[Closed] Should I have a smart meter installed by British Gas?

Think of the privacy concerns - they will know when you have a bath!!!!

Rachel

http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

I wouldn't - I've heard from a shadowy industry contact (my mate) that although you can monitor your use more effectively which should help to reduce usage, the meters are actually more accurate (i.e. your probably paying less than you should at the moment)

http://stopsmartmeters.org.uk/

That's a pretty weird place, more random conspiracy theories and health scares than the Daily Mail!

They've been writing to me for 1 or 2 years trying to get me to take one for electricity. I have very low usage and I think they believe I am fiddling the meter !

I'm not sure I understand why any one wouldn't want one? They don't need to come in to your house to take a reading and you can check they have the right reading and that it's accurate. where's the problem?

I don't have one by the way.

Oh and, Robdee, surely you could also be paying more?

where's the problem?

The evil radiation from the radioactive smart meter which they don't tell you about. Makes you infertile, bald and likely to vote LibDem!

I'm not sure I understand why any one wouldn't want one? They don't need to come in to your house to take a reading and you can check they have the right reading and that it's accurate. where's the problem?

I do also wonder whether if you have a smart meter its harder to change suppliers ?

Do they use your wifi to transmit the info to BG?

I read somewhere (probably theregister) that the savings you make from having a smart meter are entirely down to you realising how much you are using, and then using less.

I don't really see any benefit from them, but I don't have any real problem with them either.

I don't really see any benefit from them,

Less staff, they can read a whole street's worth of meters just by driving past. Currently they send out Siemens staff to knock on doors and drop off cards etc....

Eventually it will all be smart metering. It isn't like they charge you for more than you use - it's a meter.

Overall, they will go a long way to reducing energy consumption, and therefore pollution, so in the big scheme of things, they are good.

Currently they send out Siemens staff to knock on doors and drop off cards etc....

and in my case it would seem then completely ignore that reading.

Having done some work with a company that specialises in smart meter software in the States, they will eventually be used to profile and alter peoples habits.

For electricity: At the moment there are a number of usage peaks in the day that require a sudden surge in power generation (end of Eastenders, etc). This short term generation is in the order of 10 times more expensive to perform. By charging more at these times the companies hope to smooth out the daily usage and thus save them money.
The consumer shouldn't see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.

I'm sure there will be corresponding effects with gas, but have no experience.

I know someone who knows someone who's the system architect for the Smart Meter movement. While it's nominally secure this guy was able to pick a meter at random and see unaudited live data from it, with the energy use flickering as a TV backlight ramped up and down.

Until proper safeguards are in place, I'm not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone's watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they're at home or not.

Not normally drawn to being paranoid but I was astonished at the potential for abuse when the system was described to me.

Until proper safeguards are in place, I'm not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone's watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they're at home or not.

you think your sky box can't already do this?

With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone's watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they're at home or not.

How could a smart meter know what TV channel you're watching?

Until proper safeguards are in place, I'm not having one. With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone's watching and hit them with targeted advertising, or simply identify if they're at home or not.

Maybe not the best example, but I'm in the same boat. I don't really want any 3rd party knowing exactly when I'm watching tv, making a cup of tea, having a shower or any number of other activities, including being out of the house.

There's just too much potential for abuse, and not enough of an incentive for the power companies (at the moment) to spend the time and money on making a totally secure, privacy respecting system.

To play devlis advocate...

Why is targeted advertising an abuse and why is it bad?

With all of these tracking type technologies they are designed ensure people selling stuff to us know more about us. The benefit to the company with the data is that they can either sell more stuff or sell the same stuff more efficiently and therefore make more profit.

But that isn't inherently evil. We need to shape this through application of regulation and willingness to exert comercial presures.

We can use it to our advantage as well. Who is to say that when smart meters are widerspead we couldn't bid suppliers off against each other better to get a better price for the consumer, facilitate simpler switching between suppliers, etc.

