Another Smart Meters Again Thread

Don Atkinson posted:

 So much for BBC News these days !

FAKE NEWS

It’s a cost cutting exercise. It’s more efficient and less labour intensive than actually researching and broadcasting the truth.

By 2025 it’s estimated that increasing fake news from the current 7.8% levels to 15.2% will fund a licence fee reduction of £12.00.

Save money and it’s more intesting. It’s here to stay.

Resisted all attempts to have said device installed by Scottish Power for all the reasons described above plus one not mentioned. Just like lots of other devices this is never just about savings. It’s a means for large companies to get behind your front door and target marketing. So, seeing the consumption of your kitchen devices tells rhem broadly what you have in there and how its efficiency compares to other users in your area in properties of your size with your household composition (the latter not exactly being difficult to obtain). Partenering up with companies who provide allegedly more efficient versions of those devices then sees you targeted for marketing from their partners etc. Okay,  not everyone signs up for those options but enough do so in error and lack the motivation to fix it to make it worth their while. 

It’s also worth saying that potential for network hacking etc. is not far fetched at all. I’ve had to reconfigure my parents home network as the smart meter provided a great big hole into it and it wasn’t difficult to see through the various logs that over a 12 month period the number of general attacks had gone up by maybe 30%. Okay, some element of that is about general trends but this was a combination of the sort of stuff firewalls are fortunately there to prevent and people parked outside looking for network access, which happens more than you would imagine.

Why should a smart meter leave a big hole. The ones installed at our house by Siemens  use sim cards and not connected to the network at all. They are onthe mobile network. That is why a lot can't have them because the signal is not adequate.

Is this post a windup ???  The idea that smart meters are a means of target marketing is ridiculous.    The actual part(s) that do the measuring & calculations are located in the electricity & gas meters,  they have no means whatsoever of knowing if the electricity or gas is being used in a cooker, fridge or light bulb.

A friend of mine sent me this letter to the Telegraph this morning.

" I have a smart meter. Whenever I boil a kettle to make a cup of coffee, the indicator tells me what a huge amount of electricity I am using to do so. When I open a bottle of wine, it doesn’t move at all. "

I dislike smart readers for a number of reasons (mainly security and 'who owns my data' related) but thought I'd add some balance here, just for perspective:

- The current generation of 'smart' meters do not have the functionality that 'proper' smart meters were meant to have i.e. the ability to control selected appliances in your house should you choose. As far as I am aware these meters are still at the prototype stage, so all the existing tied-in smart meters will need to be replaced again

- Smart meters are going to become an essential part of maintaining a stable electricity grid as we move towards a more electrically driven, low carbon future. The National Grid will need control over demands and storage at house levels as we decentralise massively due to growth in home PV and battery storage that is coming.

- The control aspect of Smart Meters will enable you to become a 'power generator' and earn money through selling your electricity when you don't need it.

- Electricity tariffs will move to half hour pricing, again enabled by the smart meter. Without these you will face higher, fixed rate tariffs. There is talk that electricity might be free at certain times of the day but I don't see that with the inevitable growth in electric vehicles, which are essentially mobile batteries that will always be programmed to hoover up the cheapest electricity available when possible.

What I want sorted before I have one installed is that I own my own data - not the meter provider. This data is valuable to me for many reasons and I don't want to have to plead with each of my suppliers to get access to it.

The inevitability is that we won't save any money at all as tariffs will just be amended to ensure profits keep coming in, but if it keeps the lights on and improves the planet then I will reluctantly change my meter eventually.

The final point to make is that we're likely to see the fixed costs of having a power cable connected to the National Grid go up as we gradually use less electricity from it, so these fixed costs have to be covered somehow.

At that point in the future where just about everything powered in the home is also connected online - will smart  "SMART " meters make sense.

Mike-B posted:

Is this post a windup ???  The idea that smart meters are a means of target marketing is ridiculous.    The actual part(s) that do the measuring & calculations are located in the electricity & gas meters,  they have no means whatsoever of knowing if the electricity or gas is being used in a cooker, fridge or light bulb.

Not at all. Have a look back at the T&Cs when you signed up for your meter. Two things will stand out. One is that you have signed a deal with partners rather than the company delivering your utility. No need to share your data. You’ve given it them.  The other is that they reserve the right to install new functionality without notice. It’s an interesting way past consent but it can’t be challenged yet as the functionality isn’t in. It is however coming and at least one major player should have stuff in place by the middle of next year.

In the meantime https://www.theguardian.com/co...P=Share_iOSApp_Other.