Smart meter for electricity

[djbobbins]

You will be sorry when it all goes wrong.. They are terribly unreliable.. Wait till the day it claims you own thousands..
 
You will find that you are right up the creek.. The firm that do the metering are a different firm to the one that sells you the electric and there is NO WAY that they are going to admit to the seller that their meters are crap..
 
john..

Actually, it depends - it’s the suppliers who are obligated to install the meters. They may then get external money in to do that. Alternatively, if you move supplier (e.g. from E.ON to Octopus) the meter that E.ON installed remains owned by them.

The government and Ofgem screwed up on this one - they should have set it up so that the distribution companies were mandated to install smart meters, as an add-on to owning and operating the wires into each property. The DNOs could have done them street by street, which would have made the roll-out a lot quicker, cheaper overall and would have solved the problem about a legacy supplier needing to bill a new supplier for the smart metering service that is left behind when the customer switches.

[Stubby]

3 hours ago, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

To what degree Mr Stubbs?

 

I fill a cup to put in the kettle so I’m not boiling any extra....

 

Wife thinks it’s a bit extreme but then she doesn’t have to work up a tree in the heat. 

 

 

Well all I was meaning Kev is that I don't do anything differently just because I have  smart meter and my bills are not significantly different .  If your missus is anything like mine she fills her tea bucket multiple times a day ! I think she has hollow legs ...

Edited July 24, 2021 by Stubby

[djbobbins]

The down side from what I can understand is that it opens the door for the energy companies to bring in more and more hourly variable tariffs, so say in the future you come in from work at 6, switch on your oven for dinner and plug in your electric van for a charge, you are now using say 18kW of energy along with many other people, energy company starts to struggle to meet demand and so increase the tariff for the next 3 hours to a £1 a unit and then at 3 in the morning the bring it down to 10p a unit.
Pure speculation by me of course.

This technically isn’t how the industry works. In many cases, the companies who sell the electricity to customers don’t actually generate it themselves. And even if they do, there’s a wholesale electricity market with a different price every single half hour - so generators respond to prices (the cheapest ones to run, or those with subsidies, run most - the expensive ones, such as diesel genders, do a lot less hours).

Traditionally, every domestic customer is allocated into one of seven classes, each of which has a default demand shape applied. So the supplier will estimate your consumption, apply the relevant shape and buy electricity to meet that shape. When your meter gets read once a year, they revisit the estimated numbers and the whole industry pays imbalance charges, for about 18 months after the time of consumption.

That being said, the effect you describe is what could (and arguably should) happen. If people all whack everything on when they get home at 6pm in December, the system demand goes through the roof. So the really expensive diesel gensets get fired up, which cost maybe £1000/MWh (i.e. £1/kWh) to run. On top of that l, there is the cost of running the network, paying subsidies to renewables etc.

So if the smart meter has a price signal that makes people think “hmm, do I put the washing machine one now when it will cost £4.50 in electricity, or do I wait until 11pm when it’ll be 60p?” it will take some getting used to, but is not a bad thing overall in my opinion.

Because the marginal plant needed to run at 11pm is probably going to be more efficient and thus cheaper, the overall cost of meeting electricity demand is reduced by shifting use away from the peak times.

The easiest comparison I can think of is fuel on the motorway services. The services have fuel for when people who are desperate, or too rich to care, need to buy it. Us mere mortals generally think ahead that if the tank is half full and we’re about to do 300 miles down the M1, we’ll fill up somewhere first.

[trigger_andy]

34 minutes ago, djbobbins said:

So the really expensive diesel gensets get fired up, which cost maybe £1000/MWh (i.e. £1/kWh) to run. On top of that l, there is the cost of running the network, paying subsidies to renewables etc.

So if the smart meter has a price signal that makes people think “hmm, do I put the washing machine one now when it will cost £4.50 in electricity, or do I wait until 11pm when it’ll be 60p?” it will take some getting used to, but is not a bad thing overall in my opinion.

Does this really happen in some places? Ive not looked closely at what I pay per KWh but Im sure its like 15p or something, regardless of the time. 

 

Edit; I just looked at my bill, Im a flat 18.98p a KWh, evergreen tariff. On a plus note I see Im £465 in credit, woohoo, Ill be claiming that back.  

Edited July 24, 2021 by trigger_andy

[Richard 1234]

35 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Does this really happen in some places? Ive not looked closely at what I pay per KWh but Im sure its like 15p or something, regardless of the time. 

 

Edit; I just looked at my bill, Im a flat 18.98p a KWh, evergreen tariff. On a plus note I see Im £465 in credit, woohoo, Ill be claiming that back.  

Just check when they last actually billed you. That may be the credit you need to pay the bill when it comes. Besides the idea is to save that extra for winter when you use more. To even out the bills. Just a thought 

[djbobbins]

Does this really happen in some places? Ive not looked closely at what I pay per KWh but Im sure its like 15p or something, regardless of the time. 
 
Edit; I just looked at my bill, Im a flat 18.98p a KWh, evergreen tariff. On a plus note I see Im £465 in credit, woohoo, Ill be claiming that back. [emoji3] 

Which bit - the diesel gensets or the customer variable tariffs?

[trigger_andy]

Just now, Richard 1234 said:

Just check when they last actually billed you. That may be the credit you need to pay the bill when it comes. Besides the idea is to save that extra for winter when you use more. To even out the bills. Just a thought 

Good point!

 

To be fair we’ve massively reduced our electricity consumption. We no longer have a badly insulated immersion heater and the wee ones no longer need electric heaters in their rooms as we’ve installed a new Oil Boiler. 
 

LED’s throughout the house and all the spotlights in the kitchen where changed out to LED units a year back. 
 

Finally got 300-400mm insulation in the loft and no long finished the living room floor with 100mm Kingspan under there. 
 

Having 2 x 10kw Stoves in the house helps a lot as well. 
 

We’ve had an electricity monitor for years. Effergy I think? Great website and really good at keeping a tab on what you use and where. 

[trigger_andy]

7 minutes ago, djbobbins said:

 

Which bit - the diesel gensets or the customer variable tariffs?

 

Well, I guess my question tied them both in. You mentioned the Gensets can cost £1.00 per KWh then mention the end user could go from £4.50 to use the washing machine to 60p. Perhaps it was hyperbole but I was not sure so thought I would ask. 

[kevinjohnsonmbe]

45 minutes ago, trigger_andy said:

Does this really happen in some places? Ive not looked closely at what I pay per KWh but Im sure its like 15p or something, regardless of the time. 

 

Edit; I just looked at my bill, Im a flat 18.98p a KWh, evergreen tariff. On a plus note I see Im £465 in credit, woohoo, Ill be claiming that back.  

You’re not ‘in credit’ and ‘claiming back’ mucker. Your direct debit is set too high which has resulted in you - 1 of several million punters - ‘gifting’ your power supplier a bag of bunce.

 

400xseveral million is, like a lot of cash they’ve had for free!

 

Tweak your DD so that you are just on, or just below your usage. 

[trigger_andy]

Just now, kevinjohnsonmbe said:

You’re not ‘in credit’ and ‘claiming back’ mucker. Your direct debit is set too high which has resulted in you - 1 of several million punters - ‘gifting’ your power supplier a bag of bunce.

 

400xseveral million is, like a lot of cash they’ve had for free!

 

Tweak your DD so that you are just on, or just below your usage. 

I will inform the accountant, aka the Wife  

 

We where burning through about £2500-£3000 a year in electricity, not easy when you've a house full of women who are all cold tatties.