smart meters: questions to ask?

The very first question to ask is

"What benefit is a smart meter to a sensible consumming customer? "

Not very helpful ebee.  I understand what you mean though, and the answer is that any manual meter reading is avoided.


I'm hoping for some technically relevant answers :-)

Yes that is the benefit but the only practical one though in my opinion

Benefits to the customer?

Not a lot, if any at all.  It is all a con.

The supposed advantage of not having to read the meter/s is a small benefit but if anything goes wrong with the system it is reported by most customers that taking readings from a smart meter is far more difficult than previously with old meters.

I'm told meter readers will still be used every once and a while.

IME energy companies are far more interested in taking more money out of your bank account than anything else.

The fact that they have cocked up my personal account so often I would not trust them with the ability to switch me off remotely.

Have a look at this House of Commons Briefing Paper - scroll to the bottom and click on the link for Smart Meters Act 2018.


I just happened to have downloaded it this week. I have looked at several of these types of paper and they are usually well-researched and informative.


HTH.

I have a holiday home in Devon, recently acquired, and am having the devils own job in getting sensible agreement with the opening meter readings despite having date-stamped photographs.  There seems no chance of them sending a meter reader despite the readings they think are right are way above the readings now even with consumption since August added.


Incidentally, the meter is an old moving disk analogue meter, I suspect that part of the problem might be that someone not familiar with reading these meters has made a mistake in the past.


I would like to have a smart meter fitted, it would save me having to provide readings when I am not there, but I cannot because the account is suspended for "investigation", although this does not seem to involve actually reading the meters.  But before I have a smart meter fitted I would like to know the answers to similar questions asked above.


Please can we have some sensible replies to the questions that the OP asked?

David

I also understand that smart meter standards are still settling and not all meters being installed are guaranteed to work for the forseeable future, through changes in suppliers, etc.

There are (at least) two generations of smart meters - the original "SMETS 1" and the new "SMETS 2". SMETS 1 meters communicated directly with your chosen supplier who installed the smart meter so if you later switched suppliers it would try to keep talking to your old supplier rather than your new one. Hence your new supplier didn't get to see you meter readings, so you'd be back to reading it manually. SMETS 2 meters don't talk directly to a supplier, but to a new Data Communications Company (DCC) which passes the data onto your current supplier - so they can cope when you switch. There is a program to upgrade existing SMETS 1 meters to SMETS 2 (by a remote software upgrade as I understand it) so that problem with SMETS1 meters might be a temporary one.


There have apparently been some other problems with some new SMETS 2 meters - especially in the "North" - where communication with the DCC is via a dedicated radio system rather than the mobile phone system - so some suppliers still prefer to install SMETS 1 meters rather than SMETS 2 in some circumstances.

We have a 4kW PV installation (which works well), but I understand some smart meters are incompatible with PV installations.  Partly for that reason I have prevented installation, so far.

I've too heard of a number of problems - but I haven't yet got to the bottom of them. (I have PV, but my supplier (who specialises in renewable energy) isn't offering smart meters yet - I can't help thinking there might be a good reason for that). Some might be accounted for by the "home display" getting confused by exports (the meter itself working correctly), other might be that the original meter wasn't a 'ratchet' type when it should have been (so had previously been incorrectly running backwards when exporting) - so the new (correct) import readings come as a bit of a shock. There has been talk of electronic meters (not just the smart ones) getting confused about poor power factor or distorted a.c. waveforms (which might be expected from a PV inverter) - or at least treating them in a different way to older meters - but I've no heard anything to substantiate that or any definite conclusions.

 

Benefits to the customer?

Not a lot, if any at all. 

In the "bigger picture" smart meters should help the network in general in the longer term - the power fail reporting feature enables DNOs to home in on the location of faults far more quickly - thus enabling power to be restored far more promptly. Smart meters will be the foundation for smart appliances (and EV charging) that will be able to bias their consumption to times of lower demand - enabling the network to support more without (or with fewer/smaller) expensive upgrades (the cost of which would, of course, eventually have fallen on the consumer). Likewise the need for additional occasional-use (and hence expensive) generation can be reduced if the smart meter/smart appliance combination can be used to clip the peaks of demand. Automatic readings and saving the cost of sending someone round in a van are minor in comparison.


  - Andy.

I have a supplementary question.  When I enquired about installation of a smart meter (before the account was suspended) I was asked if I had underfloor heating.  When I said no, I was told "That's good, we have had a problem with smart meters and underfloor heating."


Has anybody else heard this?


David

Just to add, as far as I know,  you can't have a smart meter to replace your 'total generation' meter on the PV system - so you'd still be on manual readings for that. The main smart meter will be able to measure exports, but since most of us are quite happy on 'deemed exports', that not necessarily a benefit.


  - Andy.