Smart meters

[UncleEbenezer]

If I had smart appliances, a smart meter might be genuinely useful. For example, I can set the dishwasher to run at the cheapest time of night (or day, if using solar panels), and a hypothetical genuinely-smart meter communicating with the dishwasher could doubtless refine that.

As it stands, I'd expect the difference to be limited to the power consumption of the meter itself. Trading off the power needed to drive moving parts in an old meter vs processing and communicating in a smart meter.

[swill453]

As it stands, I'd expect the difference to be limited to the power consumption of the meter itself. Trading off the power needed to drive moving parts in an old meter vs processing and communicating in a smart meter.

I think that difference would be negligible.

What they really expect is that people will look at the display and discover "My goodness, we've used four quid's worth of energy today already, that seems a lot, what can we do to reduce it? Let's turn the heating down and wear an extra jumper instead."

Scott.

[Bouleversee]

It saves the companies the cost of paying people to go round reading the meters. I doubt if it saves the customer very much.

[vrdiver]

It saves the companies the cost of paying people to go round reading the meters. I doubt if it saves the customer very much.

I don't have a smart meter (yet - refused to have one fitted). I get automated email requests for readings and somebody comes round to take an official reading every two years or so.

No idea how much a smart meter costs, but the cost of them is going to have to be recouped by quite a lot of readings, which may take some time in my case!

As for the savings, I think the system relies on the householder wanting to save energy in the first place. If you live in a household where somebody is always leaving lights on / heating on with windows open / computers left on or laptops left plugged in, then a smart meter can quickly show you how much extra electricity you are consuming compared to your baseline (which you need to establish by going around all the rooms and switching everything off until there's no "optional" kit left running). Once armed with this information, the eco warrior / scrooge can quickly spot that somebody, somewhere, has left something on that shouldn't be.

Of course, you can always just switch stuff off anyway...

[Breelander]

It saves the companies the cost of paying people to go round reading the meters. I doubt if it saves the customer very much.

...As for the savings, I think the system relies on the householder wanting to save energy in the first place...

I do, so I got an OWL monitor years ago. I don't think a Smart meter could tell me anything I don't already know (or save me anything, as I already have 'low energy' bulbs, never put more water in the kettle that I need to make a drink and switch off anything when not in use).

[Lanark]

Smart meters can give readings that are often seven times higher than actual levels, a new study has found.
The meters are particularly unreliable when it comes to monitoring the outputs of LEDs when they are combined with dimmers.
http://luxreview.com/article/2017/03/sm ... d-readings

[UncleEbenezer]

[i]Smart meters can give readings that are often seven times higher than actual levels, a new study has found.

Nope. That study showed no such thing (though it was comprehensively misreported).

Just for starters, the meters they report on are industrial, not domestic.

[mike]

[i]Smart meters can give readings that are often seven times higher than actual levels, a new study has found.

Nope. That study showed no such thing (though it was comprehensively misreported).

Just for starters, the meters they report on are industrial, not domestic.

If you have in depth knowledge of smart meters Uncle, this was posted recently. Any thoughts ?

Under apparent power what in real power would be a 2 watt led lights would be billed as something like a 20 W light. Multiply that by a typical house of many led lights and one can see a big potential windfall and that is why smart meters are generally free. The scope for margin expansion is substantial which is bad for consumers, but good for share holders in electric suppliers.

https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=152414#p152414

[UncleEbenezer]

If you have in depth knowledge of smart meters Uncle, this was posted recently. Any thoughts ?

I don't have in-depth knowledge. My source is someone who does (and also worked several years as a journalist and editor for a chartered professional body in the field of electrical engineering): http://itreallyisupsidedown.blogspot.co ... alism.html

[mike]

I don't have in-depth knowledge. My source is someone who does (and also worked several years as a journalist and editor for a chartered professional body in the field of electrical engineering): http://itreallyisupsidedown.blogspot.co ... alism.html

Thanks for the link. I wonder if the Daily Mail's interpretation of the study influenced the post I linked to ?

[AF62]

I do, so I got an OWL monitor years ago. I don't think a Smart meter could tell me anything I don't already know (or save me anything

I had one of those a few years ago (I think I got it free for some reason); interesting to use for a week and then sold on eBay.

I can't see why on earth anyone would think that smart meters would have any impact on energy consumption at all. Stuff that needs to be plugged in stays plugged in, and if people can't work out that stuff that doesn't need to be turned on should be turned off then I can't see a smart meter is gong to change that. With the Owl it was a task working out what was actually consuming electricity by turning stuff on and off to see what difference it made. I cannot see most people bothering with that.