But it is up to us to guide and demand this. If we just resist change progress will not stop but it will take us from beind. We will get bummed by progress. But if we embrace change it will work in our favour.

I didn't think smart meters logged usage on a minute by minute basis, just allowed for remote reading (of a single figure or set of figures)?

I didn't think smart meters logged usage on a minute by minute basis, just allowed for remote reading (of a single figure or set of figures)?

I think the current design is for half hourly updates. If everyone is using them it also gives the utility companies the power to charge more during peak usage times, whether this is likely to save consumers any money, I don't know, but I'd be doubtful.

whether this is likely to save consumers any money, I don't know, but I'd be doubtful.

A company selling something will be trying to charge the most they can at the lowest cost, while still retaining you as a customer. For them smart meters are a tool to help them do this.

But you don't have to be a hostage to this. You should also be able to use the fact you have a smart meter to turn the tables, to pay the least possible will still receiving the service.

Here's the really important bit...

According to a friend who has one he can now know longer transfer his energy providers as the smart meters only work with British Gas.

Shout if I am wrong.

How could a smart meter know what TV channel you're watching?

@Jambo - Don't have a Sky box. Problem solved.

To answer the question above - a modern LCD TV varies its backlight brightness depending on the contrast in the scene. It can do this very quickly with a corresponding change in power usage.

You actually only need a rough approximation of this from the power meter (think how accurate Shazam can be even in a noisy environment) and you could easily figure out what someone's watching.

The consumer shouldn't see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands.

But for most people this isn't really an option, you can't cook your meals bath the kids ect,ect at 3am. Life dictates higher demand at certain times, no getting away from that for most.

Where I live in the states smart meters are mandatory. It appears that they are all run by a central company who instals and maintains them and they charge a usage fee to the provider (who then re-charge it to me).

I can switch to any provider even if they can't ready the smart part they can just look at the numbers.

I designed a smart metering system for someone, it used GPRS to send the data into a collector and was reasonably secure in that it was a private IPV and the meter encrypted all it's data point to point. Lots of privacy concerns though and there were loopholes you could exploit if you cared that much.

They keep writing to me to ask me to get one .... I ask how they transmit they say a 3g sim card to which i reply . Yupgood luck with that. I think we live in the black hole of calcutta and then they lose interest for 6 months

"By charging more at these times the companies hope to smooth out the daily usage and thus save them money.
The consumer shouldn't see much effect on their bills unless they insist on using mainly in the high price time bands."

This bothers me a lot.

Last time I looked into it, I think the gist of it was British Gas didn't want to wait for the universal/standard smart meter to be developed/approved so adopted their own version.

This did (may still) result in an obstacle if you wanted to change to a supplier who has adopted the standard smart meter.

Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong 🙂

targeted advertising

This bothers me a lot.

It used to bother me more than it does now.

The Western world needs to use less energy. It also needs to use energy in a more even way across the 24 hr period - largely because this prevents the need to spool up additional capability to meet the spikes (7am / 7pm). It happens that this is to the advantage of those that generate electricity, therefore they will modify consumer behaviour to help things along. Economy 7 was the same thing - just a bit more blunt. It works with cars (fuel tax, congestion charges, tolls) and trains (off peak fares).
It will also drive change in electrical goods and house automation. There will be appliances that will be programmable to avoid peak times etc. The manufacturers will make stuff when there is a market, and that market will be when peak pricing really gets going.

Here's the really important bit...

According to a friend who has one he can now know longer transfer his energy providers as the smart meters only work with British Gas.

Shout if I am wrong.

The Western world needs to use less energy

Only joking

I agree! Damn those former colonies for aspiring to have our lifestyles. Earthen shelters and shacks are more than good enough for the likes of them! Foreigners and their uppity ways - harrumph.

They looked at fitting a smart meter at our house, no signal for the 3g on Vodafone so they just put a new digital one in.

Wouldn't bother me if they had, might have had more accurate billing.

