here I'm paranoid about this and unplug everything sensitive at the first signs of a storm. I have had exploding light bulbs, which pretty much justifies the paranoia.

Can't wait until they force a Linky on me (the law says we don't get to say no). The mechanical meter has been there for 53 years. I wonder if the Linky will survive 53 weeks? [I would say 53 days, but it's been fairly calm so far this year...]

They came and installed these things in half the houses in our village, despite being told that no mobile phone ever works there. The guys doing the work just said "Yeah, we know, dumb management eh, but we're being paid to do this so we're going to do it".

What a waste of money.

I suggested at the 'consultation' (I call them insultations now, being patronised to death by Sir Humphrey) that the UK consider P1 data ports on the consumer side as in the Netherlands. This would allow 'us' to have the datastream for analysis, rather than only the suppliers.

If I had simple access to the data, I might consider it. But, as it is, and other commentators have said on this thread, waste of space, waste of money, bad security and no upside for the consumer (I don't count the smiley face 'in home display'). As usual a bit of Crapita is involved too.