The only benefits seem to fall to the suppliers/government with the opportunity to introduce new (i.e.more expensive) tariffs and additional control over customers (remote disconnections, remote change to pre-oayment, etc).

[Breelander]

I do, so I got an OWL monitor years ago. I don't think a Smart meter could tell me anything I don't already know (or save me anything

I had one of those a few years ago (I think I got it free for some reason); interesting to use for a week and then sold on eBay.

I can't see why on earth anyone would think that smart meters would have any impact on energy consumption at all...

It will only have an impact for a household that's already inclined to save energy - the info will help them (as my OWL did). Projections on how much smart meters will save are based on the mistaken assumption that just knowing what you use would suddenly make you want to change your ways. Few will, I suspect.

I still have my OWL, I can see at a glance that I'm currently using 64w, going up to 170w when the fridge compressor cuts in.

[AF62]

It will only have an impact for a household that's already inclined to save energy - the info will help them (as my OWL did). Projections on how much smart meters will save are based on the mistaken assumption that just knowing what you use would suddenly make you want to change your ways. Few will, I suspect.

I agree. If you are already inclined to save energy then the possible additional saving in energy by knowing your consumption through a smart meter will be minimal. Meanwhile for those who don't care / too hard / etc, it will also have minimal impact.

I still have my OWL, I can see at a glance that I'm currently using 64w, going up to 170w when the fridge compressor cuts in.

Is that useful information? How does it help and is it any different to yesterday or the day before.

[Breelander]

Is that useful information? How does it help and is it any different to yesterday or the day before.

It reassures me I'm keeping up the 'good work' - and reminds me if when I've let a light on

Meanwhile for those who don't care / too hard / etc, it will also have minimal impact.

Quite - those who care have likely already taken steps, and those who don't won't....

[wilbobob]

Care must be taken when interpreting the readout from the OWL. We borrowed one for a week from the local library. Plugged it in and admired the reading. Turned on the computer and went to make a cup of tea while it was booting up. Mrs W was amazed that the computer was drawing 3kW. Other than that no surprises, and no change to our consumption behaviour. Glad I only borrowed it.
On the other hand, we had smart meters fitted recently, and It took a while to realise that the non-zero consumption of gas was because the pilot light in the lounge gas fire was still firing. So a saving there.

[AF62]

Is that useful information? How does it help and is it any different to yesterday or the day before.

It reassures me I'm keeping up the 'good work' - and reminds me if when I've let a light on

Doesn't the absence of darkness give you a clue...

Joking aside, surely you have LEDs so the amount of electricity used by leaving a light on would hardly register.

[gryffron]

Smart meters are being fitted for future tariffs where they will charge you according to energy availability/prices at different times of day. This change is inevitable as we move to ever greater proportion of unreliable/unpredictable renewable energy on the supply side. Added to fairly selective usage, especially by electric car chargers.

Until that happens, the arguements for smart meters are just marketing guff to persuade people to sign up. But it WILL happen. The government are pushing very hard to ensure the energy cos fit smart meters.

Gryff

[didds]

Its my underststanding that smart meters work off of some sort of mobile phone signal or similar "radio" signal.. ?

There must be places where such signals etc are unreachable/untenable.

If one wrapped the unit in tin foil would that block the signals ?

didds (thinking sideways cos that's how my brain works!)

[UncleEbenezer]

Smart meters are being fitted for future tariffs where they will charge you according to energy availability/prices at different times of day.

We used to call that "Economy 7". Useful for the grid, but only a minority of consumers. They'd like us all in, and they'd like to be able to fine-tune it a lot better.

A genuinely smart meter will provide a standard protocol to communicate both with suppliers and consumers of electricity. A smart consumer device will be a relatively-heavy but not time-critical user. The big historic user is night storage heaters; the big up-and-coming user looks like electric cars. But among lesser consumers it'll suit me fine if I can have the dishwasher bid for the night's cheapest period (shaped for two and a half cheap hours, but with emphasis on the beginning of that when it's heating the water). And at the fringe, maybe even much smaller users that already have the computing power, like recharging the 'phone.

[swill453]

Its my underststanding that smart meters work off of some sort of mobile phone signal or similar "radio" signal.. ?

There must be places where such signals etc are unreachable/untenable.

If one wrapped the unit in tin foil would that block the signals ?

Well probably, but why would you want to?

At the moment, if you have a smart meter installed, I can't think of any disadvantage in having it work as designed ie send meter readings back to home base, and also to your monitor display.

In the future the energy providers might offer tariffs which vary the price according to the time of day. Again, should you choose such a tariff you'd probably want it to work for you.

Scott.