I've worked in smart meters in water and a lot of the issues in energy apply. Whether you like it or not everyone will be on a smart energy and water meter in the next 20 years its just the direction of travel.

The peak lopping issue mentioned above is a huge, huge issue in energy and they are already looking at washing machines that link to smart meters so they switch on at night when energy is cheaper to flatten the load.

It might not save you money long-term but given where energy costs are going to meet carbon commitments, local distribution reinforcement etc being (ahem) smarter on energy use is inevitable unless even higher bills are wanted.

Granted you might want the washing done in the day, but there will be a premium.

No different to train prices being higher in peak times. Supply-demand, critical peak pricing, etc...

I suppose their is the political aspect of this. All this diferential pricing being used to shape demand is very capitalist.

We could be more socialist about this and all just pay for energy via a progressive tax system, just divy up the bill between all 20 million or so households at the end of the year.

This might get expensive though as everyone wacks the kettle on at 8.30 pm after Eastenders so we could retreat to the socialists old favourite tool, regulation. Maybe ration eneryg useage!

Quality thread. We get loads of emails from that stopsmartmeter site.

Anyway, BG IIRC, use GSM/GPRS to transmit to a local collector box and then that transports to mother. Pretty secure. if you think BG are advanced enough to work out anything about an individual consumer from their gas usage then you've not known them very long. They couldn't work out if the sun is in the sky in my experience.

We're rolling out smart meters (water company) and use bin wagons driving up and down the roads to collect readings. Again, if you think we're interested in anything other than getting the right amount of money out of our customers pockets then you're very sadly mistaken. These conspiracy theories are fantastic.

edit: Oops, sorry. Forgot. We've been looking at using smart meters as a way of identifying leaks in the network a lot quicker. That benefits all our customers. Hope this helps.

With accurate enough data you could easily (for example) figure out the TV channel someone's watching and hit them with targeted advertising

Bastards !

I want adverts for totally random things that I'm almost certainly not interested in !

I'll fight to my last breath to avoid advertising being tailored to things I might actually be interested in.

I'm always getting adverts for penis extensions, male pattern baldness and extended credit.

Those guys are really good with their target market.

Are they the same meters throughout the country, with the same security coding? In a few years, will billy burglar be able to drive around town looking for data that shows a house to be uninhabited this weekend?

It seems in the same area as the naughty people who've spoofed the prepayment cards for leccy meters. The ones used across the whole country.

Which covers them pretty well. The rollout cost will be £11 Bn nationally for something that won't, in itsef save any energy. I know what the appliances in my house use.

http://www.which.co.uk/energy/creating-an-energy-saving-home/guides/smart-meters-and-energy-monitors-explained/what-is-a-smart-meter/

No more estimated readings? I already e-mail my readings to them.

Saving money by no meter readings? I'm already on a cheaper tarrif because it's done by e-mail and online.

Ofcom think the average household will save about £23 per year. With an average annual leccy bill of around £1000 that £23 is pretty trivial. Worth spending £11 Bn? I don't think so.

Smoothing out peaks and troughs in demand? The bigger problem in the future will be peaks and troughs in generation as a larger and larger percentage of capacity comes from unpredictable wind.

To clarify changing supplier, BG offered to install a smart meter. We had it for about 6 months then changed supplier. The SM still works with our new supplier for us monitoring, but we have to manually provide meter readings to our new supplier, no harm done.

£11bn is about 5 grand per household. So either £11bn is twaddle or someone is getting fleeced.

Smoothing out peaks and troughs in demand? The bigger problem in the future will be peaks and troughs in generation as a larger and larger percentage of capacity comes from unpredictable wind.

Also when defining the balance of power consumption in the future it would be really good to know what the current usage patterns are, if smart readers can deliver that information then maybe we could use science and evidence to determine the power needs rather than guess work and assumptions.

