Anyone smart enough to talk about 'leccy meters?

[ANTONISH]

Whilst one kWh is as good as another as it comes off the grid there are good reasons for various tariffs...

Smoothing the cost fluctuations of power throughout the day is the most important thing for some customers, having cheap power when load is generally low is preferably for others, and it encourages load shifting, which benefits the grid. Smart meters enable customers to be more exposed to the wholesale market, which means they can potentially get very cheap electricity when supply exceeds demand, but they pay more when supply is relatively constrained.

With battery systems becoming more and more affordable, and with the potential to throw some micro generation into the mix as well, people can load shift away from those times, with a financial incentive, and consume electricity when the wholesale price is low (because there is lots of wind in the middle of the night). It can actually be beneficial to consume energy, charging a battery, at night and then discharge that battery back to grid when demand spikes. The benefit is economic for the consumer, but is also a net benefit to the grid (hence the economic incentive).

Additionally the energy market basically requires consumers to buy power from producers, so you can buy “green” power, despite the fact that all the energy is mixed up on the grid itself.

The energy market requires consumers to buy energy from middle men - the middle men buy from the producers and sell it on for whatever they can get.
Smart meters could in theory vary the charge rate to reflect the spot price on the market. I'm sure the middle men would like such a system.
The system is so chaotic though that I think it's unlikely to happen - how long is it since the first smart meter roll out and all those glossy adverts and TV commercials promising great consumer savings?
I don't see any advantage for the consumer over the publicly owned CEGB and the local area supply authorities ( albeit the latters retail operations, showrooms etc were unnecessary ) - there are IMO too many spivs and chancers in the market since privatisation.

[kwackers]

I don't see any advantage for the consumer over the publicly owned CEGB and the local area supply authorities ( albeit the latters retail operations, showrooms etc were unnecessary ) - there are IMO too many spivs and chancers in the market since privatisation.

So many years have gone by since privatisation that the landscape is vastly different from when we privatised so any assumption that there's no benefit is exactly that, an assumption.

Who knows how the landscape would look now? Would it be better? Cheaper?
One things for sure, without commercial considerations I suspect we'd all have smart meters, they'd have been rolled out nationwide and there'd have been little or no say.

As an aside I can't think of any enforced change that wasn't met with constant moaning and hand wringing.
From the removal of lead in petrol "think of the bangers!", recycling "why should I sort my rubbish?", energy efficient bulbs - in fact bazillions of things all the way up to EV's.
I doubt you can ask the populace to do anything without a loud minority whining about it. It's only when things become the norm that 'most' of the whinging stops.

[[XAP]Bob]

Whilst one kWh is as good as another as it comes off the grid there are good reasons for various tariffs...

Smoothing the cost fluctuations of power throughout the day is the most important thing for some customers, having cheap power when load is generally low is preferably for others, and it encourages load shifting, which benefits the grid. Smart meters enable customers to be more exposed to the wholesale market, which means they can potentially get very cheap electricity when supply exceeds demand, but they pay more when supply is relatively constrained.

With battery systems becoming more and more affordable, and with the potential to throw some micro generation into the mix as well, people can load shift away from those times, with a financial incentive, and consume electricity when the wholesale price is low (because there is lots of wind in the middle of the night). It can actually be beneficial to consume energy, charging a battery, at night and then discharge that battery back to grid when demand spikes. The benefit is economic for the consumer, but is also a net benefit to the grid (hence the economic incentive).

Additionally the energy market basically requires consumers to buy power from producers, so you can buy “green” power, despite the fact that all the energy is mixed up on the grid itself.

The energy market requires consumers to buy energy from middle men - the middle men buy from the producers and sell it on for whatever they can get.
Smart meters could in theory vary the charge rate to reflect the spot price on the market. I'm sure the middle men would like such a system.
The system is so chaotic though that I think it's unlikely to happen - how long is it since the first smart meter roll out and all those glossy adverts and TV commercials promising great consumer savings?
I don't see any advantage for the consumer over the publicly owned CEGB and the local area supply authorities ( albeit the latters retail operations, showrooms etc were unnecessary ) - there are IMO too many spivs and chancers in the market since privatisation.

No - but entering the market does require a fairly significant amount of energy consumption/generation.

