Smart Meter
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I have had my smart meter for just over two years now and it has never given any problems. I had solar panels fitted just over a year ago and the readings I get from its monitoring devices have always been pretty close to that which the smart meter supplies to my energy supplier.
peedee
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I am pleased we now have a smart meter as it means we can get paid more for the electricity we export, and for what we actually export as that works out to be a little more than half of what we generate from our panels.
The Smets 1 meters were not that good if you have solar panels as some were recording export along with import, so we waited until we could get a Smets 2 version. This has worked fine since we got it 2 years back and the Octopus Mini, which is better than the supplied IHD, makes it easy to see what we are using. That, combined with a new boiler and a new control system, has allowed us to cut our gas use by over 35% and get almost 3 times as much for the electricity we export.
Our meters are right next to each other so we do not have a problem with the gas meter not being able to contact the electricity one to send readings, unlike our daughter whose meters are about 15 metres apart and with 3 very thick house walls in the way. She needs to get a different type of gas meter to get things working.
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We've had a smart meter for some time and there haven't been any issues. The only way that I see it helps is that I don't have to go outside to take meter readings any more. Seeing the inhouse display does make one conscious of what is being used but we don't get paranoid about the readings.
But, I had a strange issue last week. I know roughly how much gas I use each week and was surprised that the inhouse display was showing quite a low cost figure for the week. I checked the cubic meter figures on the inhouse display which tallied exactly with the numbers shown on the actual meter which records just how many cubic meters of gas pass through it. However, later in the week the inhouse display suddenly showed a figure more in line with what I would have expected for the week. I checked the cu.m. figures on the inhouse display and the actual meter. Again they were exactly the same. My puzzle is how can this have corrected itself as the meter is just a simple flow meter? I didn't suddenly use a lot more gas just to make up the apparent discrepancy. So, can meter readings actually be remotely manipulated by the energy companies? If so, this is very wrong in my opinion.
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@JohnM20 it might be down to where you live. The South has a very dependable connection around Smart Meters, however, anywhere North of the North Midlands operates on a different connection system. Maybe this is part of your scenario?
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@JohnM20 It could just be a temporary miss communication between meter and display? As you suggest the meter should always be right. Perhaps the inhouse display was only picking up usage for part of the day which meant lower usage shown? I have my display set to show me both gas and electric and how much I use in actual cost. Sometimes the gas part disappears but comes back later.
On a wider point I assume that you have to have a smart meter if you want to make use of special tariffs like charging and EV overnight or selling back power to the grid if you have solar panels. Increasingly now when people have solar panels installed they also have battery storage installed at the same time. There are tariffs that allow to charge the house battery at a very low rate overnight.
David
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David, no, the point is, both the actual smart meter AND the in-house display were showing the exact same cubic meter figures mid week. 2 days later these figures had changed to what I would have expected. Again, on both the smart meter and the in-house display. I couldn't possibly have used the number of cubic meters of gas in the two days. Because I keep a weekly check on my energy figures I have a pretty good idea of weekly usage so can easily recognise when something looks wrong.
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Well non of above have convinced me to have a Smart Meter
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@hostahousey I was sceptical, but it’s allowed us to access free energy periods via our supplier (Octopus). We don’t keep readings or check things like JM20 does, but ours is in the kitchen, and a glance when you are using different appliances is very interesting! We recently bought an air fryer and have been using this for small items rather than using our fan oven. The energy consumption per hour is very different, as expected. If someone is in shower, the hourly consumption is 😱😱😱 but of course it’s at most a 5 minute task. Thankfully we have had no issues at all with ours, and it was all fitted and set up in an afternoon. We just get an email from Octopus each month now relating our consumption for the month. We would pick up on anything unusual, as our costs are fairly stable.
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@hostahousey They are not yet obligatory, although I do wonder if that point will come? There is a Government target of the end of 2025. I suspect what will happen is that the old type of non smart meters are no longer being made so if you need to change one of your meters there won't be a choice.
