Smart Metering Trial

I think the most crucial issue here is the lack of reduction in fees to compensate for metered electricity. The people I feel most sorry for are the wardens at the trial sites. Firstly my guess is that what ever communication the Club sends out before hand people will arrive wanting electricity but not having downloaded, or connected to, the third party. In some cases not knowing how to. And in some cases not able to do so.  Then there will be rude awakenings as people realise just how much electricity they use!  The review and comments afterwards will be really interesting.

"For some maybe"

I think for a very large proportion of CAMC members, and with all due respect i dont think your comments will be representative of the vast number of users of the CAMC network, correct me if i am wrong but i believe you have a 3.5t MH geared up for sustainable living on or off grid, indeed your logo says "fully self contained vehicle", I along with thousands of other CAMC users have a bog standard caravan, ok I know roughly how much power we use daily when the sun is shining and the outside temp is 25 degs, but unfortunately we dont get very many of these in the UK .

I think the most enlightening think for users will be when they have a very large bill to pay before leaving for home, they will wish then that they hadnt had the TV on all day, or dare i say it, been heating the awning.

Hja

What you and I don't know is how many people book sites via online booking? If that percentage is in the high 90's would it be wrong of the Club to assume the majority of members would be able to handle buying usage online? I imagine this will be one of the things that will be shown up on the metering experiment? As far as I can see there are only a limited number of ways the payment for the electricity used could be done and probably none of them are perfect? 

1. The site record the start and end Kwh's of your stay and on the day of leaving you go to reception to pay. This might suit some but is staff intensive and can delay departure.

2. Have a prepayment card which you load with money and just slot into the bollard at the start of your stay and remove when you leave. How and where would you load money onto the card?

3. A cash meter which you had to second guess how much to pay into the machine. Inconvenient as you would have to bring enough coins, no refund of unused credit and subject to possible misuse by other campers by removing your cable and using theirs! Also a need for cash to be collected by site staff to empty machines.

4. Simple (hopefully!) online system where you set up and account and payment is automatically taken at the end of your connection. Seems the easiest choice to me?

David

"1. The site record the start and end Kwh's of your stay and on the day of leaving you go to reception to pay. This might suit some but is staff intensive and can delay departure."

this type of payment is used extensively "overthere", however, as I have said before, the business model is totally different, reception is manned 0800 - 2200 hrs by reception staff, not staff who have to go out and clean the facilities etc, and most of these sites you can pop into reception and get a print out of your usage at any time when reception is open.

Big problem, you come to pay on departure and you have a very large bill which you cannot pay ????, it is possible if you have been on a site for 3 weeks.

"2. Have a prepayment card which you load with money and just slot into the bollard at the start of your stay and remove when you leave. How and where would you load money onto the card?"

this works have used this on sites in the UK, but once again sites where reception is manned by reception staff, and of course if your card runs out when reception is closed, tough.

3. never seen in use, but having to feed a meter with coins does not bode well in todays cashless society   

4. looks good, but we have to remember there are a lot of folk out there who are CAMC users who would not know how to do this.

"Most caravans and motorhomes are quite capable of going off grid for two to three days without any modification. It has always been so."

never actually tried it, and maybe work for us as we bbq (gas) , eat salads etc when the weather is set fair, (but i do like my full english breakfast done on an electric griddle) but in the uk say in April, wet & windy, heater on, fridge on, hot water heater on, water pump, lights in the evening, we dont have a tv, i dont think my battery would last 2 days, yes we could wash dishes etc in the facilities block, or use gas for the water heater etc, but who wants to go out in the cold and wet at 2000 hrs to wash dishes, and gas is not exactly cheap. I dont do caravanning to be always working out ways to save money, we just get out and go, set up camp , plug in and use. 

Where there is a will there is a way Rufs. I do it, not to save money, although every little helps, but to enable more variety in the types of places and sites I can stay.

I am more likely to stay on Club sites for short stays if electricity is metered, just like having an economy pitch or should be.

I presume on metered pitches those wishing to charge up hybrids or electric cars won' t be charged extra. Was it £9? Sounds like that could be to their advantage?

peedee

I dont think the Club is using any of these systems.  From my reading, you sign up with the third party and put money onto your account, which you can then view during your stay and top up as needed.

I think this sort of thing is very different to paying for the site with your credit card.  There was some info out today (to do with fraud) saying that 75% of older people (it didnt define older) preferred to bank face to face, and 40% of adults didnt want to do on line banking.  And my guess is that a proportion of those who do do online banking do it from a secure connection at home where they have all the info they need (quite possibly three different factors of authentication).  Some of this information was also stressing how insecure some banking apps are!. There was also some figures lately (cant remember all the detail) about % of people who would not be able to pay for parking with their phone, either no smart phone, or difficulties in downloading the appropriate app.  I recognise all these are a bit different to what is proposed, but it will be interesting to see how this plays out.  I do hope the Club doesnt conflate metering electricity, and the type of metering.

Hja

My point 4 was the new Club system, perhaps not adequately described  on my part? 

I am what some people might describe as old However for the best part of 30 years I have been using computers, personal and at work. I take every opportunity to embrace modern technology because I see the advantage and surely at some stage most people will have to go down that route. My wife is a reluctant user of online banking and paying bills as she prefers a paper trace but I think if anyone were to suggest they take those online things away from her it probably wouldn't suit her? We will have to wait to see how the system works as members start to use it and we start to get feedback?

David