The middle men aggregate their customer usage, and have to predict and shape that load/generation as best they can to make profit.

The Octopus agile tariff is a good example of what is possible with a smart meter - most people don't want to be exposed to the full wholesale rate, since that can go very high, but octopus take a slice off the top but cap the import cost. At times the cost goes negative, and there are often days when the import early in the day is lower than the export later in the day, meaning that battery based time shifting can be profitable, even if there wasn't any time when the price went negative...

[uwidavid]

I've got a smart meter. The indoor display is slow in reacting and tells me nothing I did not know already. For the cooker if it's in phase or out of phase with the simmer-stat makes a big difference to the reading - I presume the outdoor meter does not have any of these limitation.
That said real-time meter reading are probably a good thing. Back when I lived overseas I got what must have been a trainee meter reader. My meter was an old style dial display and the meter reader told me that if the pointer is between two numbers they always take the lower digit. Problem was mine was about to roll-over so the most significant dial was between 9 and 0. So the reader insisted that he had to take the zero thus adding an extra 10,000 kW/h to my bill.

[geomannie]

I too get bombarded with messages from my electricity supplier to get a smart meter, then "electricity readings will be taken automatically". Well, whoop de doo. Taking a reading from my internal 'leccy' meter takes maybe 15 secs every few months. What will I do with the time I save?

Anyway, I will still have to go outside to the gas meter and take a manual reading and still have to go to the website and submit the reading. As for real-time monitoring of my electricity useage, I know fine well the appliances that use power and am already quite capable of switching them off when not in use.

[Oldjohnw]

I too get bombarded with messages from my electricity supplier to get a smart meter, then "electricity readings will be taken automatically". Well, whoop de doo. Taking a reading from my internal 'leccy' meter takes maybe 15 secs every few months. What will I do with the time I save?

Anyway, I will still have to go outside to the gas meter and take a manual reading and still have to go to the website and submit the reading. As for real-time monitoring of my electricity useage, I know fine well the appliances that use power and am already quite capable of switching them off when not in use.

You can get gas smart meters with dual fuel.

[ANTONISH]

I don't see any advantage for the consumer over the publicly owned CEGB and the local area supply authorities ( albeit the latters retail operations, showrooms etc were unnecessary ) - there are IMO too many spivs and chancers in the market since privatisation.

So many years have gone by since privatisation that the landscape is vastly different from when we privatised so any assumption that there's no benefit is exactly that, an assumption.

Who knows how the landscape would look now? Would it be better? Cheaper?
One things for sure, without commercial considerations I suspect we'd all have smart meters, they'd have been rolled out nationwide and there'd have been little or no say.

As an aside I can't think of any enforced change that wasn't met with constant moaning and hand wringing.
From the removal of lead in petrol "think of the bangers!", recycling "why should I sort my rubbish?", energy efficient bulbs - in fact bazillions of things all the way up to EV's.
I doubt you can ask the populace to do anything without a loud minority whining about it. It's only when things become the norm that 'most' of the whinging stops.

Apparently having an opinion that isn't enthusiastic about "smart meters" is constant moaning and hand wringing.

The CEGB made a profit.
Following a very cold winter 62/63 with some power cuts - Harold Wilson told the CEGB to increase capacity to cope with severe winters.
We now have a system where there are a multitude of companies each with directors and share holders taking money out of the system.
We also have a number of companies advising the "best " tariffs and offering to hassle free change of supplier - this is ostensibly a "free" service - but in reality there is a charge to the electricity middle man and in reality that will be reflected in consumer bills.
And of course the cheapest tariff soon ceased to be the cheapest out of many choices. I've changed tariff a number of times and it's just another pointless irritation where the poorest and non computer savvy get a rough deal.
And the requirement for spare capacity to maintain continuity of supply - that was reduced in order to attract private investors.
If "smart meters" had been introduced under a publicly owned system there would have been a standard model that could have been read universally - unlike the system where meters were introduced with companies being unable to read their competitors meters.

[simonineaston]

Smoothing the cost fluctuations of power throughout the day is the most important thing for some customers, having cheap power when load is generally low is preferably for others, and it encourages load shifting, which benefits the grid. Smart meters enable customers to be more exposed to the wholesale market, which means they can potentially get very cheap electricity when supply exceeds demand, but they pay more when supply is relatively constrained.

