Smart meters

With regard to Solar Panels:-

They've got the wrong idea.

Any electricity that the panels produce can be used freely by the occupier of the house. Any un-used goes directly back into the grid - unless they have special storage batteries.

When they are consuming electricity from the grid, either when it's dark or the panels aren't producing enough for the consumption they have, then they get charged the same rate as everyone else (it's illegal to charge households above the agreed rate).

Your friend would be getting his Feed in Tariff (FIT) for all the electricity he produces. He also gets an, estimated, FIT for all that goes back into the grid. He also saves money as he's not paying for any electricity when he's using the power his panels generate. That's the legal benefits.

The illegal benefit, but not his fault, is that any electricity that he's not using, and therefore automatically sending it into the grid, is winding his meter back because he has an anologue meter and not a digital one. He's not allowed to change the meter to digital as it's the property of the electric company. They know the meter number and, therefore, know that it's analogue and should change it. When they eventually get around to changing it (they're about 5 years behind in doing that) they can charge him the estimated amount by which he may have benefited - but can only do it for a period of one year.

Re changing electric companies when you have a Smart meter. This is a direct quote from the government website:-

"Smart meters will ultimately make switching suppliers easier and quicker. The smart meters operated through the national infrastructure will be operable by all energy suppliers."

 

Can I switch energy suppliers if I’ve got a smart meter?
If you’ve got a smart meter, you have the right to move to a new energy supplier if you want. However, there may be some practical problems in switching.


Having a smart meter doesn’t affect your right to switch energy providers whenever you want. So if you’ve had a smart meter installed but you want to move to a new supplier, you will still be able to do so.

However, you may find your smart meter loses its functionality and reverts to being a traditional meter. If so, you might have to go back to giving regular meter readings to your new supplier. And if anything goes wrong, some suppliers may have to replace your smart meter with a standard meter because they’re not equipped to deal with your particular model of smart meter.

Before you commit to switching, talk to your new provider
If you're switching to Boost and you have a smart meter, it will only keep its functionality if you’re switching from providers that use Secure smart meters like ours.

However, even if you are switching from one of those energy companies, we still may not be able to communicate with their Secure smart meters. It will depend on the setup of the meters at the time you switch.

Check with us first to make sure you can keep using your smart meter and all its functionality, or whether it will lose its functionality when you switch. Make a note of your meter serial number, and the make and model of your smart meter, and ask us whether our systems can exchange information with it.

In general, if your new and old suppliers both use the same make of smart meter, you may be able to continue using your current meter/s in the same way and simply transfer the functionality to your new energy account. So if you’re switching away from Boost to providers that use Secure smart meters like ours they may be able to communicate with your meter, depending on the setup of your meters.

We’ll change your meter to ‘credit mode’ before you leave us, to make sure your energy isn’t cut off during the switch process. If your new supplier uses Secure smart meters and can communicate with your meter, you’ll switch back to PAYG as soon as you’ve successfully transferred to the new supplier.

If your new supplier doesn’t yet use Secure smart meters, you can either ask to swap to their brand of Smart PAYG meter or keep using a traditional meter without the Smart technology.

What about my In-Home Display or Smart Gateway?
Your Smart Gateway won’t work with any other energy company meters, as you need to be able to access the data through My Boost.

If you have an IHD, and your new provider uses exactly the same make of meters as your old supplier, you should be able to carry on using it. You’ll be able to read your consumption amounts in kWh, but your new supplier will need to reprogramme your meter with their rates and your new tariff before the IHD can tell you how much you’re spending on your energy.

Talk to your new supplier about this – or ask them whether they can offer you a replacement at no extra charge.

What should I do if my energy supplier makes it difficult for me to switch?
If you have any problems, please get in touch with Citizens Advice through their website – or you can call them on 03454 04 05 06.

 

From what I understand, the first generation meters may cause the problems mentioned above but the second generation meters are supposed to be compatible across all companies.

When they brought out the second generation the companies were supposed to stop installing the first gen ones. They refused to do so as they had so many in stock. If you're having a meter installed make sure that it's the latest generation (there may be a third generation by now).

 

If, and it is a big if...... If this technology was rolled out over a really long period of time, whilst at the same time some of the other technologies that were promised/suggested such as the ability for power companies to put fridges and freezers into low power modes at times of high demand, and thus balance the network, then I wouldn't have just as much of a problem with it.

The landscape of the energy market is finally starting to change - there are a lot more smaller companies out there supplying energy for a start; I have only just switched to one myself, knocking £55 a month of my bill in the process, and that is based on actual consumption figures and not some pie-in-the-sky guesstimate.

There has been insufficient investment in power generation in this country, particularly in technologies that are not renewable, so the 'buffer' between demand and supply has narrowed massively in recent years; bluntly, especially in winter, our power generation only just about keeps up with demand. God forbid, but what would happen if a plane crashed into one of the power stations, knocking it out of service for months or years?

Don't get me wrong, I am as cynical as the next guy about smart meters, and remain very reluctant to have one - - but, there are some bits of the technology that I can see the sense of, and if it were augmented by other technologies, who knows?

And if peak usage tariffs do come, how long will it be before a company like Siemens or Tesla sees that gap in the market for local power storage at home? If you could have enough power stored in a battery to run your home for a few hours during the expensive peaks, and then recharge itself overnight, that might be an answer - - - hell, we might even get all inclusive deals on the energy and the storage devices.

Don't forget, it is not all that long since solar panels and wind power were being laughed at as no use.