Smart meters

The savings in having an extra, more reliable and accurate piece of equipment have already been made public. But the savings aren't huge, maybe they would improve if everyone had the same equipment?

Existing meters are perfectly reliable and accurate......a smart meter uses the same method to measure usage.

Our meter allows you to see cost, co2, and kwh used, and % of daily allowance, along amount used per hour. Pretty clever really. 

So does ours.......when we apply a calculator or drop the usage onto our spreadsheet.

As said, we don't feel the need for a piece of machinery to constantly monitor any other spending that we do, so why would we need it for a simple energy supply?

I don't have a spreadsheet, the meter does it for me. 

We have had to have meters replaced on a couple of occasions, both faulty and not giving accurate readings. 

Had one fitted in my shop over a year ago ,and no problems with being over charged or under charged ,they bill me for what I use every month 

So does our supplier.......without the extra cost of another meter.

but I don't have to remember to submit meter readings every month.....

Had one fitted in my shop over a year ago ,and no problems with being over charged or under charged ,they bill me for what I use every month 

So does our supplier.......without the extra cost of another meter.

but I don't have to remember to submit meter readings every month.....

Precisely,  good isn't it!  saves me having to do it too.

Let me explain why smart meters are being introduced.

At one time, your meter was read regularly and your bill represented your usage. These days, meters are only read about once every two years and estimated readings are used instead. This is because it saves the utility companies a lot of money to do it this way. More bonus for the directors!

This has meant that a lot of people get very inaccurate bills. Often, people either pay far too much (which the company likes) or they pay far too little and then get a huge bill that they can't afford to pay.

Neither of these situations is ideal. So the government could have made the utility companies read the meter more often......or they could tell the utility companies to install smart meters and put the cost onto their customers.

Guess which they did?

Of course, there is another perceived advantage - that people can see that putting their heater on or using their cooker uses energy. Like they didn't already know! 

I frequently adjust our bill Ian, I could go online every day with a meter reading but I'd be quite happy for this to be done automatically. We possibly waste a lot of energy throughout the country and any way that reduces consumption would be good, would it not? 

Just doing a bit of research, it looks like there were quite a few problems with the earlier smart meters. Some of them caused problems if you switched users, I would hope that they have now unified all meters so that all suppliers can read the data.

I agree with Ian that choosing a supplier should be as easy as picking the one that charges the least per unit or Kwh.

Another reason for installing them could be that in extreme circumstances they could cut off your supply without entering your house.

The other reason could be that the old meters go backwards if you have solar panels on your roof (they do honest) on sunny days double whammy