The only way John discovered as issue was because he had a smart meter. It might be a bit nerdish but some of us like to keep an eye on what is happening on a daily basis. As someone who is thinking of investing in solar panels it helps me decide where the advantage of doing so is. Obviously if people are happy just to receive their monthly bill and pay without much scrutiny there is little advantage, to the householder, in having a smart meter? Different ball game for the supplier I expect?
David
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The gas smart meter only updates its info to the electricity smart meter on a periodic basis. The in home display (IHD) is driven from the electricity meter. It is possible for the gas side to not update the electricity side for a period of time, and then update all the 30 min slots at a later stage. Each of the meters will keep some large number of records locally independent of them being updated to the IHD or the meter broker.
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No mains gas here, no mobile signal, no solar panels as 200 year old roof slates need regular tlc, electricity meter only gets looked at once a month when I read it, really don’t care if they come and instal a smart one as I wouldn’t bother to look at that any more often or change my electricity usage. Do have a water meter but never look at that either. All bills on direct debit. Life goes on.
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@ChocolateTrees That might explain why sometimes there is a lag in getting daily gas readings on my App. I can see usage on my display but sometimes when I look at the App electricity for a day is showing but not the gas for the same day. It sorts itself out by the next day usually.
David
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If the smart meter only registers the electricity ( then not very smart ) my main usage is gas, so I think I’ll wait until both are smart recorded.
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Thought BBC 1 was the program used
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@hostahousey Our does both, showing both gas and electric at the same time or a split screen, or I can just look at just one type of energy. I just have the basic screen on to tell the monthly cumulative usage. There's also a lot more it can do. I can look at yearly prices/usage, it can tell me how much I've used this January as compared to last January, or I can look at a particular day/month/week to see what is going on.
Although knowing how much I've spent/used today/last week/last month, or I've used 5% more or less from whenever is mildly interesting I personally don't use it to cut down on, or change anything. I use whatever energy I need to stay warm and/or use appliances.
The best thing with it is that it tells the energy company direct, no more reading the meters.
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If I read @ChocolateTrees post correctly I got the impression from what they said was that the electric meter acts as a hub for the gas meter, so the gas meter sends information to the electric meter and the electric meter sends all the information onto the supplier, or have I got that wrong?
David
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so are both meters changed ?
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Yes - both are changed. As David says, the electric meter runs the show, the gas meter just updates localy. This is basically because the gas meter runs on a battery, and the electric meter is topped up from the mains. The Electricity meter then has powerful enough radios to connect to your IHD and to the meter broker network.
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We have economy 7 and there is no question of it being switched off. The problem as I read it from the news relates to some meters where the meters were using 3G to send the information and the 3G has been switched off, making their meters dumb and needing manual readings until they are replaced.
I do agree with the idea that one would not make any real difference to us as I cannot see us changing our habits based on it's readings. We would probably get one though if having it made a useful difference to our bills by giving s a cheaper rate.
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About 3 years ago we moved into our present house and the smart meter was not working so we asked to get it replaced about 3 months ago they finally arrived to fit a new meter but that one did not work we were told they would return in a months time and try again alas we are still waiting and maybe they will adjust the gas tap they moved so the gas meter cover fits properly
The BBC has agreed to continue broadcasting from Droitwich till at least June this year as you can imagine the cost of pumping out 500kilowatts of RF just on radio 4. I'm also led to believe that the money from the utilities helped to subsidise the transmitter but of course that income will cease with advent of smart meters which is a shame as 80 years ago it sent out coded messages for D Day landings
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I suppose Smart Meters make such things as Economy 7 redundant as it requires a separate meter to operate. A Smart Meter allows your energy supplier to offer different tariffs depending on the time of day? Now that we generate so much of our electricity by wind power probably means that we have a surplus overnight hence people getting low rates to charge EV's and or Batteries which support the Solar Panels on a house?
David
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