Electricity Smart Meter

[Kim]

Incidentally if you have an old style gas meter you can disconnect them and turn them round so they run backwards.   The trick is to not let the reading run below the last one.

Don't attempt this with a smart meter thobut, unless you want a bill for 2147483647 m^3 of gas.

[Canardly]

Thats why the regs have changed and you are no longer allowed flexible pipework on the gas meter. Strictly speaking they should shut off any fitting that still has one when installing the new meter. I had to sign a waiver. Cross bonding was involved.

[Wombat]

My electricity meter, which was installed when the house was built in 1985, ran backwards for quite a while, when we generated plenty of solar PV.  Our suppliers were of course, told of the type of meter, before the PV was installed, as part of the application for feed-in tariff.  However they chose to ignore this, and then got arsey over my bills.  Well sorry mates, but you were given the opportunity to change it!  I was being awkward and saying you can't change it unless its a smart meter, but we both new that wouldn't hold water.  They did eventually change it, but the haggling over consumption dragged on a bit.

In other news, I have another appointment for installation of a smart meter, on 16th November.  Apparently the first thing he will insist on doing before he installs it, is turn off the gas.  That could take him a while, as there's no gas for quite a few miles from here!  What he might be better advised to do, is ask me to turn off the PV, if he doesn't want to be electrocuted.  We will probably then have the conversation around "oh, you've got PV, we can't install it", and "Oh, we can't get a data signal".  Well that's your effing problem, I've made 3 formal complaints to you about it, so bleedin' well sort it!

[valkyrie]

After endlessly emails, letters and texts from E.On they got me on a phone call and I agreed to a smart meter install this morning. After an hour with the power off the electrician informed me that the gas meter was too far away from the electrical meter so I can’t have a smart meter. Hopefully the’ll stop contacting me now.

[rob]

Scottish Power hassled my Mum incessantly to put a smart meter.   We put them back for ages and I still think they have cocked up the changeover from Dad’s name (they HAD to close the account and open a new one rather just swapping the names).   Anyway we finally sorted a day out and then they just didn’t turn up.   Heard nothing since.

[CommuteTooFar]

I am booked for 4thn  January.  We will see what happens.  Npower sends me messages to confirm. I follow the link where it tells me I have already confirmed.  I have never confirmed I chose the date and time when I tried to confirm the date they offered which was unavailable.

[Andy W]

I can't see much benefit for the end user. I know people who have them fitted. I have yet to observe people changing their energy usage. A 3 kW kettle is a big energy consumer, but that's not going to stand in the way of a nice cuppa.
I do understand the benefits to energy companies, in that they can build a picture of the nations energy usage and generate or store power accordingly.
 Have I missed the point?

[quixoticgeek]

Have I missed the point?

Yes.

[rob]

I thought I wrote something in this a while back, but it’s not in this thread.  I can find me being rude to someone making mad assertions about the industry.  Must have been a tetchy day.

Anyway smart meters remove the need for estimated reads and can offer half hourly consumption data allowing the smart consumer to not just use less but to move their consumption to cheaper times of the day. 

To be fair the TV ads are pretty misleading.

[Kim]

Did I mention the comedy email from the Cephalopod?

Between 4:30pm – 6:30pm today, National Grid will be paying fossil fuel generators as much as 10 times the normal price for electricity to meet high demand.

We'd rather just pay to help you use less. That way the money goes to our customers, and National Grid don’t use as much fossil fuels.

So we’re running a special trial — and you're invited.

If you can reduce your electricity use between 4:30pm – 6:30pm today to half of your normal amount or less, any energy you do use will be completely free.

You normally use 1.2kWh between 4:30pm – 6:30pm on a Thursday, so use 0.6kWh or less to earn your free energy, and help ditch fossil fuels.

That's right!  Cut our use to below 300W for that period and win 7.3p worth of electrons absolutely free!!!

I tried to do it, purely for SCIENCE, and almost but didn't quite manage it.  I'm blaming barakta's ork laptop which has some errant security software that likes to spin in a loop to give the fans something to do.

Obviously this sort of thing becomes much more worthwhile if you've got more than a UPS-worth of energy storage.  Or incentives that are less tokenistic.

[rob]

So much spin in such a short mail.  I suspect that was a day last week when there was a system warning.  I don’t think prices went terribly high in the end.

[Kim]

The idea of encouraging people to manually run around and switch things off in response to the state of the grid is a bit of a non-starter.  Only dedicated hippies will do it with any seriousness.  You might reschedule your pissy landlord electric shower session or washing machine cycle.

Have people learned nothing from Thatcher?

[Andy W]

 Thatcher was definitely not a hippy, where did you get that idea? Also, I'm not sure smart meters were around then, in the 80s. 

[andytheflyer]

I have one of those electricity monitors on the wall which shows me when Mrs AtF has left something on. I routinely switch off the lights she's left on.  If it's showing more than 250-350W during the day, I'm hunting for the reason why.  It's often <200W.

