British Gas Smart meter

[cotty]

Card meters are 30% higher than the average joe's who's on quarterly or monthly DD! At the end of the day no matter what opinions are expressed here the energy companies are taking the **** in a big way!! Marvo - you believe what you read and are told! I don't! Smart meters are NOT SO SMART! they cannot tell how many people live in an address or how they use appliances! I've never heard so much crap in all my life!!!!

 

[R G]

When I worked for a DNO I went on metering now and then , I have emptied old slot meters at one point , usually if a debt had to be recovered you had to on a slot prepayment meter , the debt is paid off over a period , the meter had to be adjusted to suit the debt and the amount of money going in , the same can be done with these smart meters , I believe also there is a possibility for multi tariffs to come about for different times off the day and also for different days as well, key and card meters came about after slots but these have expensive up keep costs ,

 

[Geordie Spark]

I'm seeing more and more prepayment meters and apparently they get crucified of the rate they pay so if a smart meter allows them to switch a late payer onto a higher rate then the opposite should apply to someone paying in advance.

After all, it can't cost the utility company any more to offer the service

Or am I barking up the wrong tree?

Nah! ..... you just had one to many borells o' Dog.

 

[trev]

Nah! ..... you just had one to many borells o' Dog.

I did at the weekend mate.

 

[Geordie Spark]

I did at the weekend mate.

Good lad. Can't be letting the side down.

 

[jaypp]

thanks to the power signature of particular devices – but even which film they were watching.

They explained that the fluctuating brightness levels of a film or TV show when displayed on a plasma-screen or LCD TV created fluctuating power-consumption levels. This creates a power/consumption signature for a film that might be determined from the readings obtained by Discovery's technology

how valuable would this kind of information be to tv companies when selling commercial break slots?

 

[Barry White]

Didnt take much notice and wife signed for ours fitting its by british gas has a remote 100A line or live only contactor built in (power can be turned off by utility by a few keystrokes) it has a sim card fitted which uploads all data every 30 mins gas and electric firmware and rate can be uploaded over the air. you get a digital display for indoors looks like a white satnav. sends a message back to utility if you have a power outage or pull the main fuse and has a anti tamper switch on terminal cover which informs them if tampered with.
the best present they left was my my wife said the lights go dim sometimes now then I saw it myself whilst using a high load (cooker microwave and kettle) found out when fitting the meter they pulled the tails to reroute them disturbing the tails in the consumer unit and the neutral had loosened slightly a quick nip and this was sorted but could have caused overheating or worse.
the only test they did was a polarity test on cooker socket acording to paperwork left

 

[jeremfg]

Wow... I'm amazed at the discussion going on here!

I almost wish most of it was true! I'm an engineer working on the design and development of these systems... You really put the "smart" in smart meters when you suggest the analysis of profile loads and such! You give us way too much credit!

We are far from having that capability... It's not a fully fledge computer you have installed in your homes there, such a thing would jump the price of each unit way overboard that we wouldn't be able to sell them to any utility!

Tamper detection, precise measurements, prepay functionalities, billing are some of the fuctions smart meters offer nowadays... But we're far from being able to collect any kind of useful data about how you consume that energy! At least not yet ;-) lol

Those are exciting technologies to work on... I look forward to the day of smart appliances, which will take advantage of these capabilities...

 

[operator400]

The main catalyst for the government's mass installation of smart meters came in July 2009, when a European Commission Directive made it a requirement that 80 percent of EU households have a smart meters installed by 2020. The British government felt that it could be more ambitious still, unveiling a strategy in March 2011 that would see 53 million smart meters installed in 30 million homes and businesses across the country by 2019.

Bloody EU. Only 7% of our laws come from the Eu, yeah right Mr Clegg.

 

[amckay]

Smart meters my ar$e. They have a sim card inside them that sends usage data over mobile networks so they save money by not employing meter readers. They also emit radiation aparantly (according to them) its not harmful but anti big brother people believe otherwise and we are not legally obliged to have them. I've actually told my provider that I'm removing the meter and fitting my own. (Yes it is completely legal) and I'm charging them £20 a week storage fee for their meter which I removed. That £80 a month pays my bills now and there's naff all they can do about it....until they collect the meter :-(