Had a letter through today offering a free smart meter install. Does anyone have one? Anything to watch out for? We're in a contract with them til mid 2015 but after than may well jump elsewhere - from reading their website the meter may not be supported by the new company and I guess we'd have to foot the bill if we wanted the display fixed (way to tie us in?) Cheers!
Only the big suppliers are rolling out smart meters at the moment, the major rollout isn't due to start until into 2015 but even then is dependant on your current supplier. If you get one now, you'll be limited in the tariff you can choose to only a supplier supports them in the future... the upside is that you can track your energy usage much more finely, which can help cut your energy use and no longer have to submit meter readings again. At the moment the small energy companies are some of the most competitive, so personally I'd avoid a smart meter for now for that one reason.
Surely a smart meter also works the same as a standard one, only that it has a SIM card built in. Edit http://switch.which.co.uk/faq/switching-eligibility.html Edit 2 https://www.gov.uk/smart-meters-how-they-work Kinda looks like you should be fine
Personally i wouldn't get a smart meter but then again I'm probably more paranoid than most people when it comes to privacy. Smart meters maybe a good way to keep track of your energy usage, there also a good way for the company to keep track of that same data. Like identification and monitoring of equipment within your home, when the home is occupied, etc, etc. http://www.out-law.com/articles/2012/january-/smart-meter-technology-is-privacy-intrusive-researchers-claim/
Pointless gimmick; yes, they show your energy usage more accurately, but no, they won't do sod all to stop you using that energy. I don't leave anything turned on that doesn't need to be- fridge, alarm clock, home phone & router are the only things turned on 24/7, everything else is turned on as it is needed and turned off afterwards, leaving things on standby is just silly ( I don't have any of my tv/vcr equipment turned on as it's all unplugged, not being used and will eventually be sold or scrapped )...
Interesting - need to check up more on that - fixed direct debit works nicely for budgeting and variable payments could be a problem. Thanks for the other info - eons website paints a slightly different picture in terms of leaving. Sounds like best option is to stick with standard metres - shame, the monitor would look cool in the gadget corner
You'd be surprised. My masters dissertation is for a major global company and I'm looking at energy usage in stores and how to lower energy usage. You'd be surprised people will see that they're using more energy in a night more than usual and realise that a lot of nights they forget to turn something off, and save money that way. Also it shows how much you can save by say switching off that Sky/Virgin Media box, or putting the TV completely off. It helps change behaviour of energy usage. By my estimates if all the stores for the company I'm studying got more training and monitored there energy data closer by getting reports, it could save the company across 140 stores around £200,000 a year just on changing staff behaviour looking at this data to see what issues are caused in store for spikes in energy usage. Now it working in a residential setting all depends on the motivation of the home owner, but if you get a smart meter in the view of saving money it can help show you how much energy you use, and things like how much your computer uses. EDIT: Just re-read, and to you a smart meter may not be beneficial as you have literally nothing switched on, but not everyone will be like you
Not sure if that's a good thing or bad But yeah, some people need to be shown in black and white how much juice they are wasting leaving stuff turned on constantly, especially businesses*; that, and some people are just clueless numpties who will happily pay XXX amount without considering how much they could save. *It makes me laugh when you see the government telling people to save electric/gas, waste less food and water etc etc. They need to start telling the same thing to businesses, especially anything involving food and hospitality; we waste a thousand times more food, water, gas and electric in the hotel & restaurant industry than any house or street even....
I wanted one but I have a night and day meter which they say isn't compatible yet, I already have the older usage meter which I watch like a hawk and am forever turning plugs off. Would like a smart meter but as otehrs have said a fixed monthly amount helps to budget, I know summer I'll be paying less and a lot more in winter which I can only imagine how much that would be.
If you live in Spain you may want to keep an eye on your bills... Popular electricity smart meters in Spain can be hacked, researchers say http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/07/us-cybersecurity-spain-idUSKCN0HW15E20141007
If you have to be told you're using too much energy, you clearly don't need to be told. I don't need a poxy little gimmick to remind me how much I'm spending on energy.
I bought myself a CurrentCost Envir, which has a serial (USB) output, which can be monitored. I wrote a little blog post about it here I've still got an old-school electro-mechanical meter, so this allows me to keep tabs on things, and also monitor change in usage over time. it also encouraged me to change some of my lightbulbs to energy-efficient ones, as I saw the usage jump when the old ones were switched on!
Thats pretty cool! How accurate do you find the readings are given the sensor is just looped around the power wires? Our bills aren't massive and we do have a reasonable amount of stuff on a lot/on standby of the time (e.g router, 3 switches, bridges, sonos, sky box) but other stuff like pc's, tele etc get switched off when not in use and we're soley on energy saving bulbs. We're not awesome with energy saving but neither are we wasteful. Heating wise we've just had double glazing installed throughout the house and have over the recommended 180mm of loft insulation. Smart meter (or energy monitor) would be cool to see whether things like switched timers could help us (e.g kill network kit, sonos bridge etc etc) overnight when no ones up and about
Fairly accurate - I can tell when I turn something on that's 10-15Watts. Our baseline reading with all normal bits on (Alar clocks, fridage, server, router, networking gear etc.) is about 240W, and looking at the graphs, it's quite easy to tell when we all get up!