We have a storage heater in the (part of the house) garage (for laundry drying most nights) and one in the conservatory (which I spend most of the day in - and it's double glazed with that Kappafloat glass). 

The dishwasher and washing machine both go on at night during the Economy 7 period - along with the 2 storage heaters.

Other than waiting until 3am to cook an evening meal, not sure there's much more I can do.  So, no thanks, no Smart Meter, Scottish Power, not at least until you can guarantee that it will communicate with your servers, and it'll transfer to another supplier if I choose.  Last time I asked you, you couldn't give that guarantee.  So, go away until you can.

[Kim]

Thatcher was definitely not a hippy, where did you get that idea? Also, I'm not sure smart meters were around then, in the 80s.

No, quite the opposite.  AIUI, during the miners' strike there was a move for people to use as much electricity as possible in the hope of depleting Thatcher's stockpile of coal.  It didn't work.

[FifeingEejit]

The idea of encouraging people to manually run around and switch things off in response to the state of the grid is a bit of a non-starter.  Only dedicated hippies will do it with any seriousness.  You might reschedule your pissy landlord electric shower session or washing machine cycle.

Have people learned nothing from Thatcher?

This is all suspiciously similar to the emails we get at work during the pricing assessment performances.

I'm fairly sure switching off the strip lights in an office won't have a similar effect that shutting down all operations would, but the later isn't exactly possible.

Sent from my BKL-L09 using Tapatalk

[perpetual dan]

Just looked into booking one with Bulb. One of the questions is "Is the distance between your meters 10m or less?" and helpfully they add:

10m is a bit longer than a bus

Thanks Bulb.

And apparently if I answer no to that question (it's borderline) I can't have just the electric done.

FU Bulb.

Our gas meter didn’t have the required clear space around it. The bulb quiz didn’t like this, but the opening said they’d do electricity or electricity + gas. So I emailed, and they said it’d be ok to carry on. So I lied on the form then owned up in the comments. Installer was fine with that, and managed to get the gas done too.

Practically, 10 clear meters and 10m full of walls, pipes, etc will be different. So I suspect they’re hedging a bit. Though quite why I’d be readily able to visualise the space taken by a bus inside my house I don’t know.

[rob]

The idea of encouraging people to manually run around and switch things off in response to the state of the grid is a bit of a non-starter.  Only dedicated hippies will do it with any seriousness.  You might reschedule your pissy landlord electric shower session or washing machine cycle.

I think it has a place but it’s very niche.  If you have a reasonable sized house, with PV, some storage and an EV then it may be worthwhile.   

If you can build a supply business with 100,000 domestic customers and they can all load shift then it becomes more powerful.

My first job in the industry 20 odd years ago was to build tariffs for large consumers to incentivise load shifting.  It’s not a new concept but the technology is now more accessible.

[quixoticgeek]

The idea of encouraging people to manually run around and switch things off in response to the state of the grid is a bit of a non-starter.  Only dedicated hippies will do it with any seriousness.  You might reschedule your pissy landlord electric shower session or washing machine cycle.

Have people learned nothing from Thatcher?

Or maybe reschedule dinner. If you start cooking a 1835, rather than 1755, that could be a big saving. Ovens tend to be 3kw+

Ditto a "Please don't charge your car at this time"

But yes, for this to really work, you need to have more automated systems for demand side manglement.

J

[rob]

Octopus Energy bought Upside Energy a couple of weeks ago.  Upside are providing kit that offers DSR at a residential level.  If they can convert some of their 1m + customers then it could be pretty powerful.

[Kim]

Or maybe reschedule dinner. If you start cooking a 1835, rather than 1755, that could be a big saving. Ovens tend to be 3kw+

This is true.  I was thinking with gas.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I can't see much benefit for the end user. I know people who have them fitted. I have yet to observe people changing their energy usage. A 3 kW kettle is a big energy consumer, but that's not going to stand in the way of a nice cuppa.
I do understand the benefits to energy companies, in that they can build a picture of the nations energy usage and generate or store power accordingly.
 Have I missed the point?

I'm all in favour of renewable energy, conservation, saving the planet and reducing my bills, but I'd burn the last pound of whale fat it was the only way to get a decent cuppa!

[quixoticgeek]

Or maybe reschedule dinner. If you start cooking a 1835, rather than 1755, that could be a big saving. Ovens tend to be 3kw+

This is true.  I was thinking with gas.

It's 2020, what sort of backwards barbarian colony still burns stuff to cook their dinner?

J

[rob]

Or maybe reschedule dinner. If you start cooking a 1835, rather than 1755, that could be a big saving. Ovens tend to be 3kw+

This is true.  I was thinking with gas.

The gas system still balances daily rather than half-hourly in electricity.   Time of day charging in gas is a long way from happening.

[rafletcher]

Or maybe reschedule dinner. If you start cooking a 1835, rather than 1755, that could be a big saving. Ovens tend to be 3kw+

This is true.  I was thinking with gas.

It's 2020, what sort of backwards barbarian colony still burns stuff to cook their dinner?

J

I guess the Dutch just heat their greenhouses with it.