Very interesting. Get what you're saying - I live in a relatively modern apartment block (designed and built less than ten years ago...) and yet none of these possibilities are apparent. Given its situtation atop a hill and abundant roof area, I can imagine that a couple of solar arrays and a pair of compact vertical axis wind turbines would be perfectly practical. I'll have a think about that and maybe get hold of my local green activists for some advice.
I wonder how interested the property management company will be...

[[XAP]Bob]

I wonder how interested the property management company will be...

I suspect that you already know the answer to that...

But to be fair, if they have a decent roof area then it's not a difficult sell to add solar panels - I am continually irritated that they aren't mandatory on all commercial/multiple residence new builds and on all new builds of more than a small handful of single occupancy houses.

[rjb]

I wonder how interested the property management company will be...

I suspect that you already know the answer to that...

But to be fair, if they have a decent roof area then it's not a difficult sell to add solar panels - I am continually irritated that they aren't mandatory on all commercial/multiple residence new builds and on all new builds of more than a small handful of single occupancy houses.

Solar panels, probably not enough profit in it for them. They will be looking to add a couple more storeys on top.

[thirdcrank]

It's drifting away from smart meters, but the subsidy scheme for solar panels dating from the the era of Chris Huhne was a cock-up which has had long-term consequences. One is that solar panels have been given a bad name by companies offering to fit them free, allowing householders to benefit from "free" leccy, meaning that the fitting company has a right to keep its panels installed even when a building's ownership changes and the value of the free juice is piffling compared with the feed-in tariff (FIT) payments going to the installers.

Then, there was such a rush by the big boys to snap up the limited cash in the initial scheme, that the ... er ... plug was pulled before many local authorities got their acts together to fit them on building like schools.

(To declare my interest I have a 4KW set-up ie the max for a house, installed in the original scheme and owned by me. With "high pressure in charge," it's printing money nearly as quickly as the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street.)

[geomannie]

I too get bombarded with messages from my electricity supplier to get a smart meter, then "electricity readings will be taken automatically". Well, whoop de doo. Taking a reading from my internal 'leccy' meter takes maybe 15 secs every few months. What will I do with the time I save?

Anyway, I will still have to go outside to the gas meter and take a manual reading and still have to go to the website and submit the reading. As for real-time monitoring of my electricity useage, I know fine well the appliances that use power and am already quite capable of switching them off when not in use.

You can get gas smart meters with dual fuel.

I don't doubt they are possible but no one has ever offered me one.

[[XAP]Bob]

I monitor the pulse output of my dumb E7 electric meter, and am about to add a Hall effect sensor to monitor my (very dumb) gas meter.

[kwackers]

Apparently having an opinion that isn't enthusiastic about "smart meters" is constant moaning and hand wringing.

It's a general comment based on reading the nonsense folk write on social media and not aimed at anyone in particular.

If "smart meters" had been introduced under a publicly owned system there would have been a standard model that could have been read universally - unlike the system where meters were introduced with companies being unable to read their competitors meters.

Possibly, but in theory the government could have mandated this anyway.
I'm not even sure why a SMETS1 meter can't be read by others. (I think mine is SMETS1 and I've changed provider and they've not had any issues reading it).

I think the problem is the gov seem fairly happy to let providers off the hook on the basis of "too expensive".
It's not just lecky meters, for as long as I've been around private companies have bid for gov contracts and underdelivered and yet folk still buy into the "private is best" nonsense.

[[XAP]Bob]

Possibly, but in theory the government could have mandated this anyway.
I'm not even sure why a SMETS1 meter can't be read by others. (I think mine is SMETS1 and I've changed provider and they've not had any issues reading it).

I think the problem is the gov seem fairly happy to let providers off the hook on the basis of "too expensive".
It's not just lecky meters, for as long as I've been around private companies have bid for gov contracts and underdelivered and yet folk still buy into the "private is best" nonsense.

It's why for some reason people think of the tories as economically sound when they aren't... because they hear what they are told by the media - their policies absolutely are the best, for concentrating wealth in the hands of those who are telling us they are best.