As for the link to the no to smart meters invading your brains with their thought wave controlling BS and those who think it's possible to tell what your watching from the background of all the other electrical activity in the house (if your fridge comes on while your watching Eastenders does it make it look like you were watching Playboy?) and targeting the ads more than - look he is watching the channel with the programme on lets give him the ads we give people who watch this program (like we have done for the lifetime of commercial TV)

This bothers me a lot.

Partly right but partly the "unpredictable" wind can give lots of cheap energy to the grid if there is capacity to use it,

But wind isn't cheap.

[img] [/img]

http://euanmearns.com/parasitic-wind-killing-its-host/

Also when defining the balance of power consumption in the future it would be really good to know what the current usage patterns are,

We know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced? Have a look at gridwatch for daily, weekly, and annual usage patterns.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

Assuming the numbers in the pictogram are costs whats the basing? I assume it's current pricing for renewable and Coal/Gas. Is it a full lifetime cost for wind generation? (some units might be nice) All that requires is a doubling of Coal & Gas prices for wind to become the cost effective solution. As it's a finite resource that will happen. Couple in stricter emissions trading and/or formal carbon pricing and coal/gas will get more expensive.
Based on experience here in Oz there are currently times where due to the variability in wind turbines are shut down as there is no demand for wind, there are people working with tech that allows larger users to pick up on that excess in supply and ramp up equipment to use the energy that would not be produced otherwise, that is being sold wholesale very cheaply.

Then factor in replacing the current stock of power stations, would you really invest in new coal fired at this point knowing coal prices will go up, carbon pricing will go up, emissions targets will fall? Moving from a carbon based burn it economy is going to happen.

We do know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced?

Estimating usage is nigh on impossible because there's so many variables. because power sources are so slow to start, even the fast ones, it's much easier to balance the grid by spinning stuff down, not up. That's why companies like Open Energi are doing very well. They approach big electricity users and then reach an agreement where they can spin down big energy drains when the grid looks like it's struggling. The changes happen in seconds rather than hours and currently at least, reduces drain enough to cope with peaks.

We know current usage. How else is the national grid balanced? Have a look at gridwatch for daily, weekly, and annual usage patterns.

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk/

A lot less diurnal variation than I expected.

Thought the OP said 'power meter' then and wondered why anybody would let British Gas install a power meter on their bike

@konabunny

because just like I 'insist' on using the train in peak hours and 'insist' on going away in the school holidays, as a family man in the SE of England with young children I will be using power in peak times to frivolously cook, bath my children and wash their clothes etc

Handing the power companies a license to print money to set up variable pricing where I will be the loser doesn't thrill me too much.

Ok Winston, you choose to use power at the most expensive time and refuse to adjust your behavior to reduce cost. Get you, soon you will have a smart meter and then you might have to think about things.
Some simple stuff..

Hot water tank with good insulation and a timer heater to heat water off peak or even solar hot water. (should work fine in the SE)
Washing machine with timer that they all come with these days, load in the morning empty when you come home
Cooking? Not that much of a use is it?

Professor Ross Anderson has written some good stuff on the security economics of smart meters and the possible unintended consequences.

As far as I'm concerned, as long as vital public utilities such as power companies are in the hands of private organisations and being run for profit rather than the general good then there's only one motive driving the installation of these meters, and it's not environmental concerns.

Loving this, paranoid that someone in a van might know you're a sadact that watches Eastenders but still happy for your ISP to log your w*nk bank.

As explained it's a tool to even out grid consumption, it's actually a very good thing and if people are serious about climate change, efficiency or whatever then they should be embracing them.

Notice nobody commented on the fact that in the table nuclear is the second cheapest option. Anyone know what type of thermal generation REALLY relies on a stable base load? Anyone?

Flaperon - Member
How could a smart meter know what TV channel you're watching?
@Jambo - Don't have a Sky box. Problem solved.

As for meter surveillance being a problem only if it's in the hands of private, for-profit firms, phhhtt...